All movie files require quicktime to view,
click here
to download for free
Dan Baker
Dan Baker spent 21 years broadcasting BIG 5 Basketball at The Palestra,
starting in 1977, and 15 years as Executive Director of the Philadelphia
BIG 5, starting in 1981. He is also well known to local sports fans
as the longtime public address announcer for both the Philadelphia
Phillies, for which he recently finished his 35th season, and the
Philadelphia Eagles, for which he is presently working in his 22nd
season.
Steve Bilsky was a three-time All-Ivy League guard who captained the
nationally-ranked University of Pennsylvania Quaker basketball team,
considered one of the all-time greatest Penn teams in basketball history,
to a 28-1 record in 1970-71. For the past twenty-two years, Bilsky
has served as the University of Pennsylvania Athletic Director. One
of his greatest accomplishments for Penn basketball as the University’s
AD was the conceptualization of “Palestra 2000”, a multi-million
dollar renovation that turned the run down Palestra hallway of the
20th century into a living museum of Philadelphia basketball history.
Bill Bradley played for the Princeton University Tigers from 1961
to 1965, during which time he was a three-time All-American and the
1965 Player of the Year. In 1964, Bradley captained the gold medal-winning
U.S. Olympic basketball team. Not only one of The Palestra’s
all-time greatest opponents, Bradley was a model student-athlete.
He graduated from Princeton with honors and was awarded the prestigious
Rhodes Scholar in Oxford. After completing his studies, Bradley went
on to a Hall of Fame career in the NBA followed by an illustrious
career in politics, including a run for the presidency in 2000 and
an 18-year seat in the Senate. When James Naismith invented the game
of basketball in 1891, Bill Bradley was the very type of player he
envisioned.
Corky Calhoun was a three-time All-Ivy League guard/forward for the
University of Pennsylvania Quakers from 1969-1972. He lead the team
in rebounds his senior year as a forward and was named All-American
as a guard his senior season. Calhoun earned a first-round draft choice
by the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the ABA’s Kentucky Colonels.
His 8-years in the NBA is the longest professional career of any Penn
basketball player in the school’s history.
Bill Campbell, known to all sports fans as “The Dean”,
is one of Philadelphia’s cherished Radio and TV Broadcasters.
Campbell began his career in Philadelphia in 1946 as Sports Director
at WCAU Radio (and later WCAU-TV), one of the first main stations
to cover Big 5 basketball at The Palestra. Campbell was also the play-by-play
broadcaster for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1950-1962, the play-by-play
broadcaster for the Philadelphia Phillies from 1962-1971, and Director
of Broadcasting for the Philadelphia 76ers from 1972 to 1981, making
him a true pioneer of broadcasting in the City of Brotherly Love.
John Chaney is the former long-time coach of the Temple University
Owls, an original member of the Philadelphia Big 5. A Big 5 Hall of
Famer, Chaney took over the reins at Temple in 1982. Before retiring
in 2006, he lead the Owls to 22 post season appearances, including
18 NCAA tournament appearances and 5 NCAA regional finals. He is the
winningest coach in Atlantic 10 history and a member of the Naismith
Hall of Fame.
Greer Cheeseman has been the director of the ever-animated University
of Pennsylvania pep band for the last 10 years. A 1977 University
of Pennsylvania graduate and former member of the Penn band himself,
Cheeseman has been involved in the organization that has filled the
Palestra with enough noise to blow its roof off for over 30 years.
Chuck Daly is one of the most illustrious coaches to have graced the
Palestra hardwood. He began his coaching career in Philadelphia with
the University of Pennsylvania Quakers from 1971-1977. During that
time, he led the Quakers to four consecutive Ivy League titles and
NCAA appearances from 1972-1975, as well as two consecutive NCAA East
Regional finals appearances in 1971 and 1972. Daly entered the NBA
ranks in 1978 with the Philadelphia 76ers as an assistant coach and
would go on to a 14-year head coaching career, which included two
NBA titles with the Detroit Pistons. A member of the Naismith Hall
of Fame, Daly was selected in 1997 as one of the NBA’s “Ten
Greatest Coaches” of the league’s first 50 years.
Don DiJulia is a former member of the Saint Joseph’s basketball
squad, class of 1967. Following successful stints as commissioner
of the East Coast Conference and the MAAC, DiJulia returned to his
alma mater to take the reigns as Athletic Director, a position he
still holds today.
Fran Dunphy has a been a part of the Palestra scene for the better
part of his career in basketball. A 1970 graduate of LaSalle University,
Dunphy helped lead the Explores to a 23-1 record his junior season
and co-captained the team his senior year under the tutelage of then
head coach, the legendary Tom Gola. Dunphy’s tenure as one of
Philadelphia’s most beloved area coaches began in 1989 when
he was named head coach of the University of Pennsylvania Quakers.
His squads won an unprecedented 48 straight Ivy League games and four
league titles from 1992 to 1996. His 1993-94 team posted a 25-3 record
and earned a Number 25 ranking in the CNN/USA Today Coaches' Poll,
the program's first such ranking since the 1978-79 campaign. After
17 years at the Quaker helm, Dunphy was named the 17th head men’s
coach at Temple University on April 10th, 2006. He is the first person
to serve as the head men’s basketball coach at two Philadelphia
Big 5 institutions.
Ed Fabricius was the sports editor for the University of Pennsylvania’s
highly touted periodical The Daily Pennsylvanian at the time during
the formation of the Philadelphia Big 5 in 1955. While members of
the Penn Athletics department were busy convincing the four other
major colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area of the potential
of this round-robin relationship, Fabricius was responsible for getting
the Penn student body on board via the University’s sports publications.
Soon after graduating from Penn in 1955, Fabricius was Sports Information
Director, a job he held well into the 1960s. During that time, he
helped negotiate the start up of WPHL-TV Channel 17’s television
broadcasts of Philadelphia Big 5 basketball, a program that would
go on to unprecedented success.
John Feinstein is one of the most distinguished sports authors in
the country. A 1977 graduate of Duke University, he worked at the
Washington Post for eleven years as both a political and
sports reporter. He has also worked at Sports Illustrated
and at the National Sports Daily. Among his many accomplishments,
Feinstein has authored dozens of sports books including bestselling
titles A Season on the Brink, A Good Walk Spoiled, A Civil War,
The Last Amateurs, and The Punch. In 1989, he released
A Season Inside: One Year in College Basketball, which examined
the great venues and stories of college basketball, with special recognition
of the Palestra and its place in hoops history. Feinstein is currently
a commentator for National Public Radio and Sporting
News Radio and is an essayist for CBS Sports. In addition,
he writes columns for AOL and Golf Magazine, and
contributes to the Washington Post.
Dan Harrell is one of the most recognizable characters of The Palestra
today. Housekeeper of the storied gymnasium, Harrell has kept the
ancient building in tip-top, sparkling shape for over seventeen years.
A true lifelong Philadelphian, Harrell graduated from the University
of Pennsylvania in 2000 from the College of General Studies, finally
fulfilling a dream he had put on hold when he graduated from West
Catholic High School in 1962. No one has a more intimate relationship
with college basketball’s most historic gym, or more interesting
stories to tell of the spirit and essence of the building, than Dan
Harrell.
Sonny Hill is the founder of the Sonny Hill Community Involvement
Basketball League, the heartbeat of Philadelphia Basketball.
Known by some as “the man with the 30-hour day”, Hill
has been running the highly touted league for 38 years. During that
time, his program has mentored a large number of Philadelphia’s
highly successful young ballplayers, many of whom went on to stellar
collegiate careers and, in several cases, NBA stardom. Attending high
school in Philadelphia during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Hill
spent a good part of his young adulthood sneaking into the Palestra
to play ball with the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Guy Rodgers, Hal
Lear and John Chaney. Such experiences made him a lifelong fan of
Palestra basketball and the traditions it has housed for nearly eight
decades.
Harry Kalas is one of Philadelphia’s most legendary broadcasters.
He got his start working in the City of Brotherly Love in 1971 as
the play-by-play announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies. Thirty-five
years later, he has now broadcast over 5,000 Phillies games resulting
in a love affair between this broadcasting icon and the Phillies fans
that is unmatched anywhere else in the country. Soon after he arrived
in Philadelphia, Kalas also joined the television broadcasting team
of Al Meltzer and WPHL-17. The handful of years he spent broadcasting
Big 5 basketball at The Palestra gave him a taste for the Philadelphia
spirit that would enable him to become one of the city’s most
beloved broadcast pioneers. Today, Kalas continues his reign as one
of the great contributors to American sports as the voice of “Inside
the NFL”, a nationally syndicated program from NFL Films.
Phil Martelli is one of Philadelphia’s most noted college basketball
figures and the current installment in the long line of very successful
head basketball coaches for Saint Joseph’s University. Martelli
has lead the Hawks program for the past twelve years, in which time
he was named the Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year on four occasions and
was named the Naismith Coach of the Year in 2004 for leading the heroic
rags-to-riches squad to an undefeated season and final four appearance
this city will not soon forget. Martelli began his career on Hawk
Hill as an assistant in 1985. Since taking over the helm in 1995,
he has shown a strong commitment to honoring the once widely beloved
tradition of Philadelphia Basketball by choosing the Palestra as his
team’s home court during the annual round-robin Big 5 match-ups.
Rollie Massimino is the one of the great coaches in Philadelphia Basketball
history. A native of New York, Massimino got his start coaching in
Philadelphia and at the Palestra after being hired by future Naismith
Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Daly as his assistant at Penn in 1971. For
two consecutive years, Massimino helped lead the Quakers to the Sweet
16 before being named the head Coach at Villanova University in 1973.
For nearly twenty years he led the Villanova Wildcats to unprecedented
success including the highly improbable upset of top-seeded Georgetown
University in the 1985 NCAA Tournament Final. To this day, he remains
the only coach in Philadelphia Big 5 history to tab a national championship
to his resume.
“Big Al” Meltzer is one of Philadelphia’s most beloved
broadcast pioneers. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1966, joining the
WPHL-TV crew as sports director and weekday sportscaster. Lead commentator
for Channel 17, Meltzer was the corner stone to the immediate success
of the station’s radio and television take over of Palestra
basketball during the mid 1960s. For nearly a decade, Meltzer colored
the airwaves of Big 5 basketball in what would eventually become the
most hallowed halls of college hoops. His work in The Palestra with
Channel 17 laid the groundwork for the onset of national broadcast
companies such as ESPN, CBS, ABC, and many more. Today he continues
to provide his unique and instantly recognizable voice and camera
presence to many production pieces on college basketball in Philadelphia.
Doug Overton was a stand out guard for LaSalle University, who’s
successful record-setting collegiate career with the Explorers, including
three consecutive All-Big 5 and All-MAC first team honors from 1988-1991,
afforded him an 11-year professional career and recent induction in
the Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Fame. A Philadelphia native, Overton
was a regular spectator and avid fan of Palestra double-headers while
growing up. It was these frequent trips that developed his love for
the game and inspired him to become a part of the Philadelphia basketball
tradition. Overton currently serves as an assistant coach at Saint
Joseph’s University, a position he took over in May of 2006.
Known by the greater Philadelphia sports community as “Super
Stat”, Harvey Pollack is the ever-precise Director of Statistical
Information for the Philadelphia 76ers. Pollack is not only a true
master of the trade, but the originator of many of the stat lines
used by every team in basketball today. Now nearing his 85th birthday,
he is the only individual who worked in the NBA in its inaugural 1946-47
season to still be working for an NBA team today. A native of Camden,
NJ, Pollack’s statistical methods have guided stat crews for
all the colleges and universities throughout the reign of the Philadelphia
Big 5, a large majority of them at The Palestra
Bill Raftery is a former star member of the LaSalle University basketball
team. He played three seasons under legendary coach Donald “Dudley”
Moore, leading the team in scoring during his sophomore year, and
co-captaining the Explorers to the National Invitational Tournament
his senior year. His outstanding college play earned him a pick in
the NBA draft by the New York Knicks after graduation. For the past
24 years, Raftery has been a very successful member of the CBS Sports
Team as an analyst for CBS Sports College basketball coverage. He
also serves as an analyst for CBS Radio/Westwood One’s coverage
of the NCAA Men’s Final Four, and as an analyst for college
basketball on ESPN.
Jack Ramsay, known simply as “Dr. Jack”, is arguably the
greatest coach to have graced the Palestra floor in Philadelphia Big
5 history, and, without question, one of the all-time great coaches
of the NBA. Ramsay got his start head coaching at the collegiate level
with Saint Joseph’s University starting in 1955, coincidentally
coinciding with the first season of the Philadelphia Big 5. From 1955
to 1966, Ramsay guided the Hawks to a record of 234-72, seven Big
5 Championships and ten postseason appearances, including finishing
third nationally in 1965. In the NBA, Ramsay led both the Philadelphia
76ers and the Buffalo Braves to the playoffs in three of his four
years as head coach from 1968-1972 and 1972-1976 respectively, led
the Portland Trail Blazers to an NBA Championship in 1977, followed
by nine playoff appearances over the next ten years, and concluded
his illustrious career with the Indiana Pacers from 1986-1987. When
he retired, he had the second most wins in NBA history, second only
to Hall of Fame Coach Red Auerbach. Jack Ramsay was unanimously inducted
into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1992.
Al Shrier is the most decorated collegiate public relations professional
in the history of Philadelphia athletics. An alumnus of Temple University,
Shrier has been a part of Temple’s Department of Intercollegiate
Athletics since he graduated in 1953. In 1955, when the five major
colleges and universities in Philadelphia decided to form the Philadelphia
Big 5 and bring all of their match-ups to the Palestra floor, Shrier
was integral in bringing the city’s vast pool of media members
together to follow the hopeful development of the new round-robin
format. He has been a fixture of Big 5 basketball at the Palestra
ever since.
Ed Stefanski is a former stand out shooting guard for the University
of Pennsylvania. A 1976 graduate, Stefanski played three seasons for
legendary Naismith Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Daly in which time he
helped lead the Quakers to two Ivy League Championships. Less than
three years after graduating, Stefanski returned to the most hallowed
halls of college hoops that he once called home to begin a 20-year
run as a color analyst, including 10 years broadcasting Big 5 basketball
at the Palestra with PRISM sports, and 11 seasons as an Atlantic 10
color analyst on ESPN. From 1988 to 1999, he continued his career
with the New Jersey Nets as a play-by-play broadcaster alongside such
greats as Harry Kalas, Mike Breen and Bruce Beck. Stefanski currently
serves as the General Manager of the New Jersey Nets, a position he
has held since 2004.
Bob Weinhauer is the legendary coach of the University of Pennsylvania’s
1979 Final Four “Cinderella” team. Weinhauer arrived on
Penn’s campus as an assistant to future Naismith Hall of Fame
Coach Chuck Daly in 1973, shortly after the departure of Rollie Massimino,
who had been named the new head coach of Villanova University following
the 1972-73 season. For four years, Weinhauer helped lead the Quakers
during some of their most dominant years in school history, before
being named interim head coach upon Chuck Daly’s resignation
to pursue a career in the professional ranks. Penn’s decision
to keep Weinhauer on board was quickly rewarded when two seasons later
his squad made it to the Final Four, a feat no other Penn team had
accomplished, nor have since. Though Weinhauer left Philadelphia to
head up the Arizona State Devils in 1982, and would eventually enter
into professional coaching as well, he still credits much of his success
to the ten years he spent learning the game coaching on the Palestra
floor.
Known by many as “Hoops” Weiss, Dick is a renowned, award-winning
sportswriter for the New York Daily News. Weiss is the past president
of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, and current president
of the College Football Writers of America. He has coauthored books
with legendary college coaches Rick Patino and John Calipari, as well
as Dick Vitale, the most recognizable commentator in college basketball.
Weiss’ true love for the game of basketball began during his
days in Philadelphia where he covered Big 5 college hoops at the Palestra
for the Philadelphia Daily News for 19 years. He takes pride in the
fact that for a period of 7 to 8 years while he covered college basketball
in Philadelphia during its heyday, he never missed a game in the arena
he is credited with coining as the “The Palestra: Cathedral
of Basketball”.
Eric Zillmer is a Professor of Neuropsychology and Director of Athletics
at Drexel University. Zillmer has written extensively in the area
of sports psychology having published more than 100 journals, articles,
book chapters, and books on the subject, and is a frequent contributor
to the local and national media on sports psychology related topics.
An avid college basketball fan and Palestra historian, Zillmer takes
great pride in working just blocks away from the storied arena, and
offers some very interesting insights on the Greek origins of the
building and explanations for its vast success.
