It’s official. Dick Savitt has been named El Paso High School’s Outstanding Ex for 2014. The former Wimbledon and Australian Open tennis champion will be honored at festivities during Homecoming at the school this coming fall.
Mr. Savitt is alive and well and living in New York. I had the pleasure of talking to the 87-year-old by phone this past week and he was as sharp and chipper as a 27-year-old.
And happy about the honor – with a “but.”
He said he appreciated the award but it would be difficult for him to attend all the festivities planned by the El Paso High School Alumni Association because of his age and the distance he would have to travel. There are quite a few of those festivities. There’s a football game and an assembly and a tour of the school and a parade and, of course, a banquet.
What’s more, flying to El Paso from New York usually entails several changes of airplanes.
BEING AN El Paso High alumnus and a former Outstanding Ex myself, I tried to convince Savitt that it was all worth the trouble. I told him what a great honor it was and how wonderfully the alumni association, headed by president Michael Montes, would treat him.
He finally agreed to attend at least the banquet if the alumni association can find him a direct flight from New York to El Paso and back.
There are many El Paso High graduates who would love to meet Savitt, including some who attended El Paso High School in the early 1940s and were schoolmates of his.
And what a feather in the cap it would be for El Paso High School. Hey, how many high schools in El Paso can boast a former Wimbledon champion?
TRIVIA QUESTON: The Bruins of UCLA hold the major college basketball record for most consecutive wins. What is the record and who ended the streak?
THE TEXAS SPORTS Hall of Fame (TSHOF) has announced Nolan Richardson of El Paso is among nine new members into its 2014 class of inductees for the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame. The Southwest Conference (SWC) Hall of Fame is sponsored by the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, which has turned down Richardson for induction on previous occasions. El Pasoans are hoping Richardson’s latest honor is a good omen that he’ll be inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame next year. He will be inducted into the national Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame later this month.
OUR MOYE’S BOYS column last week was well received, which shows how much the late former Jefferson High School coach/teacher, counselor H. R. Moye is still beloved.
Frank Maldonado, chairman of the annual Moye’s Boys Jefferson Foxes Golf Tournament, pointed out a couple of errors, however. The tournament will be held at Painted Dunes Golf Course on Friday, Sept. 26, not as listed last week. And Capt. Roberto “Chito” Samaniego was killed during the Vietnam War, not the Korean War.
Happy to set the record straight. It’s an outstanding tournament and raises funds to help needy students.
SPEAKING OF outstanding golf tournaments, here are some others that are coming up.
One is the El Paso Ford Dealers Golf Classic which will be held Aug. 18 at Coronado Country Club.
Another is the Price’s “Give ‘Em Five” Invitational on Oct. 24, 25 and 26 at Butterfield Trail Golf Club.
Both of those tournaments raise money for the UTEP Century Club which uses the funds for the Miners’ golf team recruiting, equipment, travel, etc.
AND THEN there’s The First Tee Desert Classic sponsored by the Rotary Club of West El Paso which will be held at Sunrise Course in Fort Bliss on Sept. 20 and is presented by West Star Bank in memory of Jonathan Rogers. Proceeds from that will benefit the First Tee of Greater El Paso along with other community projects of the club.
Kristi Albers, our only LPGA Tour winner, started the First Tee program several years ago and has continued to give so much of her time and effort that it warms my heart just thinking about it. She is truly the Grand Lady of El Paso Golf.
ANSWER to trivia question. UCLA won 88 consecutive games. Notre Dame ended the streak