Soft Pretzel Logic

Before I start this post, let me say that after writing the post on stats I was hoping to not have to write that many more long pieces based entirely on what I think instead of something I saw happen. Then I heard on Thursday that John McAdams is being inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame this year, and that standard went out the window. So I hope you'll allow me to share my memories of John with however many of you readers there are out there.

And I invite you to share your memories, either by posting a comment or emailing me. If you choose to email me, let me know whether you're okay with my posting your thoughts on the blog.

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Friday is generally the dead day of the college basketball week. A lot of teams play a midweek game and a weekend game, or maybe a Monday night game, but only a few conferences play with any regularity on the final day of the work week. The league in which Penn plays is one of them. As a result, in recent years, my Friday nights from mid-January to mid-March have been taken up by college basketball.

For the first three years that I watched them, Penn games at the Palestra had a very particular soundtrack -- and it wasn't the pep band. It was John McAdams' crystal-clear voice, at once forceful enough to cut through the crowd noise and restrained enough to never sound like he was shouting. It was he who, in 1986, coined the phrase that singularly defined Philadelphia college basketball for the years in which he owned the best seat in the house:

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the University of Pennsylvania Palestra, college basketball's most historic gym."

I can still hear it now. The way the word "good" silenced the crowd, the inflection in his voice on the word "historic." I suspect those of you who've been going to games for a long time can as well. He used it at every game he called in the building no matter who was playing.

From 1981 to 2005, that voice did as much to give the Palestra its character as the banners in the rafters and the museum on the concourse did.

I am sure that everyone has their own memories of moments that involved John. There are the obvious ones, like when someone scored a dramatic basket and John drew out the name for just an extra half-second:

"Villanova basket scored by number twenty, Jason... Fraser."

"Saint Joseph's basket scored by number fourteen, Jameer ... Nelson."

But there was one John McAdams moment that stood out to me above all the rest. It was the 2005 edition of the Holy War. Mostly St. Joe's fans in the house, though my seat on the upper level press row was closer to the Villanova section. It was a few days after the Eagles had lost the Super Bowl, and with ESPN2 in the house just about everyone was using the game to take their minds off football for a few minutes.

The second half was about to start, and the two student sections were getting back into full throat

"A set of keys has been turned into the scorer's table," he said. "Please check your pockets or purse."

Is there any other arena of any major consequence in the country where that would happen? Seriously. The Big 5 game of the year, a full house in the building, a national TV broadcast. And the public address announcer was telling people that if they were missing a set of keys, they should come to the scorer's table to pick them up.

I can't imagine it happening anywhere other than the Palestra, and I can't imagine anyone other than John McAdams making the announcement. At the very least, I can't imagine any other voice piercing the din in the stands in the way that his did.

The campaign to get McAdams into the Big 5 Hall of Fame while he was still alive was long and hard. Penn athletic director Steve Bilsky, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1988, told me that the Hall has always been "primarily for former players, and then secondarily for coaches." There are a few exceptions, mainly for athletic department staff, media members and referees. But there aren't too many. You can see the full list here.

Of course, Bilsky had no doubt that "John McAdams is clearly deserving... it's a question of in what year we would bring in another special category."

Legend has it that former Penn player Vince Curran was the main advocate for McAdams' induction. I'm sure he and many others wished that Bilsky's question could have been answered before McAdams passed away in 2005. It is a great shame that McAdams missed all the celebrations of the Big 5's 50th anniversary season, as well as the NCAA Tournament games at the Wachovia Center last March.

But at least Curran will be present at the Hall of Fame game between Penn and Saint Joseph's on Jan. 27, and he won't be too far from McAdams' old seat as the color analyst for Penn games on WXPN.

I have nothing but the highest respect for Rich Kahn, the man who replaced McAdams. Rich is of equally high quality and character as John, and is just as down-to-earth and friendly.

Nonetheless, I still miss that voice. The one that was sure that I'd make it as a professional journalist some day, even with the media industry in the state that it's in. I got to know John somewhat well in the three years after I met him. Not as well as many of his other friends, of course, but well enough that he knew my name and my work. He was always full of stories about Big 5 history, and always had just the right perspective when a current event was worth comparing to a past event.

I suspect that a lot of people involved in Big 5 basketball still miss John as well, which will make it all the more poignant when he is remembered next Thursday at the Big 5 Hall of Fame Dinner and at the Quakers-Hawks game two days later.

The most difficult thing of all to believe is that it's been a year and a half since he left us. But I have no doubt that whenever there's a Big 5 game going on, John McAdams still has the best seat in the house.

UPDATE: It turns out that, buried among some old tapes of interviews I've done, I have a recording of the missing car keys announcement. Click here to listen to it.