By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
Forty-some years ago, a group of women's tennis players at William & Mary began calling themselves "The Whalers." It had nothing to do with fishing boats, at least not at first. It had everything to do with their coach — an energetic, loyal, persistent and charming woman named Millie West.
The story goes that one day in practice, Libba Galloway wasn't putting enough oomph into her swing. West watched shot after shot until she could take it no longer.
Watch the Millie West Celebration of Life at TribeAthletics.com/MillieWest on Sunday, Feb. 20 at 11:30 a.m.
"Millie was always exhorting us to play better," Galloway '79 said. "So she said something like 'Just whale on it!' That's when we started calling ourselves 'The Whalers.'"
"Then, one time, we went to a restaurant that had packets of sugar on the table. They all had an old fishing boat on it called The Whaler. That became our good-luck charm. Every time we went on the court, we'd give somebody one of the sugar packets to rub."
The Whalers stayed in touch long after graduation, and Millie was always included. The last time they were all together was at her house in November of 2019. When Millie died three months later, they got together on Zoom for a toast.
Last summer, The Whalers met up in Santa Fe, N.M., to celebrate their gone but never forgotten leader and friend.
"Millie," Galloway said, "was the glue that held us all together."
The Whalers will be in town for William & Mary's "All In Weekend," a highlight of which will be the "Millie West Celebration of Life" Sunday morning at the Sadler Center. It was originally planned for April of 2020, but the pandemic forced a postponement.
There will be plenty of memories, tears and laughter as one of the most influential figures in William & Mary athletics history is remembered. Millie West touched many lives in nearly six decades on campus as a coach, a teacher, an administrator and an unparalleled fundraiser.
Deb Hill, who West hired as W&M's volleyball coach in 1976, remembers her as "a southern peach." Millie was definitely southern, having been born in Cedartown, Ga., just after the Great Depression ended.
"Early in her life, she had the long white gloves," Hill said. "A little, tiny lady who learned to get her way by being super smart and knowing which strings to pull."
West turned that into an art form. Not only was she good at getting others to see it from her point of view, she rarely had to twist arms to do it.
"Millie was the kind of person who could get anyone to do what she wanted them to do, and they felt like they were making the decision," said Barb Wetters, W&M's women's basketball coach from 1979-86. "She was headstrong but not overbearing.
"She had that southern charm, but that only went so far. Then it was, don't play me for a fool. I'm sure she had to get down and dirty at times in some of those meetings, but she could do that. And then walk out and not take it personal."
West used that charm in her role as a fundraiser. Among her accomplishments: bringing the Wightman Cup, an international tennis event, to William & Mary; construction of Plumeri Park, the Tribe's baseball field; and completion of the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center, which also serves as home for the ITA Women's Hall of Fame.
"Millie just had this beautiful way of being super strong — not demanding, but getting what she was after," said Betsy Nagelsen McCormack, a former tennis professional and wife of the late Mark McCormack '51, a pioneer of sports marketing and the founder of IMG (International Management Group). "She made you feel very warm and comfortable.
"There's a saying: If you can get someone's heart, you can get their head. She was very, very good at that. She captured people's hearts and they were so much more willing to help. 'What do you need? How can we get this done?' She had that gift."
West's fundraising skills weren't confided to the athletic department. Galloway remembers a conversation she once had during her time as president of the William & Mary Alumni Association.
"One of the senior members of the college's administration said to me, 'You know, Millie West is the biggest fundraiser we have for the business school,'" she recalled. "That wasn't athletics; that was the business school. That was a testament to Millie's tenacity and that she was all about the college."
Peel Hawthorne '80, W&M's field hockey coach from 1987-2012 and current senior associate athletics director, has a variety of perspectives when it comes to West.
She first met Millie as a student-athlete in the fall of 1976. After graduation, she was hired at Connecticut College to coach field hockey and lacrosse. But when W&M had a coaching vacancy in '87, West gave Hawthorne a call.
Hawthorne was head field hockey coach for 26 seasons before taking an administrative position in 2013. West was then serving as director of special projects.
"My favorite thing about Millie is that she just never stopped," Hawthorne said. "She had goals and a vision for how things should run, and she just worked to make those things happen. Sometimes she had to persuade others to come along.
"I can't impress upon you enough how detail oriented she was. And yet, she could pull back and see the big picture at the same time."
That included when it came to hiring coaches.
"Millie was always more concerned about the character of the person in the position than necessarily what their resume looked like," Hawthorne said. "She was all about hiring the right human. And that's part of the reason why so many of her hires stayed here until they retired."
When West retired from administration in 1991, Wetters "followed her in that position." That's how she insists on phrasing it.
"I
never say I replaced her," Wetters said.
Yet they did get to work together.
"Sometimes it wasn't real easy because we were both kind of headstrong," Wetters said. "At one point, we were doing something and she said 'You know I'm going to get my way.' And I said, 'Yeah, Millie, I know that.' And I was OK with that.
"If she felt strongly about something, you were not going to change her mind. It was going to go the way she wanted it to go. At the same time, she was always open to new ideas."
Hill was 24 years old when West hired her as volleyball coach in 1976. That was only four years after Title IX became law.
"She was the mover and shaker," Hill said. "It wasn't easy and she didn't always get her way, but if it hadn't been for her, it would have been much longer until we started having scholarships and actual budgets under Title IX."
Since graduation, Galloway has had different career shifts. After getting her J.D. from Duke in 1982, she was in the legal field for nearly 20 years. Then she became the deputy commissioner and chief legal officer of the LPGA for 10 more.
These days, she is at Stetson University, where she chairs the management department in the school of business administration. She also teaches business law and sports business.
All these years later, she channels Millie West and the lessons she learned.
"The thing I've taken from Millie that has stayed with me the most is her tenacity," Galloway said. "She's one of the most tenacious people I've ever known.
"But she was tenacious in such a gracious way that she was able to accomplish a lot. So when I think I'm going to kick back and let this go, that there's nothing I can do about it, I think, 'You know, why can't I be as tenacious as Millie was?'
Then again, who couldn't say that?
