University of Virginia Library

'Boot The Hoot!'

As an avid and knowledgeable
Cavalier basketball fan for the past
three years, I feel compelled to
express publicly some widespread
feelings about the basketball program
at Virginia and, in particular,
coach Bill Gibson.

Bill Gibson must go! Any coach
can win with talent, but it is a rare
coach indeed who can consistently
lose with talent. Virginia is blessed
with such a coach.

Of major importance to coaching
is the ability to handle one's
players. In this area Gibson has
shown little or no competence.
Discontent and poor player-coach
relations are trademarks of every
Gibson ball club. This is evidenced
by the many top quality players he
has lost: John Schroeder, Steve
Jackson, Jeff Crackel, John Quinn,
Mike Smith, Sam Harvey, Gary
Laws, Bill Buck, Tom Joyce, and
most recently Buddy Reams; yes,
Buddy Reams! It is easy to reconcile
the loss of 1 or 2 players but
hardly two full teams.

It is depressing to contemplate
how good we might have been with
the ballplayers on this list. However,
it is even more distressing to
think that the list may not yet be
complete. Why has Tony Kinn been
playing erratic ball for only 20
minutes a game? Why was the
red-hot Kinn pulled in the first half
of the St. John's game? Why isn't
Kevin Kennelly, an ideal playmaker,
running the offense? Why
has Norm Carmichael dropped from
15 points and 12 rebounds a game
to 10 and 5 respectively? The answer
is Bill Gibson.

It is sad indeed to think that out
present fine crop of Freshman must
soon be subjected to Coach Gibson's
incompetence. There have
been enough "Hooter Victims."

Boot the Hoot!