By ERIC FRIEDMAN
and JONATHAN GANZ
Former men's assistant basketball coach and current physical education teacher Pete Gaudet has decided to leave Duke, and he has reached a verbal agreement to become a full-time assistant coach at Vanderbilt immediately.
Gaudet will leave Durham on Wednesday and travel to Nashville to begin working on Thursday with the Vanderbilt men's basketball team as its top assistant coach.
"It puts me in a full-time position in a great school," Gaudet said. "I went down and I liked everything I saw: team, coaches, school, administration, town. The downer is I'm going in the middle of the year, and I really don't like that."
Gaudet coached at Duke for 12 seasons, working extensively in scouting and the development of the Blue Devils' big men. But he resigned from his restricted earning position-a position which has since been rescinded by the NCAA-following the 1994-95 season. He spent the last year and a half teaching and instructing in the University's physical education department.
Gaudet is probably best remembered as the man who took over the reins of the Blue Devil program in '94-'95 when head coach Mike Krzyzewski sat out the final two months of the year after attempting to return from back surgery too soon. But to others, especially those in the athletic department, Gaudet will be missed for more than just his coaching and teaching ability.
"It's a bittersweet moment for us," Duke athletic director Tom Butters said. "He has been extraordinary to us. He's the kind of guy you want to have at this university. But I'm thrilled for him. If coaching is what he wants to do, then that's exactly what I want him to do. I've got mixed emotions about it, but I'm very pleased for him."
The Vanderbilt job opened up on Oct. 8 when Ron Bargatze resigned from his post as assistant coach with the Commodores. Gaudet was contacted about the post, and he visited and interviewed with Vanderbilt head coach Jan van Breda Kolff and athletic director Todd Turner last weekend at which time he accepted the job. Gaudet returned to Durham and spent Sunday night and Monday informing the athletic department that he would be resigning and leaving his position in the physical education department as soon as he had informed all of the students in his classes.
This semester, Gaudet was teaching three tennis classes, a basketball class and an upper-level physical education class on the theory and practice of coaching.
"I've really enjoyed the student body as much as anything else at Duke," Gaudet said. "It's never been just a basketball thing, the students have been refreshing. I think the atmosphere at Duke has been very enjoyable. Durham has been a good place for me and my family."
A contract has still not been officially signed, but Gaudet noted that assistant coaches do not normally receive more than a one-year deal at a time.
He mentioned that he would miss his friends that he had made through the athletic department. But he said that it was not difficult telling his family about the job because he had decided that he wanted to coach in season, and not simply out of season.
"I've coached for 28 years, but I didn't consider myself out of coaching last year because I was teaching, and teaching is coaching," Gaudet said. "I've always considered myself a teacher. When I'm teaching, I'm a coach, and when I'm coaching, I'm a teacher. I don't know if they're synonymous. It wasn't the idea of going with a specific organization, [coaching] is just what I've done and what I do."
At Vanderbilt, Gaudet will likely be working with the Commodores' big men. Turner and van Breda Kolff both noted that Gaudet had been an integral part of Duke's success in the last decade, helping to lead the Blue Devils to seven Final Fours in nine years. They both hope that, in addition to bringing his coaching skills to Vanderbilt, Gaudet will bring some of the intangibles with him that have made Duke such a successful program.
"Coach Gaudet was a big part of Duke's overall program, and Duke is a role model for what we'd like to establish here at Vanderbilt," van Breda Kolff said. "There's no question that he's one of the top big man coached in the country. Just look at the players he worked with at Duke and the success they had. Our players will have a great opportunity to learn from a coach with his knowledge and the maturity that comes with the success he's achieved."
This will be Gaudet's third stint with a school of high academic standing. He worked with Krzyzewski at Army beginning in 1975 and was head coach at Army from 1980-82 when Krzyzewski left to come to Duke. He rejoined Krzyzewski at Duke in 1983 and has been in Durham ever since. But now Gaudet is anxious to get out to Nashville and get back into the swing of coaching again.
"I'm really happy with this position," Gaudet said. "I can't say that I have no desire to be a head coach again. But I think this is a really good spot for me.... Right now, this is all I really want."
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