Mac McDonald resigns as ‘Voice of the Cavs’
After more than a decade at the mic at UVA football and men’s basketball games, Mac McDonald announced yesterday that he is resigning his post with the Virginia Sports Network as the Cavaliers’ radio play-by-play man.
“I now have an opportunity on a couple fronts to move forward in my career and pursue a couple goals that I have had for some time,” he says in a press release. “I will always treasure my time with the players, coaches and administration.”
This marks the second time McDonald has said goodbye to Charlottesville. The first was in 1985, when he went to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to call games for Wake Forest University. In 2006, he left the morning show with Jane Foy and the late Dick Mountjoy at Virginia Sports Network flagship station WINA-AM to focus on his UVA duties.
McDonald did not immediately return calls for comment, but his football broadcast partner Frank Quayle says the news took him aback.
“He sent me an e-mail yesterday and I was surprised and disappointed,” he says. “He was the one who first asked me if I’d like to do this back in 1983 and it’s been a fun and meaningful activity for me. He’s extraordinarily professional and he’s great at what he does.”
WINA sports director and Midnight Barbecue host Adam Gottschalk also heard the news last night.
“Mac came up to me just before I went on the air to call the UVA baseball game and told me,” he says. “I was shocked. I didn’t see this coming.”
No word yet on who might succeed McDonald in the booth, nor if it will affect Quayle’s status as football commentator or Jim Hobgood’s as basketball color man.
“I have no idea,” says Quayle of his own broadcast future. “Mac and I used to always get together in August and test the level of enthusiasm, so I guess we’ll just have to go from there.”
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Why is this even posted on the food blog?
We can hope that Warren Swain, who was the “Voice of the Cavaliers” before leaving to be the “Voice of the Cornhuskers” is available. McDonald wasn’t a bad sports announcer at all, but outside the booth he could be a real a**hole. Does anybody remember the pissing contest he got into with CDF and every local band not called The Houserockers when CDF decided to give the semi-coveted Paint the Town Orange gig to bands that deserved it more? He managed to insult just about everybody in defending his favorite wedding band. It was amusing when Ray Cadell fired back from the stage. McDonald knows sports, but his musical tastes are somewhat suspect.
I’ll second the Warren Swain vote. Last I checked he wasn’t working for Nebraska anymore.
What the heck is CDF?
CDF is Charlottesville Downtown Foundation, I think.
CDF = Charlottesville Downtown Foundation, the non-profit that started Fridays after 5 and ran it for the first dozen years or so. When the city more or less gave the Pavilion to Coran Capshaw that ended CDF and they closed up shop a couple of years ago (and the unintended consequence is the other events they brought Downtown, such as Court Days, the International Food Festival, the Street Music Festival, Dogwood Blues Festival, Piedmont Jazz Festival, and a chili cook-off all disappeared when CDF did).
FWIW, IMHO as good as the Pavilion is for Downtown Charlottesville, the changes it brought to Fridays after five are at best mixed. Some would say the event even jumped the shark. It went from a nice tree-filled gently sloping family-friendly grassy knoll venue to corporate concrete. You just don’t see anywhere near the number of families as you used to. The event is a lot more sterile now. The season has also been shortened by about a month or so. The changes aren’t necessarily bad, but they have completely changed the character of the event.
So what’s the story on Mac? Was he fired or not? And since everybody seems to believe that’s the story but nobody’s talking, what’s going on?
John, why is that foolishness necessary?
It’s no secret… most men REALLY like women.
John is just jealous that he can’t get any.
Dear readers,
A word about what’s appropriate for this site:
If you have an idea of why somebody was or was not fired, send it on to me at . If you can point me in the direction of somebody who can back up your claim, let me know about it through an e-mail or phone call, and I’ll look into it. Otherwise, save your speculation for another forum.
Thanks,
Lindsay Barnes
you’re kidding right lindsay
much of “your”(the hook) blog is pure speculation and or gossip.
plus this is not a forum - but rather a comment site for a free weekly giveaway paper attempting to carry “news” on the web.
With regards to Mac - I will miss him. Great guy.
Now let’s get back to those weeks of the dead cat stories…
Speculate - think
The Mac gambling stories were quite well circulated in journalistic circles back in the ’80’s. Of course, the Regress never touched them.
I don’t think it is “speculation” to mention them in a public forum like this message board
Yea, can’t imagine why the local paper would not have run with the “local sportscaster flees town to avoid mob” story. Sounds both credible and verifiable.
Richard,
Agree generally with what you are saying, but we are talking about the Progress here.
They are such homers for UVa sports, Al Groh could mount the Rotunda dome with an Uzi and mow down 120 students on the Lawn, but the DP’s lead story would still be about the Nelson County Water Board member who ran a red light
Simpleman
I get what you are saying about the DP and agree in theory. Next time you might want to come up with an image a little less offensive to the many local readers that can not possibly find humor in the the concept of an Uzi, a campus, and mowing people down. And yes, I understand that you were “kidding”.
Lisa
[...] Stoddard joins the Paramount Theater’s former director Edward Rucker, who tendered his resignation May 2 “to pursue other opportunities” after a 10-month tenure and University of Virginia Art Museum director Jill Hartz, who was shown the door in December and then landed a job heading the University of Oregon’s much larger museum. (Not to mention cultural icon Mac McDonald.) [...]