By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In his hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia, Kevin Miller started working at the family business, Neely’s Grocery, when he was about 12. His responsibilities included scrubbing shelves and floors, cutting chicken and operating the cooker.
The experience instilled in him a strong work ethic and an appreciation for the importance of customer service. It also helped Miller clarify his career goals.
“I learned then that this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he recalled, laughing.
After graduating from Wheeling Central Catholic High, where he starred on the golf team, Miller found his calling in college athletics. As a student at West Virginia University, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in 2005 and a master’s in 2006, he began his career in fundraising. He then worked at the University of Central Florida and Georgia State University before returning to his alma mater in 2012 to become a major gifts officer for the Mountaineer Athletic Club.
In 2017, Miller left WVU and headed south. He became a senior administrator in The Georgia Bulldog Club, which raises funds to support the University of Georgia’s athletic department. Miller thrived at Georgia, and he and his wife, Elizabeth, and their three young children—daughters Emily, Ella James and Elaina Grace—were happy in Athens. Then a position opened at the University of Virginia.
After leading the Virginia Athletics Foundation for nearly three decades, Dirk Katstra moved to a new position with University Advancement last year, and the search for his successor began. It ended in September with Miller’s hiring as VAF executive director and a UVA deputy athletic director.
“There weren’t many places that I would have even entertained the idea of leaving Georgia for, but Virginia is a special place,” Miller said in his office at Bryant Hall. “We loved Georgia. We didn’t want to leave, but the opportunity here was too good, frankly, to turn down. This is a place that has a ton of passion, and our alumni base has a ton of wherewithal.”
Miller’s wife and daughters are staying in Athens until the end of the 2023-24 school year, when the family will live in Crozet. Miller officially started at VAF on Oct. 9, and he’s been in perpetual motion since then.
“I’d say it’s been a listening and learning tour,” Miller said. “I haven’t had a whole lot of white space in my calendar since I got here. It’s just been going from one meeting to the next, trying to get the lay of the land on what’s going on. I’ve got 20 years of fundraising experience to draw from, but every place is different. I want to listen and learn and figure out what’s different about Virginia compared to other places I’ve been and figure out ways in which I can draw upon my experiences to implement some things here to help scale the business.”
The VAF, the UVA athletic department’s fundraising arm, annually covers the cost of 316.6 scholarships (the maximum allowed by the NCAA) for student-athletes. It also raises money for endowed scholarships and meets sport-specific operational needs. Over the past five years, the VAF has averaged $61 million in total gifts annually. Miller believes his organization can help the athletic department rise to new heights.
“I look at it like we can be elite in everything that we do here,” Miller said. “We’ve been really good to date—finishing fourth in the Directors’ Cup [in 2022-23] was incredible—but looking at some of our operating budgets and some of the things our programs are doing, they’re doing a lot with not as much as some of our peers. So what could they do if we fully fund these programs at a level that some of our peers are funding them at? So to me, it’s exciting, because I feel like there’s so much more room for growth, and I’ve always enjoyed building things.”
He’s met with most of the Cavaliers’ head coaches. His message? “I was like, ‘Look, I didn’t come in with an agenda today. I just wanted to get to know you. I want you to feel like we have a rapport, so that when things don’t go the right way or you’re needing help with something, you can call me,’ ” Miller said.
When Miller began working in athletic fundraising, Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) was not a phrase with which anyone was familiar. That’s no longer the case, of course. There’s more competition for support from donors, and that’s made Miller’s job more challenging. But he’s not lamenting his plight.
“It’s an ever-changing landscape, first and foremost,” he said. “Change is inevitable, growth is optional. Regardless of whether or not I like NIL, if we don’t like NIL, we’re going to like irrelevance a whole lot less. So what do we want to do about it? To me, our job is to build relationships with people who have an interest in philanthropically supporting our athletics program. And if our athletics program has a need in the form of facilities, operations, scholarships or NIL, it doesn’t matter to me. We need to address their needs, and each of our individual sport-program needs one way or the other.
“So to me, if we’re supporting NIL and it allows us to retain and attract talent, then the teams are going to be better, and if the teams are better, people are going to be more interested in wanting to support those programs. It all ties together to me, so I don’t view it as a threat. I want to lean into it and help support as best as we can. We need to adapt with the times and embrace it.”