With Martelli’s praise at NCAA Tournament, student journalists get a bounce

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When the Virginia Commonwealth University men's basketball team made history at this year's NCAA Tournament - staging the largest first-round comeback ever to upset the legendary North Carolina Tar Heels - coach Phil Martelli Jr. shared with a national audience some unexpected praise that went beyond the team huddle. And while VCU fell in the second round, the Ram spirit has lingered.

"Our student media: the best in the country. They are unreal, unreal, unreal," Martelli said after the UNC upset on March 19 - using, appropriately, an "un-" word that reflects VCU's UNCOMMON brand. "Cannot thank you guys enough. You are what this is about."

In a world where prickly relations are common between coaches and the media - including campus outlets - the VCU student journalists repaid the compliment.

"I'm not surprised in the slightest," junior Brian Alves, part of the student-run WVCW Radio team, said of Martelli recently. "He's looked out for us all season, since the day we started covering the team this year. He's always made it a really big deal to go around and meet everybody and to appreciate them for what they do."

And what they do is impressive.

During the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament in mid-March in Pittsburgh - which VCU won - WVCW's Alves, Ben Rekosh and Marcus Leary delivered live play-by-play coverage for every game, along with two dozen multimedia posts. And from The Commonwealth Times, sports editor Drew Thompson and assistant sports editor Alexis Washington published multiple news stories and multimedia content over three days.

Martelli had offered a shout-out to the journalists during the A10 tourney, but at the NCAA's Big Dance, his fresh remarks went viral, amassing more than 1.5 million likes on X alone.

"Three of these guys drove in a snowstorm … to Davidson. They came out to St. Louis. They've been everywhere along the way," he said of their seasonlong efforts. "They're not paid to be here and they show up every single day, every single game."

Martelli's comments - and the national embrace of the student journalists' efforts - created a surreal, life-changing experience in the week that followed, said Rekosh, a junior who is co-director of WVCW Sports.

"Our account has gotten tens of thousands of views and hundreds of new followers," he said. "I could've never imagined something like this happening. … To get featured on every major social media platform by numerous, huge accounts has gotten us great exposure. … The national support for our hard work is unbelievable."

Alves noted that VCU's A10 title and the upset of UNC justified the Rams' merit as an NCAA Tournament team, and it again "put VCU sports and VCU as a campus across the map nationally."

And thanks to Martelli, the Rams' run put VCU's mass communications program in the Robertson School of Communication, part of the College of Humanities and Sciences, on the map as well.

Washington, a senior, has been covering sports for the CT since her sophomore year.

"It meant a lot to us that he recognized our hard work and determination throughout the whole process, because you don't see coaches admiring student reporters," she said. "I mean, think about it. … [At] a press conference, you're here to talk about what happened at the game. You're not concerned about who's in the room asking questions."

Martelli is the third head coach the Rams have had in Washington's four years as a student, and she said he stands out for his down-to-earth nature and his appreciation of his athletes and all students.

Alves agrees - and hopes the Ram spirit will carry his fellow student journalists into future coverage.

"Whether we're being noticed or not by the media, obviously the coverage of us has been fantastic, but we really love what we do - and we want to do this professionally," he said. "And I can't thank Coach enough for all he's done for us and all that he will continue to do."