Saint Joseph's dedicates new Ramsay Basketball Center
Dr. Jack Ramsay is a basketball lifer whose life has been about all those people whose lives he impacted along the way, his beloved alma mater and the family that he so obviously cherishes.
As the Ramsay Basketball Center was dedicated in an outdoor ceremony at Saint Joseph's late yesterday afternoon and so many had so much to say about the man who graduated from St. Joe's 60 years ago, Ramsay began by saying: "I am honored beyond words as to what has happened here today."
Ramsay went back over his life on Hawk Hill, how a "chance meeting" as a 17-year-old with then St. Joe's coach Bill Ferguson led him there, how he learned so much he applied to his life. He said St. Joe's is "connected to every good thing that has happened to me in my lifetime."
As St. Joe's athletic director Don DiJulia said, there is nobody in basketball history with a resumé quite like Dr. Jack's - legendary college coach, NBA general manager, NBA championship coach, more than 1,000 wins, his continuing analysis of NBA games, all those lives affected.
Ramsay recited the names of his entire roster from his first St. Joe's team. Players from all of St. Joe's modern era were there yesterday - including Joe Spratt, who arrived when Ramsay came back as head coach in the mid-1950s, Jack McKinney, Jim Lynam, the point guard from Ramsay's 1961 Final Four team, Tom Wynne, the great Cliff Anderson, Steve Courtin, Jim O'Brien (Ramsay's son-in-law), John Griffin, Geoff Arnold, Rap Curry, Bill Phillips, Chet Stachitas, Pat Carroll and, on the stage next to Ramsay, the 2004 national Player of the Year, Jameer Nelson.
Ramsay seemingly could have reeled off every name of every player who suited up for St. Joe's, and the men who coached them. Of his players, he said: "These guys gave you their heart."
Now, the school that Ramsay has loved so much has named its new basketball center for him. It was his teams that won so often when they were not supposed to, when the other team had better players. That is much harder to do these days when talent wins almost all the time.
But his teams did it. And, now that his name is on the building, there is no chance anybody will ever forget it. *
