Guru’s Gowdy Award Countdown: Odds and Ends and Updates as the Big Week Arrives

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Well, May 16 seems a long time ago and back then when the public announcement was made of the enshrinement class of 2021 to be in Springfield, Mass., Saturday night following Friday’s tipoff and associate awards dinner at the Mohegan Sun, home of the WNBA league-leading Connecticut Sun in Uncasville near New London and Norwich this weekend, it seemed real far in the future.

But like Hall historian Matt Zeysing said four months ago, it will suddenly catch up quick and it has.

But the hotel situations are settled, the ticket/seating is nearing completion, and the Guru’s acceptance speech for the Gowdy Media Award - print continues to be fine tuned before sending the latest version in a few days up to the teleprompter folks. 

On Sunday the Guru received his personalized itinerary so here’s the latest since last week’s initial post in the countdown.

First, not listed in the itinerary, but a reminder early arrivals will gather Thursday night beginning 7:30 p.m. at Tom Urban’s on the property beginning 7:30 p.m. to hang out and since our own dimes you are free to join, especially if you can’t be involved Friday, though it is appearing that since Urban’s will be open one hour later than the 1 a.m. close on Thursday, we’ll likely return.

Thursday will also be the 52nd anniversary of the Guru’s hire at The Inquirer. 

Friday morning 10 a.m. the Guru gets to practice an hour on the teleprompter.

The dinner awards ceremony, which starts at 8, will not be televised live but will be taped by NBA TV and likely air an hour before the induction ceremony around 6 p.m. on Saturday before live coverage of enshrinement at 7 p.m.

On Friday, the Guru will speak fourth following Bunn winner - recently retired ESPN women’s scheduling executive Carol Stiff, Gowdy Media - Electronic winner Mike Gorman, Gowdy Print  Media winner George Kalinsky, Your Guru, then the three Manny Jackson Human Spirit winners Ray Allen, Vinny Del Negro, and Renee Montgomery.

The Friday press conference under protocols - the Guru will be there but not as a formal interviewee as will his executive producer/director Lindsey Moppert - and Saturday media access will be very limited. 

The Guru got it confirmed The Inquirer’s Joe Juliano is accepted and will be doubling up covering yours truly and inductee Villanova men’s coach Jay Wright while Mike Jensen, who will not be there, will be writing columns.

TICKET PICKUP

All ticket pickups for Friday will be picked up at the convention center ballroom.

The flow is this - the prescreen proof of vaccination goes to the medical people who then send the name back to marketing to be matched with the ticket or you show your card at pickup. People not fully vaccinated or not all must take a test on Thursday Sept 9 this week resulting in negative.

THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

To take you behind the scenes here are some lines from the speech now dropped for more humorous lines or meaningful stuff to stay close to the three minute requirement and within the original three-page draft.

“Look at it this way, if this award is long overdue, it’s their fault the speech didn’t end five minutes ago.”

A remark from a high school fellow alum - “For someone who sucked in Math and English and never played sports, it’s fascinating how you turned out.”

On some this weekend supporting three of us: “For those of you in that situation, you’re getting real value on your $600 dinner tickets.”

On Inquirer life: “One day they asked me to show a young sports hire from Brooklyn around the office because they figured l had notoriety. Still, if you think l’m going to take credit for launching Stephen A. Smith, someone else can claim that.”

“The paper used the NFL TV policy as it existed in how to play me: Nationwide but blacked out within 60 miles of my desk.”

“You should have seen the look on faces when Tony Ridder sent me a personal note from corporate headquarters after news of my USBWA Hall of Fame induction lauding me for keeping the company way ahead of other news organizations.

“The editor’s secretary at The Inquirer who gets copies of everything followed up: Mel, all our Pulitzer winners never got that kind of mail from Tony.’’

THE HIDDEN FUSE THAT ALTERED THE GURU’S ROAD

Former Inquirer sportswriter Frank Fitzpatrick on Sunday on Facebook brought back a story on 1972 how really bad the Phillies, Eagles, 76ers, and Flyers were that year and it rang a bell here.

What he didn’t say was in March Immaculata won the first of three straight AIAW championships but it went virtually unnoticed.

Even the late Penn State coach Rene Portland, one of the stars, always recalled “We flew out there on standby and came back first class.”

With the local pro teams so bad, the local paper managements said, “Hey, here’s something that wins.’

Meanwhile up in New York at the Times copy desk Jay Searcy, also writing a Women in Sports column, was on the other side of one of the Mighty Macs big rivalries - Queens College.

In 1975 he becomes the Inquirer sports editor and  wants your Guru to pick up his work and soon hits the ‘nuts” idea of starting a poll.

The speech addresses some of this.

This is not long after Title IX became law spawning scholarships, etc.

So the poll comes along just at the time to reflect the tsunami of the football schools overtaking the small-enrolled schools.

The Guru quips one day at that time “Yeah, Immaculata put it on the map so l can come along and  take them off the map.”

But the legacy lived on in the poll because Theresa Grentz, a glaring omission from Naismith, Marianne Stanley, who guided three national titles at Old Dominion and was a runnerup last election, and Rene Portland became three of the all time coaches in poll appearances.

And the path for all this dates back to the drek pro sports teams in 1972.

The countdown continues in the next 24 hours.

Enjoy your Labor Day.