Monday, August 25, 2008

First Day of Classes

Today is the first day of class…I’m expecting to see many wide-eyed freshman roaming the halls of the Robins Center looking for classrooms.

On another note, last night was a great night for Spider Athletics…our annual Student-Athlete Welcome Picnic was packed and a lot of fun. To kick-off the festivities, President Ayers gave the women’s soccer a pep talk and then led the team through a tunnel of cheering student-athletes into First Market Stadium.

Obviously, this motivated the team…
Women’s Spider Soccer Dominated JMU! We had a great crowd of students at the game…everyone seemed to be having a great time. I hope to see this support continue and build throughout this year.

See you all at the first Football game at Elon this Saturday!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Return from Spain

Jim and and the rest of the Men's basketball staff and team return from Spain this evening. Please join us in wishing them safe travels.

Check out some pictures from the trip on RichmondSpiders.com!

-The Athletic Department staff

Monday, August 18, 2008

Greetings from Spain

Here are some of my thoughts from the Spain trip so far:

Its hot, especially with limited air conditioning...

We have some really good guys on this team...

The Spanish really love pork...

Sitges is a great beach town...

Interesting to start dinner at 10 pm...

Nightlife along las ramblas is unique, jugglers, mimes, and assorted con men...

Visited Montsarett this morning!

On another note, the football team plays Elon on August 30...and that will be here before we know it!

GO SPIDERS!

New RichmondSpiders.com site

I hope you have all had the chance to check out our newly-designed RichmondSpiders.com website… Don’t forget to check out the video portion of the site, which includes a welcome message from Dr. Ayers. It’s great to have such strong support from our President.

Hopefully, you had the chance to watch
former Spider Tim Hightower get his first NFL action last night…and watch him score a touchdown! It was certainly a good night for Tim and hopefully the first of many more.

After a week of business on the road, I am ready to travel to Spain with Men's Basketball this Sunday (that is, if I catch my connecting flight…). I’ll post while in Spain…

(original post from August 8th)

Friday, August 1, 2008

Welcome Back

Welcome back to the Jim-nasium. My blog is up and running again after taking some time off this summer. Check back in for regular Sunday evening posts over the coming months. Also, check back on August 7th and visit out our new RichmondSpiders.com website! Our staff has been working hard to update the site and have added some great new features! The web address will be the same, but the look will be very different!

If you have not already heard, the On-Campus Stadium project was approved by the city! A big THANK YOU to all who helped make this dream a reality!
Spider Football will be HOME in 2010!

This is a great step for the University of Richmond. I foresee many fun tailgates, enhanced school spirit, and a great place for Spider Football, Track and Field, Lacrosse, and Soccer to dominate!

In other news, next week I am flying off to
SPAIN
with the Men’s Basketball team!! The team will be touring, practicing and playing games during this 12 day trip. My family will be travelling with me…so it looks like I will be relying on my daughter’s ability to speak Spanish to get me by. This is going to be a great experience for the Spiders, and we are really looking forward to an exciting trip. With the help of our athletic public relations staff on the trip, and my brilliant assistant (I had to say something really nice, because she is not making the trip) I hope to post some pictures of the trip while we are away.

I want you all to feel free to contact me with your thoughts at
jmiller@richmond.edu. Please note that some feedback I receive may be posted (anonymously) in a later blog entry for all to see.