Longtime Wyoming sports reporter Robert Gagliardi has left the world of newspapers for a position with the state Game and Fish Department.
Gagliardi, who spent 25 years covering sports for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and WyoSports — a joint sports reporting service between the Tribune Eagle and Laramie Boomerang — is the new associate editor for the Game and Fish Department’s Wyoming Wildlife Magazine.
Gagliardi said he felt that changes in the newspaper industry made it important for him to change directions in his career.
“The newspaper industry as a whole has changed and a lot of those changes aren’t good and those changes are having rippling effects even at places like Cheyenne and Laramie,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I don’t envy the higher-ups that have to make some of these decisions, but in the end, I felt like for my own stability and even sanity … I just felt that change was needed.”
Gagliardi said he will miss coverage of the people involved in sports at the University of Wyoming and the state’s high schools.
“The games are fun, obviously big wins, even disappointing losses,” he said. “But to tell the stories of some of these young men and women and the coaches and administrators, everyone that entails sports, is probably the thing I’m going to miss the most.”
Gagliardi counted among his highlights as a sports reporter coverage of the University of Wyoming’s win over UCLA in the 2004 Las Vegas Bowl, the Cowboys’ overtime victory at the New Mexico Bowl in 2009, the Cowgirl basketball team championship in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament in 2007 and the UW women’s basketball team appearance in the NCAA tournament in 2008.
Making the switch from reporter to sports fan might be difficult, Gagliardi admitted.
“I don’t know how to just sit and watch a game as either a fan or an observer because I haven’t done it since I got into this business,” he said. “I don’t know how to be a fan. That’s going to be an interesting transition.”
