Posts Tagged ‘Nolan Richardson’

2 Jan

Readers Express Their Love of Nolan Richardson

Posted by EL PASO SPORTS in El Paso Sports. Tagged: , , , .

by Ray Sanchez 11.29.15

It seems like everywhere I go people are talking about the question and answernolannow.jpg article with Nolan Richardson that appeared in the Oct. 19 issue of El Paso Inc. And oh, the emails and comments on Facebook.

For good reason. Richardson is undoubtedly El Paso’s greatest native combination athlete/coach.  He not only excelled as an athlete at Bowie High School and UTEP but went on to coach Western Texas to the national junior college championship, win a National Invitation Tournament title at Tulsa University and win a NCAA title at University of Arkansas.

Nolan let out his inner most personal feelings in the article, and fans seemed to like that. Following are some of the comments I received:

 

TONY JORDAN: “You really got the best out of Nolan in that addicting interview. It was so enjoyable I couldn’t get enough. My brother, Phil Jordan, played ball against Nolan both in high school and college and always said he was the toughest guy to defend. My greatest moment with Nolan was back in 1985 when Paul Moreno, Dr. Pablo Ayub and I held a fund raiser at Caravan East for the devastation that the earthquake in Mexico City had caused and who shows up out of the blue but a true El Paso hero, Nolan Richardson That moment is to this day and forever engraved in my heart. Only you could have gotten an interview like that. We needed to know. El Paso thanks you.”

 

JAY TAVREZ directed his email directly to Richardson: “Coach, when our junior high coach would take us to watch Texas Western when the games were played at the (El Paso) Coliseum you were our favorite player. In one game, you were submarined and landed on your head and all of us thought you were seriously hurt, but after they tended to you, you got back on the floor and continued having an excellent game! You were not only a great athlete, you were the toughest one we had seen! Thanks for giving so much back to your communities!!!!!”

 

RICHARD GLANCEY: “ (Richardson is) one of the greatest persons I have ever known. His loss of his daughter had a tremendous effect on him and his family. Yes, Nolan, I remember playing golf at Ascarate and afterwards you had a beer and a chaser. God Bless this dear friend I have not seen perhaps since his daughter’s funeral that I flew in for.”

 

RANDY SANDERS: “What a great guy! When I was a kid my dad would leave work early so we could get a seat in the tiny Bowie gym and watch him play basketball.”

 

GEORGE SAENZ: “Nice job in interviewing Nolan, I got to meet him two years ago and had a good conversation and a few drinks with him at Adrians.”

 

LUIS ZUNIGA, a longtime sportscaster at the Spanish language KINT station, even took to Spanish to express his feelings: “Excellent interview Ray. Sin duda alguna que Nolan es, y sera siempre, el emblema y embajador de El Paso a donde quiera que vaya. He is a class guy. Tuve varias oportunidades de entrevistarlo durante mis dias en KINT TV-26. Felicidades para ambos.”

(Translation: “Excellent interview, Ray. Without any doubt Nolan is and will always be the emblem and ambassador of the passage to wherever I go. He is a class guy, I had several opportunities to interview him during my days in KINT-TV, Channel-26. Congratulations to you both).”

 

THE ABOVE comments are just a few of the emails I received. Many other folks came up to me and told me personally what great esteem they feel for Nolan.

I feel so proud to have known him since he was only nine years old and hit a homerun in Little League. I actually gave him his very first writeup.

Nolan Richardson personifies all that is good about athletics.

21 Jun

KVIA’s Lovell Qualifies for Boston Marathon – Again

Posted by EL PASO SPORTS in El Paso Sports, Ray Sanchez. Tagged: , , , , .

By Ray Sanchez 05.31.15

Kevin Lovell has been a great asset to the El Paso sports scene klovellsince he became general manager of KVIA-TV, not only because his station covers sports events with uncanny efficiency but because he goes far beyond the call of duty and gets involved in the community.

He’s served as president of the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame, acted as master of the ceremonies for that Hall’s induction banquet and this year almost single-handedly made sure that Nolan Richardson was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

When Lovell found that Richardson had been elected to many other Halls of Fame, including the national Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, but that the Texas Sports Hall of Fame had not given him that honor, he started contacting people throughout Texas. He wrote letters, made phone calls, urged, pleaded and finally got Richardson inducted this year.

 

BUT DID YOU know that besides all that Lovell is, and has been, a marathon runner? And a good one? Really.

How good? Well, good enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Now 60, Lovell started running years ago and competed in his first marathon at the age of 50. He even made it to the Boston Marathon. He stayed in shape through the years but did not run a competitive marathon until he decided to turn back the hands of time and try to qualify for the Boston Marathon after he recently turned 60.

After training the past six months he ran in the Mountains2Beach Marathon from Ojai to Ventura in California last month. It’s a fast downhill race at sea level but it’s still 26.2 miles. He finished third in the 60-64 year old age male category with a time of 3 hours and 33 minutes. That equaled his Boston Marathon time from ten years earlier and was 21 minutes under the Boston Marathon qualifying time of 3:55 for a 60-year-old man.

 

LOVELL SAYS, “I was very pleased to learn that I also exceeded by less than one minute the New York City Marathon qualifying standard which is much tougher – 3:34 for a 60 year old man. Boston is set up to have only runners who qualify. New York City is a race where almost all of the entrants are selected in a lottery. NYC does allow for some runners to make it via the qualifying route but they make the time tougher than Boston because they want the vast majority of the NYC runners to be everyday people and not just the fastest runners. Since I have to run Boston, I plan to run New York in November of 2016 when I will be eligible.  I won’t be running for time, however. I will be running for fun. Running a full marathon for time as fast as you can is very stressful and demanding. I love the challenge but don’t want to run that kind of race again.”

 

TRIVIA QUESTION: Can you name the pitcher who won the Cy Young Award while pitching for two different Major League teams in the same season? Answer at end of column.

 

SPEAKING OF Nolan Richardson, it’s amazing how much the man is revered. He held his 28th annual Nolan Richardson Charity Golf Tournament and Awards Dinner/Auction benefitting El Paso charities and scholarships last Saturday and people turned out in droves with open pockets. I got a chance to talk to him and he revealed a touching story about his daughter, Yvonne, who died of leukemia at age 15. Nolan had decided to turn down the offer to coach University of Arkansas because of his daughter’s illness. But, he said, she pleaded with him not to. He went on to win the NCAA basketball championships there. He had a tear in his eye as he recalled the moment.

 

ANSWER TO trivia question: Rick Sutcliffe, who was 4-5 for the Cleveland Indians then went to the Chicago Cubs where he was 16-1 to earn the award in 1984.

19 Jun

Richardson Accepts Texas Hall Honor With Grace

Posted by EL PASO SPORTS in El Paso Sports, Ray Sanchez, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

by Ray Sanchez 04.19.15

Nolan Richardson could have been upset. He could have been unhappy. He could have been bitter. After nolanjayall, even the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inducted him before the Texas Sports Hall of Fame got around to it.

Instead, he was gracious.

And so were Texas Sports Hall of Fame officials. They welcomed Richardson at the reception and induction banquet with open arms and apologized in one way or another for not inducting him sooner. Jay Black, vice president of the Hall, told me he was sorry it took so long. President Jared Mosley and master of ceremonies Brad Shram expressed regret that sometimes it takes a “long” time to induct someone.

For his part, Richardson thanked the Hall for inducting him and mentioned the delay only in passing. He said he had been inducted into 12 previous Halls of Fame which was like having a large cake and now it would have “icing” on it.

 

AND SUPER public speaker that he is, Richardson gave an acceptance speech that those at the induction banquet will long remember. He had the crowd in stitches with jokes one moment, listening with sheer rapture other times.

He introduced those at his table, which included KVIA-TV general manager Kevin Lovell, who was so instrumental in getting him inducted.

I was at his table, too, and Richardson introduced me as the one who gave him his first writeup when he was nine years old and hit a homerun in Little League.

“At first, Ray reported that the homerun went 257 feet,” Richardson said. “But (the distance) grew through the years. It became 300 feet, then 400 feet. Today (at the reception before the banquet), I asked Ray the distance again. He said it was 500 feet.”

The crowd burst into laughter.

 

IN MORE serious moments, he told of how he lost his mother at age 3 and was raised by his grandmother. He called her “the captain of the ship” and said that she told him achieving success would be up to him and him alone. He lived by that philosophy and imparted it to his players.

He praised El Paso, saying that he couldn’t have had the opportunities he had anywhere else in the country. Segregation was still rampant in the country in the 1950s but, he said, the principal at Bowie High School at the time, Frank Pollitt, opened the door for him by hiring him to teach seventh grade.

That’s all he needed, he said, just a crack in the door to success. He went on to coach the Bowie High basketball team with great success, win a junior college championship with Western Texas, win a NIT title with Tulsa and win a NCAA championship at University of Arkansas. He is the only coach in the country to win all three of those national titles at the college level.

 

OTHERS INDUCTED into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame with Richardson were Prairie View A&M and NBA star Zelmo Beaty (deceased), former Dallas Cowboys vice president of Player Personnel Gil Brandt, BYU Heisman Trophy quarterback Ty Detmer, Dallas Cowboys All Pro safety Cliff Harris, former University of Texas swim coach Richard Quick (deceased), Dallas Cowboys All Pro defensive back Everson Walls and Baylor  NCAA and Olympic 400 meter champion Jeremy Wariner.

Richardson was highly sought for interviews by the media and autograph seekers. Perhaps it was because of the long time it took to induct him or because it was the first chance for most of the media in the eastern part of the state to interview him or because of his outgoing personality.

Whatever, it’s no exaggeration to say he was the center of attraction.

 

OH, YES. A special note of thanks to Brad Shram, the legendary sportscaster of Dallas Cowboys games. He is one of the people Lovell contacted for help to get Richardson inducted and, Lovell says, Shram quickly got to work spreading the word throughout the state.

What is that saying? Better late than never?