Basketball Hall of Ceremony September 8th
When you think of Hall of Fame Ceremonies in any sport you generally think of the athletes that participated in that particular sport. But, what fans fail to forget sometimes is the other people who helped those players achieve their goals. There are also the referees that helped keep control of the games. While no recent players will be enshrined into the basketball Hall of Fame this weekend, a great collection of other people will rightfully take their place among the legends of basketball.
The most recognizable name of the list is current Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson. Most people remember Phil Jackson as the calm and collective coach that drove the Michael Jordan machine in the mid 90’s, but altogether the coach has won nine championships. He won six of those titles with the Chicago Bulls, and the other three with his current team. While many people have said that any coach could have won many championships with the players he’s had (Kobe Bryant, Shaq, and Jordan, to name a few). But, real basketball purists will tell you this is not the case. You have to have the right mind frame to be able to keep all of your superstars happy, and the Zen preaching Jackson was just the man for the job.
When we think of basketball it’s often hard to remember that basketball is more than just the NBA, and in this case we remember their counterpart, the WNBA. The greatest WNBA coach of all time, Van Chancellor will also be enshrined this day. Chancellor won the first four WNBA championships with the Houston Comets. Other records he holds as a coach include the best winning percentage for a season .900, and taking the Comets to the playoffs the first seven season’s of their existence. Before he even joined the pro ranks as a coach he led Ole Miss University to 14 NCAA tournament appearances, and won over 400 games in the process. To top it off, he has never lost a game as coach of the USA Women’s team in International play.
With the current news of ref’s perhaps cheating teams as of late, the Hall of Fame will pause to enshrine what is considered to be the greatest referee of all time Marvin Rudolph. Between 1959 and 1978 Rudolph refereed well over 2000 games, including 8 All-Star games. Rudolph passed away in 1979 at the young age of 53, but in a continuing tribute to him no referee has worn his number five since then.
Perhaps the most touching moment of the entire Hall of Fame a ceremony is when the team of the 1966 Texas Western gets enshrined. For those of you that never heard, Texas Western became the first team in history to start an entire team of African Americans in a NCAA champion game. In a sense the Texas Western game did for college basketball what Jackie Robinson did for baseball. Not only did Texas Western show up to the championship, they beating the all white Kentucky team 72-65.
You can get your tickets for as little as 35 dollars, and all of the action starts off at 9:30 Sept. 8th. If you have an opportunity to go you shouldn’t pass up this time in history.
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