The NSSA notebook ...Stan
Olson has a message for all of you Tobacco Road basketball fans out there.
Watch Conference USA. Appreciate
Conference USA.
Please?
You see, Olson, a 30-year veteran
of the Charlotte News and charlotte Observer, doesn’t cover ACC hoops with his
buddies. He covers UNC Charlotte in that other league.
“Nobody understands
Conference USA,” he said Monday night at the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters
reception in the Hall of Fame. “But UNC Charlotte s playing in one of the best
conferences in the country.And I’ll tell you this right now. UNCC, next year, is a
lock as a Top 20 team. They’ve got some really good guys coming in.”
Olson and his wife, Nancy, were in
town to celebrate his win as North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year. He joins Ron Green
Sr., Charles Chandler and Tom Sorenson as Observer winners.
It was a real honor,” said
Olson, who has always been popular among the sportswriter fraternity. “I was
delighted. I was up against Caulton Tudor (Raleigh News and Observer) and Lenox Rawlings
(Winston-Salem Journal) so I didn’t think I had much of a chance.”
Olson graduated from UNC-Chapel
Hill in 1970 and within a nine-day span got married and began work. Now, with two sons, he
has to get them to baseball practice and be at the Charlotte Knights game by the first
pitch.
“You must have an
understanding wife,” he said. “She’s put up with this for years.”
Olson knows his best assignment
and his toughest.
The best was the 1996 World Series
between the Braves and Yankees.
“I was in that stadium, which
I always considered hallowed ground,” Olson said. “Just to be there where Ruth,
Gehrig DiMaggio and Mantle (his boyhood idol) played was wonderful?”
The toughest? When UNCC’s
Charles Hayward fought his battle with leukemia, finally succumbing to the disease last
Sept. 12.
“When he came back to the
team, it was the feel-good story of the year,” Olson said. “He was outrunning
the big guys in the 400 meters and was benching 50 more pounds than he had before he got
sick. But you know what happened. It was awful (when he passed away). That made it the
single toughest thing I’ve ever had to write.”
n
WOODY’S BOY: Woody Durham
wasn’t in Salisbury Monday night but his family was well-represented. Taylor, 27,
works for WSTP-radio in sales and does some occasional broadcasting. Woody’s 34-year
old son, Wes, was being honored as Georgia’s Sportscaster of the Year.
“When I was 13, 14 years old,
I realized I wasn’t going to be the next great basketball or football player,”
said the Georgia Tech play-by-play man. This seemed like an easy transition. I saw how
much joy my dad got out of it and how much fun he had.”
Wes said he was never pressured
while he helping during high school and college at Elon.
“Dad said, ‘It’s an
opportunity for you to experience this and help you make your decision — not confirm
your decision and not to alienate your decision. It’s to help you form an
opinion.”
After announcing for Radford,
Marshall, Vanderbilt and now Tech, he made the right decision.
And about his little brother?
“Taylor’s probably
selling a lot,” said Wes, “so he’ll make more money than all of us.”
n
LADY LUCK: Her husband had been to
Salisbury as a state winner but this year, it was Ryly Hambleton’s turn. She
represented Nebraska as Sportswriter of the Year.
“In Nebraska, we had a woman
governor,” Hambleton said, “and her husband came out with a cookbook. So there
was a lot of kidding in the newsroom that (husband) Ken had to come out with a
cookbook.”
Hambleton says she has no trouble
covering the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ visiting locker room. Only New Mexico State has
not let her in. But she gets respect otherwise.
“The coaches are very
cooperative,” she said. “When I first started, “they were a little hesitant
because they didn’t know if I was going to ask what color the uniforms were or
something silly like that. As soon as they realized I knew sports, then everything was
fine.”
n
ACC IN VERMONT: So what do
sportswriters from states think of ACC hoops?
Tom Haley, the winner from
Vermont, says that yes, the state is closer to the Big East, but the ACC is king.
“If North Carolina wonders
what someone in New England thinks of the ACC, it’s bigger than life,” Haley
said.
n
HALL TALK: No one left the new
Hall of Fame without gasping at least once.
When Rick Reilly entered the
lobby, the first thing the Sports Illustrated writer and National Sportswriter of the Year
said was, “Wow!”
That pretty much summed it up.
“This is great that young
people can come in and get interested in what we do,” said Hambleton.
“That’s a hard thing to do. Kids today don’t like to work on Friday nights
and Saturday and that’s what we do.”
It’s absolutely
amazing,” said Bob Curtis, the Sportscaster of the Year in Idaho, who was making his
31st trip as a winner. “This may not be a famous area now but it will be when people
find out about this. This will rival all of the other halls of fame.”
n
ESPN: Was ESPN excited about
having Dan Patrick honored?
Eleven — count ‘em, 11
— ESPN honchos flew Patrick and his family down.
n
And finally...
The biggest noise of the weekend
was not made by a sportscaster or sportswriter but rather, a local man.
Kevin Cope of Salisbury was
playing in the golf tournament Monday at the Country Club of Salisbury. He hit a 5-iron on
the par-three No. 6. It took one hop and ... kerplunk. Cope had his first-ever
hole-in-one.
Playing partner Mark Lewis was
jumping up and down more than Cope, who was too stunned to leap.
“There were 11 people
screaming and me standing there in awe,” Cope laughed.
n
Ronnie Gallagher is the sports
editor of the Post. |
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