I'll be honest, I don't know much about sports.During my first season as a football cheerleader in high school, my brother or my dad would have to sit in the front row and let me know whether our team was on offense or defense. Needless to say, this still gets brought up at the dinner table.
I am equally ignorant about basketball.
But you'll be hard-pressed to find a more loyal fan of the Virginia men's basketball team than me. Now, I couldn't tell you what plays we run. I couldn't even tell you the names of all our players. But as long as Pete Gillen keeps coaching our team, I'll be a fan.
Some of you might remember my experience with coach Gillen during my first-year. Convinced I would never find last-minute tickets to the U.Va./Maryland game, I brooded over my lunch at Newcomb.
Then, lo and behold, coach Gillen came by my table to promote student support at the next home game.
To make a long story short, he heard my dilemma and promised me two tickets for the game. I felt like a fool calling the ticket office with my "likely" story, prefacing my request with, "I know this sounds crazy, but coach Gillen has promised me two tickets for the Maryland game"
The answer?
"No problem, they're at Will-Call."
How's THAT for an honor system!?
But regardless of the free tickets, Pete Gillen will always be one of my favorites -- he understands that student support is crucial to making his team successful.
But more than that, coach Gillen understands that students lend their support when they see that other people believe in a cause enough to promote it personally.
And Pete Gillen is everywhere: lunch tables at Newcomb, Lighting of the Lawn, sorority chapter meetings.
You name it, Pete's there.
He wants to know the students, not just see them lining up their tents for tickets to the big game.
This type of "personal touch" was also a big factor that drew me to the Commerce School.
The second weekend of school, Dean Zeithaml had our class over to his pavilion for dinner.
And we're not talking a stuffy, catered dinner that just required the dean to show up in a suit.
When I arrived, he was in the backyard, flipping burgers in his T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, asking us if we wanted cheese on our burgers.
It was clear to me during my first few days of school that my professors wanted me to realize they were just real people. They were mothers, fathers, businessmen, uncles, aunts and mentors.
And, oh yeah, they just happened to teach at the No. 5 undergraduate business program in the country.
The same goes for Pete Gillen. He loves the University and its students, and most of all he loves to see those students filling up U-Hall when the Cavaliers are playing.
After having a great principal in high school, it's no wonder that I was so attracted to the "personal touch" U.Va. offered.
During my senior year, Bill Gordon came to be principal at Winter Park High School. I doubt he spent more than an hour in his office that first semester.
Instead, he chose to sit at the picnic tables with us at lunch and talk about school and life in general.
When I interviewed him for the school newspaper, he joked that the students weren't sure what to make of "that weird guy who always sits with us at lunch."
But Mr. Gordon knew we'd be more likely to follow his rules and respect him as our principal if we saw his face in the halls and at lunch -- not just in detention or on the school's morning news, lecturing about food fights and tardiness. But the idea of student-faculty interaction wasn't the brainchild of Bill Gordon, Pete Gillen or Carl Zeithaml.
We can thank Mr. Jefferson that his vision of higher education included students and faculty not only working together but also living together on the Lawn -- and this vision is exactly what every administrator and faculty member should strive for in regards to their students.
Whether they interact with us through office hours, open-door policies or by flipping burgers on the grill, we just want to put a face with a name. Free basketball tickets don't hurt either.
We, as students, just want to know that our professors aren't lost in the black hole of academia, buried underneath their research and grant proposals.
Most of all, we want to hear their stories and not just their lectures. Regardless of what we used to think about our elementary school teachers, faculty members actually do have lives outside of school.
You might even run into them in the grocery store -- after all, they've got to buy the hamburger meat somewhere.
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