Board of Directors

Samantha K. Huge

Executive Vice President for Collegiate Athletics
RealResponse

Samantha K Huge is an influential and compassionate leader with more than 20 years of experience in NCAA Division I athletics. In addition to her work on university campuses, Huge has served on several league and NCAA committees, most recently as a member of the NCAA Division I Council and its Division I Football Oversight Committee while Director of Athletics at William & Mary. Huge currently provides guidance and expertise as a consultant to clients within and outside of athletics and higher education.

In March 2017, William & Mary appointed her Director of Athletics, making Huge the first woman to ever lead a NCAA Division I athletics department in the Commonwealth of Virginia. University leadership hired Huge and charged her with significantly increasing the competitive success of Tribe Athletics while maintaining the department’s stellar academic record, enhancing the student-athlete experience, and significantly increasing revenue and philanthropy.

In her time with the Tribe, Huge led a strategic review and planning process that would result in an alignment of department resources and priorities to set a course for future success; she negotiated the department’s first multi-media rights partnership and led a successful rebranding campaign that delivered a revitalized set of athletics marks designed to significantly enhance the department’s visibility by linking W&M Athletics’ marks to the nationally-recognized brand of the university. To enhance the student-athlete experience, Huge increased resources in academics and sports medicine; created a position to synthesize the development and delivery of all student-athlete physical, mental, and performance services; recruited the department’s first full-time Chief Medical Officer; and hired other key staff and coaches, including head coaches in football and men’s basketball.

In addition to overseeing the renovation and improvement of several existing facilities, Huge secured the funds necessary to finalize construction of a new team building for W&M Field Hockey in 2019. Then after several months of feasibility planning and design, in February 2020 W&M unveiled plans to revitalize Kaplan Arena and construct a new state-of-the-art Sports Performance Center that would house all new sports medicine and performance facilities and two practice courts. Huge spearheaded the initial fundraising effort, which secured $30M in gifts from the lead donors prior to the announcement of the $57M project.

Before her arrival in Williamsburg, Huge worked at Texas A&M University, serving as senior associate director of athletics and senior woman administrator, from 2014 to 2017. She supervised several areas of the athletics department including academics, sports medicine, performance nutrition, student-athlete engagement, and sports performance. Huge led the department’s equity and inclusion policy development and implementation initiatives, served as a member of the Texas A&M University-wide Diversity Leadership Group and chaired the athletic department’s Committee on Equity and Inclusion and its Policy Committee. In 2016, she received the university’s Award for Women’s Progress for her demonstrated advocacy for, and empowerment of, women in the department and on campus.

Huge also served in leadership roles in the athletics departments of the University of Delaware, Georgetown University, and Wake Forest University. She earned her law degree at Campbell University after graduating from Gordon College, where she was a member of the varsity women’s basketball team.