CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – University of Virginia Athletics Director Craig Littlepage announced Tuesday that he will soon take on a different role.
Littlepage, who has been the athletic director for 16 years, will retire from his position and transition to a role in the University President's Office. He will remain the director until his replacement is chosen.
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During Littlepage’s tenure, Virginia athletics has enjoyed its most successful era to date. During the 10-year period from 2002 through the spring of 2012, UVA won seven NCAA team championships and 53 ACC championships while graduating 93 percent of student-athletes who completed their eligibility.
The first African-American athletics director in Atlantic Coast Conference history, Littlepage was named the Black Coaches Association’s “Athletics Administrator of the Year” in 2003 and 2006. He was also listed on Sports Illustrated’s list of the 101 most influential minorities in sports in 2003 and 2004. In March 2005, Littlepage was named one of Black Enterprise magazine’s “Most Powerful African-Americans in Sports.”
Before beginning his career in athletics administration, Littlepage served two stints as an assistant coach with the Cavalier men’s basketball program, from 1976-82 and from 1988-90.
Littlepage held head men’s basketball coaching positions at Pennsylvania (1982-85) and at Rutgers (1985-88) before returning to Virginia. While he was at Penn, his alma mater, the Quakers won the Ivy League championship and participated in the 1985 NCAA Tournament. Littlepage was an assistant basketball coach at Villanova for two years and at Yale for one year before joining the UVA program as an assistant coach in 1976.
This announcement comes less than a week after Jon Oliver, the No. 2 official in Virginia’s athletic department since 2001, said in a news release that he is resigning.
A national search for Littlepage’s successor will begin in the near future.