Jeff Bourne, James Madison University

Jeff Bourne is going out on top.

Bourne, who is retiring at the end of the academic year after a 25-year run at James Madison, oversaw one of the most impressive years in the school’s athletic history. After transitioning from the FCS to FBS in 2021, the Dukes football program went 11-2 last fall and netted a visit from ESPN’s “College GameDay,” which set attendance records for the Nov. 18 show. The Dukes men’s basketball team, meanwhile, went 32-4 and upset fifthseeded Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

During the 2023 fiscal year, JMU surpassed 5,000 annual donors for the first time in school history and raised a record $4.7 million for the annual fund and $6.3 million in total giving. JMU also sold out of football season tickets for the first time and broke single-game and season average attendance records. Men’s basketball averaged home attendance above 4,300 in back-to-back years for the first time since 1998.

Bourne’s final year at JMU included completing the conversion of the Convocation Center from a basketball facility to one that will support eight sports and includes a venue for the volleyball program. Additionally, the school completed an expansion of its softball facility, adding 900 seats, a new press box and enhanced lighting and playing surface.

James Madison also dedicated new game-day locker rooms and sports medicine space at its Sentara Park complex (men’s and women’s soccer, lacrosse and track and field) and constructed an ESPN+ broadcast control room in the Atlantic Union Bank Center.