(Guru's note: A story on the Guru's Inquirer departure written by Frank Fitzpatrick that is in Saturday's print section appears elsewhere in Philly.com. Because it held a few days for mere things such as the Phillies and Flyers games and the NFL draft, comments from a certain coach who grew up in Norristown and has led his team to two straight unbeaten NCAA women's titles were able to insert into the story despite his busting the original deadline. That ought to make papers in a state north of New York think twice before giving him any assignments in Nutmeg country.)

By Mel Greenberg

So Mel, what was the final full-time hour like on Friday night in the Sports Dept. before slipping into the past tense and the three-week extended fadeout to take care of adminstrative and archival matters?

Technically, the transition began a little while ago and it is unclear whether the identity badge will open the gates of the garage out back allowing me to leave. In fact, they may have calculated that as a way of keeping me around without pay or to increase the value of the place at Tuesday's auction of the paper.

But as bad luck would have it since it was a normally scheduled desk shift, the Guru went down to the last file slug, last game element in the slug, just-before the final deadline.

It reminded him of the time Tim Kelly, a former sports editor in the early 1970s now publisher of the paper in Lexington, Ky., approached his last day here and went through the process as if nothing was about to change.

One of the Guru's duties Friday night was writing blurbs for the baseball minor-league roundup, consisting of the Phillies' affiliates in Reading (Pa.), Lakewood (N.J.), Lehigh Valley (Allentown, Pa.), and the Yankees' affiliate in Trenton, N.J., 30 miles north of here.

Three games were over quickly, but Lakewood went into extra innings stretching between the final major deadline and what we call the quick lift, which happens 30 minutes later. Then Hagerstown went ahead in the top of the 12th with a run but Lehigh Valley tied it.

"I'm never going to wrap it up," the Guru thought. Finally, a lead-off homer in the bottom of the 14th just before the absolute deadline approached gave Lakewood the win, the Guru an easy blurb, and life as he has known it for the past 40 plus years was moments away from going into transition.

Piece of cake.

For you stats freaks, by the way, the Guru calculated that give-or-take vacation time (what's that?), 10 extra days added for leap years, the math shows that he has been involved with the Inquirer for some 14,400 days.

Farewell Poem

Here is a poem assistant/deputy (titles change twice a month) sports editor Gary Miles read in a Night-Before-Christmas motif at Thursday's farewelll salute to the Guru that got the proceedings under way.

Incidentally, the Guru has been told that video will be available sometime next week.

Twas a minute till deadline and all through the desk,there was chaos and panic. The slot was a mess.
The news had just broken. Cohen’s head was still swimmin’. The NBA had confirmed it. They were changin’ to women!

Other papers and Web sites were out of the loop. They scrambled for someone to get them the scoop.

But Cohen and Quinn and I felt very well, when in through the door walked our top expert, Mel.

His eyes, how they twinkled, his dimples how merry. And he chuckled and cackled as he tapped his Blackberry.

“Chill out,” he said. “I blogged that last week. Just cut it and paste it and give it a tweak.”

And we beat the whole nation, were the toast of the day. Then Mel retired to our great dismay.

But we heard him exclaim as he left our white tower, “If you need me, just call me. Hundred dollars per hour!”

Show and Tell

So what will the first day off the payroll books be like.

If the Guru wakes up in time, he may attend the clinic being held in South Philadelphia Saturday morning by the Big Five women's coaches and Drexel coach Denise Dillon.

However, several months ago, the Guru had originally declared this an off-day prior to rush of events because on Saturday night in center city he will be attending the 45th reunion of the 123 graduating class of Northeast High.

I guess the Guru has a some souvenirs from the past few days to bring along in case his former classmates ask what the Guru has been up to since the parting of ways as the last mid-year graduating class back there in January, 1965.

Voice From the Past

So early Friday night the Guru left his desk to check on an artifact or two that may or may not have to be moved elsewhere and when he returned he noticed a red light on his office phone indicating a message had been left.

The Guru won't give you the name per se but you can guess the identity because the person was a longtime coach of a nationally prominent university located in the middle of the Guru's state of Pennsylvania.

It was a shock at first because the Guru had not spoken with this person since weeks before the individual left the profession three seasons ago.

A return number was not left but since the coach had local ties to the Guru and had just heard the news, the person wanted to convey thanks and appreciation for the person's words, though again the Guru notes, it's not the basketball era that's ending here.

But since that person would always proclaim "It's official," when the Guru would appear at a media day or game involving that team, I guess because of the message and looking at the clock on the way in an empty newsroom, the Guru can say, "It's official."

Also, the Guru appreciates the emails received and stories he's seen to date in the past several days.

-- Mel

,

(Guru's note: Since enough requests have come, here is the text, with some explanations in parentheses, of the farewell speech given Thursday afternoon by the Guru to Inquirer colleagues past and present at a newsroom reception for his "retirement" effective after Friday night's shift. The email address and access will continue for three more weeks after going off the payroll.

The speech is focused more on the 40-plus years of  Inquirer life because as the Guru has said, the blog will continue either here or at another address -- stay tuned -- and his chronicling of women's basketball will also move forward. A story on the basketball life, which was suppose to appear in Friday's sports section, apparently is on a brief hold due to the crush of sports news involving live coverage of the Flyers, Phillies and the NFL draft. Jonathan or yours truly will advise when it appears.).

THE GURU INQUIRER GOODBYE SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

To begin, short of just mentioning my self-appointed mentor and patron Ron Patel, and our former late night city editor Michael Comerford, aka the Commodore who was the leader of the group known as the whack jobs, of which I guess I was one, I’d like us to pause and take 10 seconds or so to remember the people who have been here over the last four decades who are no longer with us on the planet and also to keep in our thoughts the well wishes to those who can’t be here because of health issues and other matters.

Let us bow our heads.

(PAUSE)

Now to get down to the entertainment portion of the program, having led a multiple life in this piece of real estate for over four decades, to arrive at this particular time is very tricky in trying to really emphasize The Inquirer side of things.

I’d like first to congratulate all of you on the employment roster who in a matter of days will each move up at least one slot on the seniority lists – actually two slots since my sports colleague Jack Ewing is crowding the door in front of me.

The bottom line is: I was here before any of you came, and it now appears I will no longer be here after any of you leave.

Incredibly, this is the third time the paper has thrown a party on my behalf, beginning in 2000 which helped launch the NCAA Women’s Final Four here.

What a year that was when I got to run the newsroom for eight months using executive editor Bob Rosenthal as my front man.

Then in 2007, there was the party downstairs for the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Induction.

As for this event, well in the last two weeks I have never seen so many people around here jump through hoops just to satisfy (sports editor) Jim Cohen’s Corned Beef fetish.

You know my Boswells here writing my public bio – Mike Vitez in the past and Frank Fitzpatrick in tomorrow’s (Friday’s) paper, have focused on the women’s basketball angle which produced the notoriety in my case. But it is the journalistic life in this building that enabled the basketball experience involving myself to become a reality.

Here’s a secret for most of you. My real start in women’s athletics was driving Temple cheerleaders to men’s basketball games at the request of Al Shrier, then the sports information director.

It was the greatest thing that ever happened to Joe Juliano, then a young Temple News student sports editor who reunited with me in sports some years later.

On one particular long trip to Boston, four of them squeezed into the back seat with Joe. When we hit Beantown, Joe told me not to stop but keep driving to New Hampshire.

In the past when people have said I’m the history, it has been all about the chronicling of women’s basketball. But at this moment, in the context of the next Inquirer payroll sheet, I actually am history.

So, then where do we dive into the retrospective?

To kill the myth, I never knew Benjamin Franklin though I think I’ve used every transmission device here since his time.

When I came to the Inquirer I went out and bought a little portable Olivetti typewriter back in the day when Italy could produce a publishing system that functioned much better than Hermes (the system now used in the Inquirer newsroom).

(Thursday) night, when I was at the Women’s Big Five dinner,. I recorded a few quotes on this little digital device and then sat in the car, put on a headset, transcribed the remarks into a blackberry and, then transmitted them to the sports desk.

In between over the past four decades, from typewriters we went to telerams – if you don’t recall, don’t ask – then PSI devices, then the Radio Shack Trash 80s, and finally on to the evolution with PCs.

Remember Al Hasbrouck’s memo back in the early days? 20 megabites will be all you ever need.

Today, that’s just the amount of email I get every 30 minutes.

As I move through this, I’m trying to stay off of names, except when needed, to avoid omissions. Besides, as we go through this short narrative everyone will know the who and when of each era.

A special thanks to friendships developed downstairs from the folks throughout the Daily News.

I would like to salute all those in the room who grew together with me out of the Editorial Assistant ranks into our various achievements.

One former fellow EA here is Bryan Meehan who I found in the wire room at 3 a.m. three days after both of us were hired here on 9-9-69.

Of course a short time later, he dated some young woman in Action Line -- no that wasn’t a dating service – She eventually became Maureen Meehan without whom this party wouldn’t be possible. So as always give her a hand.

Dan DeDeluca, the pop music writer in features, shared the notoriety with me of becoming bargaining chips when the contract negotiation in the early 1990s put us into the reporter category.

To many of you off of one of my many jobs, I unwittingly became your agent, so to speak, in giving you national exposure as the liaison between the newsroom and filing your stories to the Knight-Ridder wire in Washington for other papers to use.

In fact, those folks in D.C. became part of my extended family.

Of course, the nice thing about that perk in running the wire feed was being able to file my own stories at longer lengths than the Inquirer ran them. Don McKee in sports will tell the famous story when Jay Searcy was the sports editor and handed me a newspaper with a full page blowout, but no byline, and scribbled the note, “This is what we should be doing.”

McKee immediately recognized my copy and called out behind Jay’s back – “It is what we’re doing.”

I got to know (former Inquirer executive editor) Gene Roberts before most because I was given chauffeur duties in the early days. Years later, after his retirement, I had to take him back to his house outside Washington and stay over.

After we went inside, I paused for a moment and suddenly Gene grabbed my stuff and had me follow him up the steps to show me my bedroom. It was at that moment I thought to myself, “They ought to see this scene. Who says Gene can’t carry my bags?”

In fact I think I scared him back into active duty because when he realized something was wrong with that picture, a week later he was named editor of the New York Times.

My tour of duty in features produced the great perk of former restaurant critic Elaine Tait taking me as “the other” to lunch and teaching such culinary delights as the joy of sushi.

Although sports is where I wrote most of my stories, I would like to thank all the copy and backfield and desk editors, yes especially in sports, who produced fancy displays, wrote great headlines and saved me from myself.

Of course, to save me, they actually had to learn about women’s basketball to spot any errors.

There have been wild stunts over the years, such as the time that I was to be in Los Angeles while the newsroom high command was attending a Knight-Ridder confab.

They wanted me to show up and surprise Roberts.

They hadn’t come back from dinner when I arrived at the hotel so I went to the suite and then got introduced to a well-dressed gentleman named Tony Ridder, the head of the chain.

Well, you can imagine the look of their faces when they finally arrived and there I was answering questions from Tony Ridder about Cheryl Miller and others in the women’s game.

Upon my return the next five weeks, they were my calmest in the newsroom . Everyone was treating me with kid gloves because I was now being called “Tony’s pal.”

The trips delivering the Pulitzer Prizes at the last minute because of Roberts’ reluctance to send them on their way without his seal of approval evoked a few stories – the near-attempt to put me in a helicopter and swing into Columbia University on a day with 50 mile an hour winds until I said, “Gene, playing King Kong and dying for the company doesn’t come with the job.”

Because of the experiences, I can tell you every shortcut and back alley on the West Side between the GW Bridge and upper Broadway where the Columbia journalism building is located.

Some of you are familiar about my trip taking the Duke – the cheap velvet John Wayne painting -- to France for the late Steve Lovelady’s 50th birthday to surprise him and his wife Ann Kolson. She actually worked with me in features at the time.

The plotters had a young woman from Australia meet me in Paris to keep me out of trouble and when I returned stateside Ashley Halsey – the national editor – said, “What did Helen look like?”

I responded, “I went through the green area at Orly airport like you said, I heard a woman’s voice call my name – and at that moment, I knew this was no dream that Max King, who was Roberts’ successor, and the rest of them had truly sent me abroad.”

To wrap up before Maureen hits me with the hook, no matter where this place is headed, the friendships over the years – four decades in my case – can never be erased. This has been a home with character and characters, which I guess I’m one.

You have been there in times of family illnesses and passing.

People over the years have said to me that I never see you get told when you’ve done a good job on a particular story and the like.

But that’s not what’s really important because if there were problems, I wouldn’t have been able to live this life for so long.

What matters most, however, what really is important, is the readership – the numbers on the blog and twitter – as well as people reacting to print and online coverage from all over country. They have looked to this institution as providing what they consider something special.

And because of that they have dropped notes – parents, players, former players, coaches, relatives – to simply say – thank you.

And in turn I now look at all of you in this room and say in kind – Thank You.
 

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

  This is not going to be too long in that the Guru has been busy with the countdown and out this week.

 But in noticing the news over the weekend of the passing of former Delaware coach Joyce Perry, the Guru would like to say she was a class act.

 Joyce, who became Delaware's coach in 1978 two years after the Guru launched what became the Associated Press women's poll, was brought aboard as one of the voting board. Even though the Blue Hens were not high threshhold, but still competitive during her era, she was one of our group who consistently was on hand every Sunday to cast her ballot.

 Her Delaware teams, as Tina Martin's now, always had a strong mix of scheduling against the Big Five and Joyce was usually a part of the Philly social group at Final Fours during her time.

She preserved the work of Mary Ann Campbell (Hitchens) and moved Delaware forward, setting the stage for Tina Martin to lead the Blue Hens through new threshholds.

The Guru sends his condolences to the entire Delaware family on her passing.

Nolan's Lafayette Hire Evokes Memory Lane

The news that Yale assistant Dianne Nolan will become the new coach of Lafayette evokes memories of a long-tme association back to the days of when she was a high school student, the Guru was a basketball manager at Temple, and her older brother Drew played for the Owls.

 The Guru, who had the comp tickets at a time when NCAA regulations, usually found a way to take care of her friends and invite them to the parties afterwards.

  Some time after Temple won the NIT when it was fashionable to win the NIT and the Guru moved on to his next life at The Inquirer and eventually launched the poll, he got a letter (no email back then folk) from the coach's office at St. Francis, N.Y., which began -- "You may not remember me. . ."

  Nolan went on to a long stint at Fairfield and of course the Guru made her a voter also.

Speaking of voters, former Maryland coach Chris Weller who will be an inductee in June at the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville was one of the Guru's original charter group.

  Just mentioning it, though as the Guru continues to note, his own era will continue in a form to be determined shortly.

 It's just the print relationship that will change though as a certain former High School turned-volleyball player said at a press conference in a neighboring state below here in the fall of 2008 -- the home of the vice president for the geographically challenged -- "Can't say never because that's a long time. In her case, implied "never" lasted around 12 months.

  More from the ship while still on board in the next 24 or 48.

   -- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

 Senior Tina Charles of the still unbeaten defending NCAA champion Connecticut Huskies was unable to the be in Los Angeles Saturday night at the annual ritzy presentation of the John R. Wooden Award that is awarded through the Los Angeles Athletic Club to the top collegiate men's and women's players.

Scheduling conflicts had the native of Brooklyn in Secaucus, N.J., Thurday, for the WNBA draft and then off to the UConn campus in Storrs by Sunday for the USA Basketball Senior Women's National Team workouts under Huskies coach Geno Auriemma.

So in a first-ever move, with Charles unable to come to the Wooden ceremony, officials will be in Storrs Thursday to make the presentation off site.

Because of the addition of the USA Select Team under Virginia coach Debbie Ryan and her former player South Carolina coach Dawn Staley on site, all five Wooden All-Americans will be on hand at the ceremony.

The Guru, as a member of the women's advisory board, was invited, but is doubtful at this time whether he can attend.

The other four All-Americans are Virginia's Monica Wright, who is on the Select Team, UConn junior Maya Moore, who won the Wooden a year ago and is on the national roster, Nebraska senior Kelsey Griffin, also on the Select Team, and Stanford's Jayne Appel, a senior who is on the national roster, and her Cardinal teammate Nneka Oguwmike, a sophomore.

A week ago Charles went first overall to the Connecticut Sun as expected in the WNBA draft and Griffin also landed with the Sun after being picked third overall by the Minnesota Lynx and then dealt shortly afterwards to the Sun. Wright as the second overall pick was picked by Minnesota.

Moore likely will be the overall WNBA top pick next season and Ogwumike is heading for a high first round pick in the future based on her play with Stanford the first two years that included a runnerup finish earlier this month to Connecticut in the title game in San Antonio, Texas.

Colorado's Lappe Gets Congrats From a Former Teammate

 When Linda Lappe was named the new coach of Colorado, her alma mater, Monday in succeeding Kathy McConnell-Miller, the Guru got a note from her former Buffs teammate Kate Fagan, who was a senior the same season in 2003 when they finished their collegiate careers in a loss to Villanova in the Sweet 16 in Knoxville, Tenn.

Fagan was hired by The Inquirer sports department last year and for better or worse will be finishing her second season Wednesday night as the beat writer covering the 76ers.

"I'm so excited for Linda, she's going to rock it," Fagan said in a text message upon hearing the news.

Big Five Women's Awards

The Big Five women's awards annual reception will be next Wednesday in Pennsauken or Cinnaminson -- it's on the border and the Guru forgets which -- across the Delaware River in New Jersey.

 The Guru had a vote along with the coaches and his picks were as follows:

Player of the Year: Kristen McCarthy of Temple

Rookie of the Year: Laura Sweeney of Villanova

Most Improved Player: Jasmine Stone of Temple (was a tough call over Ashley Logue of St. Joseph's).

And Coach of the Year: Tonya Cardoza.

There's also a sportsmanship award, but since that is a dart toss with all five nominees worthy, the Guru declines to reveal his choice.

As for the First Team, the Guru went with McCarthy, Maria Getty of Villanova, Qwedia Wallace and Stone of Temple, and Brittany Ford of St. Joseph's.

His second team on the ballot consisted of: Villanova's Sweeney, La Salle's Morgan Robertson, St. Joseph's Logue and Ashley Prim, and Temple's LaKeisha Eaddy.

   Summer League Action

 The Philadelphia Dept. of Recreation NCAA Women's Summer League is moving from Northeast High to the Renegades AAU Gym in Hatboro on Tuesday and Thursday nights beginning June 15.

 The Guru will provide the exact address in an ensuing post once the teams are formed.

Despite lavish farewells for David Kessler's retirement from the department at the end of last summer, he will again be back as the commissioner where has done an outstanding job running the league.

 And no, even though a week from Friday marks the end of the Guru's 40-plus year run at The Inquirer, he is not holding an offer this time from Kessler to be the commisiner's assistant.

  Besides, there will be nights that conflict with WNBA games along the seaboard in Connecticut, New York and Washington that will preclude the Guru's attendance. However, the league will continued to be chronicled in the Guru's blog at a site still to be determined -- all options, including here, open at this time -- and you all will be informed once plans are complete.

          -- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

New Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve was not on the scene in her home area this winter to see much of Drexel senior Gabriela Marginean.

One reason was she was busy making a career move after the former WNBA champion Detroit Shock, of which she had been assistant coach and general manager, moved to Tulsa under a new organization.

That resulted in her joining the Lynx, where her former boss Bill Laimbeer is an assistant on the NBA Timberwolves side as an assistant coach.

Still, the South Jersey native had made enough trips in previous years scouting talent and seeing some Drexel games as Marginean worked her way to eventually become the all-time career women's collegiate scorer in the Philadelphia area with 2,581 points.

"We are looking forward to seeing what Gabby can do after such a stellar career at Drexel," Reeve, a former La Salle star in the late 1980s, sent the Guru in a text message after the draft Thursday that arrived too late to use in the print story for Friday editions. "We believe she has a skill set that differs from the existing group of Lynx post players.

Of course, prior to Marginean being taken in the third round, Reeve was involved in part of the trigger for several blockbuster transactions.

Renee Montgomery and the No. 1 overall pick, which became Tina Charles, were dealt near their UConn roots to the Connecticut Sun in ezchange for Minnesota home girl and WNBA All-Star Lindsay Whalen and the No. 2 overall pick, which became Virginia star Monica Wright.

The Lynx had the third overall pick also on Thursday and chose Nebraska star Kelsey Griffin, who was dealt later to the Sun in another transaction.

Marginean is the latest in a group of persons from the area who have landed in the women's pro league.

The most prominent in the past decade is former Temple sensation Cadice Dupree, who was picked sixth overall by the Chicago Sky and has become a perennial All-Star.

She was involved in the recent mega three-way deal that was highlighted by fiormer Rutgers star Cappie Pondexter landing with the New York Liberty and Dupree being sent to the WNBA defending champion Phoenix Mercury.

On Sunday Dupree was invited to join the spring training of the U.S. Senior Women's National team in training in Storrs, Conn., under NCAA champion coach Geno Auriemma, who will guide the Olympians in London in 2012.

A year after Dupree was picked, Temple's Kamesha Hairston went in the bottom of the first round to the Connecticut Sun, where she played a few seasons.

In 2008, two graduating Maryland stars, Willingboro's Crystal Langhorne and Cheltenham High's Laura Harper, were first-round picks with Langhorne playing at the nearby Washington Mystics and Harper with the former Sacramento Monarchs.

Former Delaware star Tyresa Smith saw time in Detroit with the Shock, while St. Joseph's assistant coach Sue Moran, an all-time Hawk star, spent time earlier in the last decade with the Liberty in Madison Square Garden.

Of course two of the all-time notables are Dawn Staley, the former Temple coach and Dobbins High graduate, who played for the former Charlotte Sting and Houston Comets before her retirement, while former St. Joseph's star Debbie Black played for the former Miami Sol and then with the Connecticut Sun.

Black is now an assistant to her former Hawks coach Jim Foster at Ohio State but told the Guru at the Women's Final Four in San Antonio that she is ready to make her next coaching career move.

Down the road, two area persons who will be talked about as WNBA prospects are UConn sophomore Caroline Doty, a graduate of Germantown Academy, and Delaware freshman Elena Delle Donne.

Meanwhile, beyond the immediate region, Penn State senior Tyra Grant was taken by Phoenix, which recently sent former Nittany Lion all-time scoring star Kelly Mazzante to New York in the Pondexter deal.

Former Penn State stars Suzie McConnell-Serio, now coaching Duquesne, and Helen Darling, have played in the league.

Chicago with the fourth pick took former Rutgers star Epiphanny Prince, who bypassed her senior season to play in Europe. Pondexter is New York will reunite wth former Scarlet Knights stars Kia Vaughn and Essence Carson. Another of their former teammates -- Matee Ajavon -- plays for Washington, while Tammy Sutton-Brown, one of the Rutgers stars of the 2000 Final Four squad in Philadelphia, is on the defending Easterrn champion Indiana Fever.

Pndexter, who was taken in 2006 as the second overall pick, teammed with former UConn star Diana Taurasi to bring the Mercury two WNBA titles in the past three years.

Rashidat Juaid, a former Inquirer player of the year at Camden Catholic who just finished at Rutgers, went in the third round to the Los Angeles Sparks.

         -- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

  In some cases, the WNBA draft coming less than 48 hours after the NCAA women's title game will keep the highs going.

That would be in Connecticut where UConn star Tina Charles will go as quickly as Sun coach Mike Thibauldt wants to tease the masses when his organization takes the first turn on the clock. The big suspense is now over whether he will also add Huskies star Kalana Greene, whose stock continued to rise as her team bulldozed its way down the stretch to an unprecedented second straight unbeaten season.

The Sun are in position to grab Greene after gaining the seventh overall pick in a trade with the Tulsa -- formerly Detroit -- Shock.

Meanwhile, back on the West Coast, Stanford was still hurting after throwing away a chance to stop the Huskies' record streak, now at 78.

  It was revealed that star center Jayne Appel also had a stress fracture besides the right ankle sprain that helped limit her along with the UConn defense to 0 points.

  However, Appel will go quickly behind Charles depending on needs and she will be all smiles when she learns the next stop in a prolific basketball career.

  Two years ago, the Guru asked Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer in Tampa whether it was a good thing for the draft to come so quickly on the heels of the collegiate championship, which back then was the next day.

  The Women's Basketball Hall of Famer, whose team had just lost to Tennessee after giving UConn its last loss in the semifinals.

  VanDerveer liked the idea that seniors could quickly move on to the next phase of their careers without dwelling over what just had occurred.

     Biden Got The Memo

  There was some speculation that Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill were anxious to see Connecticut in the title game so he can resume ties with Elena Delle Donne from the days when she was making shots as a high school phenom in Delaware and he was still the United States senator from that state.

  No truth to that so apparently he got the word that Delle Donne's UConn experience two years ago was less than 48 hours before she headed home with a severe case of home sickness that ulitmately resulted in her playing the sport near her home this season with the Blue Hens.

   Incidentally, with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in the house to cheer for Stanford where she once drew a paycheck, it would have been a nice motif in San Antonio for a notable with the last name of Beans to in the Alamodome also so it could be mentioned that Rice and Beans were among the crowd of about 22,000 spectators.

   Local Draft Hopefuls

  Names that may or may not be taken Thursday from Division I schools of interest here include Drexel's Gabriela Marginean and Penn State's Tyra Grant. Of course, former Rutgers star Epiphanny Prince is expected to go high after foregoing her senior season to play in Europe.

   Former Villanova star Laura Kurz recently signed a training camp contract with the Seattle Storm and coach Brian Agler said he like the Wildcats leader who helped restore the team to prominence after she transferred from Duke.

  Since the Guru plans to be on the scene at NBA Entertainment Studios off the Jersey Turnpike, he is going to sign off now.

    -- Mel

(Guru's note: The main game story is below this post.)

(Guru's note: A sidebar is posted above this)

By Mel Greenberg

(Guru's note: Kayla Goldman, a student from Orlando, Fla., riding shotgun with the Guru down here in Dixie has a sidebar feature on Germantown Academy's Caroline Doty of UConn under this post. -- Mel)

By Mel Greenberg