Category: Pennsylvania

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Larry the Legend…

It’s nice to know some people still remember.

I made my usual Friday night rounds last night (came off the wagon – my experiment with not drinking on weekends to expediate my weight loss wasn’t working all that well). Started off by watching the women’s volleyball team open their season up with a huge win over Texas (PSU is ranked #3 in the country and Texas #4 – PSU won 3 games to 1), then headed down to the Tavern.

I walked into the bar and David Gray (PSU soccer player and son of a couple of old friends, all of whom I’ve mentioned on the blog a couple of times) was sitting at the bar chatting with a couple in their 50s. David immediately calls me over and introduces me to the couple. As he does so he says to me “Tim was a Phi Psi here” and then tells the couple “Larry used to run in the Phi Psi”. The guy asked me when I ran and I told him almost every year after 1971. I then asked him when he was there and he said that he was the race chairman in 1975, at which point I said “that was about when I was in my heyday.”

Right then he asks “What was your name again?”. When I tell him, he goes “Omigod! You were a legend!” He then proceeds to tell his wife and David how I won it a couple of times, that I held a couple of records, and that I was in their “History of the Phi Psi” book. At one point David said “Well I had heard Pat (Daugherty) say that Larry was a Phi Psi legend, but I thought he was just joking.” That’s when when the guy goes “Oh no. He was a REAL legend”. Cracked me up. 😀

Needless to say we spent about an hour swapping Phi Psi stories (sorry Ron, didn’t get a chance to tell yours).

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“Fear the Deer”

You might remember a post I made a couple of months ago about a blog that I was creating about the State College Spikes baseball team. The intention at the time was to just track the Pittsburgh Pirates draft choice to try to figure out which ones might get assigned to State College. Well that worked out so well that I decided to keep it up for the entire season.

Not surpisingly I’ve swizzled the blog a lot since I originally created it – I’ve changed the format a couple of time, added a few features, and actually renamed it “Fear the Deer” which is the team’s rally cry.

I occasionally add some editorial content but for the most part the blog is simply a collection of news stories, game reports, and box scores about the team. Even with no effort of my own to promote it, it’s generated a modicum of success:

While it certainly hasn’t enjoyed the exposure my “Every Day is Valentine’s Day” exploit did, it’s really not doing all that bad – and I’m having fun doing it.

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Central Bucks HS – Class of ’65

Remember any of these guys Marilyn? Their class falls squarely between us.

There’s a judge, a council president, a police chief, a fire chief and a lawyer with a common thread. All five graduated from Central Bucks High School in 1965 and have become leaders in the community.

There’s Bill Cope, Doylestown Fire Co. president; Buckingham Police Chief Steven Daniels; Jeff Garton — the solicitor for Central Bucks and Centennial school districts, Doylestown Township, the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority and Bucks County Community College; Bucks County President Judge David Heckler; and Doylestown council President John “Chip” Thome.

“It’s not every day that you have [this many leaders] from the same class,” said Cope.

Read the rest of the story.

I can barely remember Heckler and Thome but draw a blank on the others.

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Thinking about coming out of retirement

No not that way.

But, after getting out and exercising for four straight days, I’m getting the urge to get into competitive shape again. Unfortunately, the Phi Psi 500 no longer exists. But there is another possibility:

Beer Mile Logo

The Beer Mile is a unofficial worldwide competition where competitors drink a beer, run a quarter mile, then repeat three more times.

A friend of mine here in State College, Kevin Becker is one of the organizers of the local version of the competition. In fact, there is a YouTube video of the 2005 State College Event (it’s held every Labor Day). The event is nothing like the Phi Psi which drew about 2000 entrants and 10,000 spectators. The State College Beer mile draws maybe a dozen entrants and another couple of dozen spectators.

You can see the SC Beer Mile video by clicking here. My buddy is the guy with the shaved head that appears several times in the video. He won the event that year (you can see him cross the finish line at about the 4:30 point in the video – he’s also the guy doing the cartwheel/moon at the end of the video).

While I don’t feel I can be competitive with Kevin (he trains a lot, runs marathons and triathlons, and even ran a 50 mile race two years ago), I certainly feel I can be competive in my age group. I just went to the beer mile records page and I see that, while there’s no official 60+ record only a super-Masters group that starts at 50, the fastest time for a 60+ entrant worldwide is 9:54. While it would be tough to get to that level this year, I certainly don’t think that number is out of my reach in another year or so. The best time for a 62 year old is 10:35 and that’s not out of the realm of possibility (I would have to alter one of my strategies though – in the Phi Psi, I always forced myself to throw up – in this race, if you ralph, you run an extra lap).

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Time to get serious about my weight

My cutback on golf has basically resulted in me getting no exercise at all and my weight has ballooned. Sitting at the ballpark yesterday afternoon, I decided that I’d start an exercise campaign beginning today. From now on, I’m going to walk to the ballgame (the ballpark is about 2.5 miles from home). After the game I’ll either walk home or, if I’m going out for the rest of the evening, I’ll walk downtown (about another 1.25 miles), then take a cab home at the end of the night (a four mile walk on dark roads at 2:00 am isn’t a very good idea).

When the team is away, I’ll use a nice little two mile or so loop that we have in the neighborhood. I started today with a short little 35 minute walk just as a test to make sure that nothing was going to fall apart right away. It felt good to work up a nice little sweat for the first time in a while.

I think I’ll try to figure out a way to put a nice little chart in the sidebar to track my weight loss. I know how everyone was so interested in my health woes, so I’ll try to provide some good news for a change. 🙂

BTW Ron – what ever happened with your weight loss effort? Eighteen months ago you said “I’ll update the blog on a weekly basis to let you know how it’s going.” We’re still waiting for the week two update. ❓ 😆

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Oakmont Memories

Watching the US Open being held at Oakmont Country Club just outside of Pittsburgh brought back a TON of memories the last few days and I’d like to share a few.

The 1978 PGA Championship was held at Oakmont while I was living in Pittsburgh. At the time my buddy Tod Jeffers was working at WMAJ a radio station in State College. Tod and I had quite a scam going. Tod was the sports director for the station and he would write to the PGA and USGA for media credentials to some of their golf tournaments and he would regularly get two (one press and one photographers – oddly enough, they never asked why a radio station needed a photographers pass). The 1978 tournament at Oakmont was one of the first where we pulled this little act (btw – they have wizened up and no longer give out press credentials to radio stations outside of a 50 mile radius of the tournament site).

The access that the credentials provided us was incredible. Not only could we enjoy the numerous benefits of the press tent but we also had access to the course. The way that most media covered the tournament was to sit in the media tent and watch the tournament on TV (more on that later). Then, following competition of their round, each player would come into the interview tent and handle and questions by the media. Rarely did they venture onto the course. Not Tod and I though. We would spend the day on the course walking along with the players.

Friday was the first day that we hit the course. I took a vacation day from work. Because hosting a major championship in town was such a major deal many of our office sales team took customers to the tournament so there were a lot of fellow IBMers at Oakmont. Early in Fridays round Tod and I decided to follow Jack Nicklaus. After Jack’s tee shot on two, Tod and I are strolling up the second fairway about twenty feet behind Jack and his caddy when I here this voice yell “Yo Fall”. I look over and there’s the IBM Branch Manager, Scotty Theissen, behind about five rows of spectators lined up along the fairway. Scotty was about 6’6″ so he stood out from the crowd and could get a good view from behind the others. As soon as I see him, Scotty says “you’d better write a good story” (the press credentials back then were a little different than today – today you hang a placard off of a belt loop, then you had a yellow armband that said PRESS – so Scotty was obviously commenting on the armband). My first thought was “I hope he isn’t upset that I took a day off to come to the tournament”. When I got to work the following Tuesday (more later on why I wasn’t in on Monday), he called me into his office and his comment was “How did you pull that off? I’m impressed.” I think his opinion of me jumped a couple of notches that weekend.

What Tod and I would do for the most part was tag along with the official group that walks along with each golfer. Normally, you’ll have 2-3 golfers, their caddies, a scorer, a standard bearer, a rules official, and maybe a few photographers. The group of us would walk just behind the golfers, and when we got to the green we’d find a spot near the exit walkway and kneel down so we wouldn’t block anyone’s view. We’d do the same thing on the tee when the golfers would tee off.

During one of the rounds, Tod and I were following Tom Watson. We walked up to the 15th tee and before we even got a chance to kneel down a guy standing directly behind me started mouthing off to his friend next to him “Goddamn press. I wait here for hours to see Watson tee off and they come stand right in front of me”. Without hesitation, and with a totally straight face I turned around to him and said “Hey buddy, you’re out here having fun. I’m out here trying to make a living. Cut me a break.” Jeffers had a hard time keeping a straight face.

I mentioned the press tent before. It seems like nothing today with the way that modern technology has advanced but I was really impressed with the IBM computer systems at Oakmont. Remember, there were no PCs then and computers ran in heavily air conditioned back rooms – also there was no such thing as wireless access. At Oakmont though, IBM had wired the entire course. A data entry person would sit just off of each green and they would enter players scores as they completed each hole. That would be immediately transferred back to the main computer that sat in a refrigerated trailer just outside of the press tent. In the press tent there were a series of terminals hooked into the mainframe so that the press could check on the stats at any point in time.

One of the afternoons, Tod and I were in the press tent when we heard a roar go up out on the golf course. A hole in one roar at a major tournament is different than any other. It was immediately obvious that someone had sunk one somewhere out on the course (actually from the direction it came, we were reasonable sure it was hole #8. I walked over to one of the terminals and typed in the request for current stats for #8. Sure enough within seconds, up popped a 1 next to Gil Morgan’s name (the eighth hole is the one that’s playing at around 270-280 for this tournament – Morgan dunked his tee shot on the fly for his one with the hole playing at 242). At the time that absolutely amazed me. Of course, with today’s technology, the exact same data, and much, much more, is instantly available to everyone around the world via the internet but in ’78 that was quite impressive.

By Sunday, Tod and I pretty well had the course mapped out. We knew exactly where to stand to get on camera – and we did. All the TV shots came from fixed cameras on the tees or behind the greens – there were no roving fairway cameras then. Since we could walk with the players, we would make sure that we stood behind the players so that they were always directly between us and the camera on the hole. That meant that we got on MANY times.  There was one memorable shot that I can remember quite well.   It came on #3 when Johnny Miller put his shot onto one of the mounds between the church pew bunkers.   Johnny stood on top of the mound to take his shot and Tod and I were directly behind him.   Because the camera shot was a telephoto from behind the green it looked like we were about two feet from him when the reality was we were a good 20-25 feet.

About an hour or so after the tournament was over I got a phone call from Mother and she went on to repeat the following conversation she had with Dad to me.

DAD (from the TV room watching golf): “Eileen – get in here!”

MOM: “What? Why?”

DAD: “I think I just saw your son on TV”.

MOM (now in the room with him): “Where?”

DAD: “Wait a second until this guy tees up. He’ll be standing right behind him.”

MOM (with the camera now on us): “Well. I don’t know. That sort of looks like him – I guess it could be… Wait a minute. That’s definitely he’s friend Tod next to him so it must be.”

My own mother doesn’t recognize me but recognizes Tod.

John Mahaffey won the tournament in a three-way playoff with Tom Watson and Jerry Pate shooting a 276. Mahaffey made up 7 strokes on Watson over the last 14 holes to take the title. Tod and I followed Watson around for the final nine but not didn’t hang around for the playoff.   In those days, tradition called for dropping the ropes behind the final group as they came up 18.   The fans who rushed in behind the players were quite careful to respect the players space but they had no such concern for us “media” types.  It was too much work fighting our way through the masses to get inside the ropes coming up 18 and we knew it would be the same way for the playoff so we bailed (in those days the playoffs weren’t set up just for TV either – players went right onto the first tee and played from there – the didn’t follow any of the weird playoff formats we have now).

So while the tournament ended on Sunday for most of the participants, it didn’t for us.  Another tradition for the majors is that on the Monday following the tournament, the host course is open to the media for free play.  THAT was an opportunity that Tod and I were not about to pass up.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature did not cooperate.  Come Monday and it was pouring rain.  We went out and tried to play anyway but it was just too much and we had to quit after nine.  Still it was an incredible experience, one that I would love to repeat sometime.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be able to relive part of it but it won’t quite be the same.  Randy Woolridge and I are headed to Oakmont to watch the Sunday round.  The bad news is that we don’t have press credentials.   The good news is that we have VIP privileges (Randy got the tickets from a big time banker friend in Pittsburgh) which includes access to the Pittsburgh Steeler corporate hospitality tent located just off of the eighteenth hole.  I’m looking forward to the experience and will report back on Monday.

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State College Spikes – Season 2

The State College Spikes are a short season Class A baseball team – short season meaning they don’t start play until the end of June. Major League Clubs support short season teams so they have a place to stock the players whom they sign through their draft which takes place after high school and college regular seasons are complete.

Today is that draft day. It will begin at 2PM and the first few rounds will be televised for the first time (ESPN2 is carry the draft).

Since I have time on my hands, I’ve thrown together a website to track the Pittsburgh Pirates draft choices (the Pirates are the major league affiliate for the Spikes team) because the Spikes roster will be primarily populated with kids from this draft. This provide a way for friends of mine, who actually have jobs and have to work, to actually follow the draft today and get a feel for who might be playing for the Spikes this year.

I seeded the site yesterday with those Pirate players whom minor league baseball currently lists as being owned by the Pirates but not yet playing with a Pirate minor league team (they are primarily holdovers from last years short season team who didn’t get promoted to a higher level team this year – some of them will be cut before the short season play starts June 20th). During the course of the draft today I will be updating the site in real time as the Pirates make their picks.

Here’s the link to the site.

And here’s an RSS feed that will be updated as each pick is made.

FOLLOW-UP:  While the blog turned out pretty good for a quick and dirty deal, I ran into some Blogger issues (WordPress has spoiled me) when I tried to put some bells on whistles on the blog.   So I’ve converted the blog to WordPress and here’s the link to the current version.

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Where are they now?

Just in case they didn’t know it, I thought I’d update Ken and Gary on the whereabouts of a couple of old friends of theirs from our Chalfont days.

Conti's Cross Keys Inn

I’m sure most of us second generation Falls remember Conti’s Cross Keys Inn in Doylestown. I had my high school graduation dinner there with the family shortly after the graduation ceremony and shortly before I rear ended a car on 611 on my way to a party – which not surprisingly I never made.

Walt Conti

Walt Conti, was the proprietor of the Inn, and I got to know Walt later through my association with the Tavern Restaurant in State College. Walt was one of the original Tavern waiters hired while he was a student at Penn State in the late 40s early 50s. Walt maintained close contacts with the original Tavern owners and even helped train the first Tavern bartenders when State College finally allowed liquor sales in the late 60s (people used to have to drive 10 miles to Bellefonte to buy a drink or a bottle of booze).

Walt was quite successful in the restaurant business rising to head the prestigious National Restaurant Association. He was remained connected with Penn State serving as a long time Board of Trustees member and even chairing the Board for several years. Walt is now retired and living in South Carolina. However, Walt isn’t the reason that I’m making this post. His two sons, Joe and Mike, are.

Joe Conti

Joe Conti was good friends with Ken in high school. Ken can provide more details but my understanding was that at one time Joe and Ken had talked about going to Penn State, majoring in Hotel and Restaurant Administration, then opening a restaurant together. As it turns out, when the family made the move to Illinois following Ken’s senior year in high school, he decided to stay closer to home and enrolled in Illinois State instead.

Joe continued the family tradition and enrolled at Penn State. He also followed in his fathers footsteps by working at the Tavern Restaurant where I got to now him. Joe eventually took over management of the Cross Keys Inn from Walt. But like his Dad, Joe wasn’t content to just run the family business. Joe got involved in politics eventually getting elected as a State Senator from Bucks County. The demands of his new political career forced Joe to sell the two family restaurants – the Cross Keys Inn and the Pipersville Inn – in 1999.

In 2006, as is wont in politics, Joe got caught up in a political football (state legislators voted themselves a 2005 midnight pay raise that became to be known as a greedy money grab by the public – Joe made an ill fated joke about the pay raise that came back to haunt him and he fell out of favor with the Bucks County Republicans). Joe elected to retire from the Senate rather than fight what appeared to be a losing battle (even if he had won the fight against his fellow Bucks County Republicans he might have lost the war when many Republicans were swept out of office by the Democrats in the 2006 election).

Don’t worry about Joe though. He landed on his feet with a nice appointment as the head of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board aka the LCB. Pennsylvania maintains an archaic system (maybe even more so than Utah) where all liquors sales are controlled by the state. You can’t buy a bottle of booze in this state anywhere other than one of the 600+ State Stores scattered around the state. So Joe is now effectively the manager of those 600+ stores that bring in a staggering $1.6 billion in sales. Nice gig Joe. Oh yes, also like his father, Joe served on Penn State’s Board of Trustees.

Mike Conti

That brings us to Mike Conti. Mike and Gary were friends in junior high school. Mike followed in his brother and fathers footsteps by also going to Penn State, working at the Tavern where I got to know him, and also becoming a friend of mine (I even went to Mike’s wedding in 1978).

After graduation, Mike went to work for his dad at the family inn back in Doylestown. However, like many of us, Mike couldn’t get Penn State out of his blood. In 1992 he returned to work for the University as part of the University’s Hospitality Services. Hospitality Services runs Penn State’s two on property hotels, the Nittany Lion Inn and the Penn Stater Conference Center.

Mike started out as the Food and Beverage Manager for the restaurant at the Nittany Lion Inn. Today he is the General Manager of the entire hotel. The Nittany Lion Inn has been an on campus fixture since it was built in 1929. It features 220+ rooms and is the place to stay to for alumni returning for campus visits. During it’s 75 year history, many notables, including numerous presidents, politicians such as Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King, actors like Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman, and entertainers as varied as Billy Joel and Brittany Spears, have been guests at the hotel.

The Nittany Lion Inn

My hat’s off to the Conti’s – one of Penn State’s most highly regarded families.

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A real hero’s story

A friend of mine, Matt Emmerling, was just honored by the Carnegie Foundation’s Hero Fund. Honorees receive the Carnegie Medal



and a financial grant ($5000 in Matt’s case).

The award was established in 1904 by Pittsburgh Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. His deed commissioning the establishment of the fund noted:

We live in a heroic age. Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men or women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows.

Matt’s story, as told in last week’s press release announcing this year’s award winners.

Matthew J. Emmerling and Kevin J. Mahoney saved Seth L. Mattleman and others from burning, State College, Pennsylvania, April 2, 2006. Mattleman, 20, was asleep in the 2.5-story house he shared with other university students, some of whom were also inside the building. Fire broke out before dawn on the back porch of the house and, spreading rapidly, entered the structure, including into Mattleman’s first-floor bedroom. Emmerling, 21, university student, was nearby when he saw the fire. He and Mahoney, 22, lifeguard, who was walking nearby, responded to the front of the house, where they entered through the front door, shouting to alert any occupants. Two of the residents fled the building. Although dense smoke limited their visibility, the men entered Mattleman’s room and shouted for him to leave, but Mattleman was disoriented. Emmerling grasped him about the arms and pulled him to the front door and outside, Mahoney following. Emmerling and Mahoney then re-entered the house, through a side entrance, and went upstairs, where they evacuated the second floor of at least one occupant. Finding a disoriented man in a bathroom on that floor, Mahoney pulled him by the arms to the stairs, and they stumbled partway down before exiting the house along with Emmerling. Flames soon engulfed the interior of the structure and destroyed it. Mattleman suffered burns and was treated at the scene. He recovered. Emmerling suffered smoke inhalation, for which he sought medical attention the following day, and Mahoney sustained a minor ankle burn. They too recovered.

The actual incident took place a year ago and was written up in a couple of local newspapers including the Penn State student newspaper, the Daily Collegian, where Matt works.

Here are some of them:

The Penn State Daily Collegian on the original incident:
After seeing smoke coming from the back of a house at 700 West College Ave., Emmerling ran into the burning building and was able to fight off the heavy smoke to wake the sleeping residents and, with Mahoney’s help, get everyone to safety before flames engulfed the house.

The Centre Daily Times on the Carnegie Hero Award:
Matt Emmerling, 22, and Kevin Mahoney, 23, didn’t even know each other when they spotted a fire about 4:30 a.m. April 2, 2006, at 700 W. College Ave.

They just happened to be nearby.

Together, they dashed inside and helped wake the eight college students sleeping there. The house ended up being a total loss, but no one was seriously hurt.


The Daily Collegian on a fund raiser to help the kids in the house:
For Brian McHale, this week has been hectic, to say the least. But the fire that brought his house down could not bring his spirits down, especially not last night.

“Without those two heroes, there wouldn’t be a celebration tonight at all,” McHale (senior-supply chain management) said.

Those two heroes are Matt Emmerling and Kevin Mahoney, who saved the lives of several of the students whose house burned down in a fire last weekend.

Photo of Matt with the mother of one of the kids he saved:

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Capping my THON coverage

With various stories about the event.

Hazleton Standard Speaker:: Dance of Love: Nittany Lion football players help make THON memorable for local youngster

A dozen kids and their families get a personal tour of the Penn State football facilities.

The Daily Collegian: Players grant wishes

Another article on the tours hosted by the football players.

Centre Daily Times: Cancer benefit kickoff, impact larger than life

More than 2000 students prep the Jordan Center for THON. A mother of one of the young cancer patients is quoted as saying – “When they’re with those Penn State students,” Sharon Otstott said, “you see these kids (become) normal kids again.”

CentreDaily.com: Students raise $5.2 million at Thon

Crowd estimated as 10,000 to 12,000 for Sunday’s afternoon wrapup.

The Daily Collegian: Thon breaks record by $1 million.

Tavern employee quoted in the article – Independent dancer Jen Shaffer (senior- kinesiology) wore an orange cape during Thon, which her moraler gave her so she’d be easy to spot on the crowded floor. “My moraler made it for me, and in her first shift, gave it to me as a surprise,” she said.

The Daily Collegian: Families enjoy each others’ company at Thon breakfast

On Sunday morning, organizers host a breakfast for all the families in attendance who have a child that has been helped by the Four Diamonds Fund. From the article – Catharine Scott, whose daughter Colleen was diagnosed with cancer when she was only 5, said without the Four Diamonds Fund, paying for Colleen’s treatment “probably would have bankrupted us.

The Daily Collegian: Former Thon kid relives her experience

As a teenager, Kern had the most common type of bone cancer among children, osteogenic sarcoma, in her right knee. She was a Four Diamonds child in 1992 and is now cancer-free. Still, someone from her family has returned to Thon each year for the past 15 years.

The Daily Collegian: Thon supporters trek 135 miles for the kids.

Runners brave brutal conditions to relay a backpack of letters from kids in the Four Diamonds Children’s Ward at Hershey Medical Center 135 miles to deliver them to dancers at the Dance Marathon. This was the first time they did this run and it worked so well that it’s apt to become an annual tradition now.

The Daily Collegian: Mail call delights, energizes dancers.


Mike “The Mailman” Herr danced around the Thon stage as members of the crowd cheered him on, creating a buzz that flooded through the Bryce Jordan Center early Saturday morning.

“You’ve got mail!” he screamed. “Lots of mail!” he added, eliciting cheers and whoops from the tired crowd at this weekend’s Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

Left: Dancer Kerri O’Rourke reads a letter she received during mail call.

StateCollege.com: Familes share experience, find support at Thon.

Article talks about three families and their battles with childhood cancer. One family talks about a special day the Four Diamond Fund hosts for siblings of cancer patients, oft times forgotten victims as the disease hits a family.

The Daily Collegian: Family Hour evokes emotion from all.

At 1PM on Sunday, families of the cancer victims and survivors take the stage to share their stories with the dancers. It is annually the most emotional moment of the event and serves to remind everyone why they are there.


The Daily Collegian: Athletes add excitement

Bears kicker Robbie Gould: “It’s awesome,” said former Nittany Lions kicker and current Chicago Bear Robbie Gould, who signed autographs and took pictures with the kids. “As an alum, this is important to me … it’s the reason you’re here, and it’s the reason you come back.”

The Daily Collegian: Kids work it on the stage

Thon children “worked it” Saturday morning as they strutted, tossed their hair and were treated like celebrities during the kids’ fashion show. The children wore brand new clothes that were donated to the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon by local merchants. Each child was allowed to keep the outfit he or she modeled.

FTK