THE STORY that many Virginia basketball fans had been waiting months to read finally showed up on the front page of Tuesday's Cavalier Daily -- Pete Gillen was out as head coach.
Gillen resigned just days after the Cavaliers finished his seventh season at the University with a losing record, the team's first since 1998-99. During the season, several fans sent letters to the editor calling for Gillen to leave. When his long-anticipated departure finally happened, The Cavalier Daily thoroughly covered it Tuesday in three different sections: News, Opinion and Sports.
Sports stories usually don't merit the featured spot on the front page of a newspaper, but Gillen's resignation clearly deserved to be there. Gillen was one of the most recognizable employees of the University, and The Cavalier Daily's readers have discussed few topics this year more than his job status. His resignation won't affect readers' day-to-day lives as much as most of the other major issues the paper has covered recently, but it is a story they deeply care about.
Associate sports editor Becky Piedel's front page article ("Gillen, Gillen, Gone," March 15) hit all the major details of the story. She included written statements from Gillen and Athletics Director Craig Littlepage, Gillen's record with the Cavaliers, details of the buyout clause in his contract and a quick mention about the search for a new coach. Piedel could have written the story straight from written releases and Littlepage's press conference, but she showed some good reporting skills by adding comments made by a couple of players and Gillen after the team's 76-64 loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament.
The Managing Board weighed in on Gillen's resignation with its lead editorial ("Goodbye, Gillen," March 15). The editorial quickly made it clear that the board approved of the coach's departure from a basketball standpoint. The meat of the editorial, however, praised Gillen for his off-the-court conduct and his service to the University. In all the calls for Gillen's ouster, that was something that was rarely, if ever, mentioned.
Of course, most of the coverage and opinion about Gillen showed up on the Sports page Tuesday and in the next couple of days.
Piedel concentrated on the Cavaliers' performance in the ACC Tournament in her article on the front of the Sports page ("Gillen, Cavs bow out," March 15). The article showed what happened in the final games of Gillen's Virginia career, repeating almost nothing from the News story.
Columnist Joey Mancini wrote a column ("Gillen Era ends with mixed feelings," March 15) about Gillen's tenure that appeared below Piedel's article. Like the lead editorial, Mancini opted not to add to the long list of criticisms about the coach's record, instead talking about his personality and other qualities.
Perhaps what impressed me most about the coverage of this story on the Sports page was that The Cavalier Daily didn't overdo it Tuesday or the rest of the week.
The staff had another important story to put in Tuesday's paper -- the women's basketball team's entry into the NCAA Tournament. Rather than giving the story on the men's team precedence, the editors split the page and feature the women's success as much as the men's shortcomings.
The one substantial piece about Gillen that appeared on the Sports page after Tuesday was J.D. Moss' column about possible replacements ("After the Gillenium: Top five possible coaches for the next era," March 17). Moss laid out his wish list for a new coach, explained their pluses and minuses and described the situation the next coach will face. Any time a major athletic program fires a coach, a discussion like this is bound to come up. Moss' column took the story to that next logical step.
Columnist Bart Isley even got some mileage out of not talking about Gillen -- or at least trying not to talk about Gillen. Isley's column ("10 reasons this column is not about Pete Gillen," March 16) looked at several sports stories unrelated to Virginia's newly departed coach. The column was a fun read because Isley was obviously fighting the urge to join "every other sportswriter in the greater Virginia area."
Experts and fans had been predicting the end of Gillen's time on the Cavaliers' sideline for most of the season. When it finally happened, The Cavalier Daily was prepared to cover the story without hammering it into the ground.
Jeremy Ashton can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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