By Mel Greenberg
PHILADELPHIA - Greetings on this Wednesday.
First the Guru needs to clear the record concerning the background of young Valeria, the cashier on duty several nights at one of the Guru's late-nite diners.
After showing the shoutout on his blackberry in the previous blog, the Guru was told he was a little mis-informed.
Valeria is not from Romania. She is from Moldova, which is somewhere over there, but she speaks Romanian.
The Guru needed to do this quickly because she has requested his URL to monitor future comments on days she is not awake in the same weird hours to most of this readership.
The Guru offered Valeria a chance to tell the world a little of her impressions since arriving her and of her home country, but she gave her trademark response: "We'll see."
However, do not think she is too laid back.
When the Guru mentioned she could be useful as a translator when it comes time to interview Drexel's Gabriela Marginean, a native of Romania, for extensive story about the current No. 2 scorer in the country, Valeria quickly showed her grasp of the American economy by responding, "Ten dollars an hour."
The Guru wanted to negotiate rates based on paragraphs and word responses.
However, that could be dangerous once the two of them start talking.
Incidentially, can someone at Rutgers explain why when the Guru went searching for more information about Moldova at several sites, links to Scarlet Knights pages popped up.
Is someone on the coaching staff working on a secret pipeline?
Speaking of Rutgers, moving on to the story behind the headline, former Rutgers-Illinois-St. Joseph's coach and Immaculata star Theresa Grentz was the guest speaker at West Windsor, N.J., on Tuesday to help promote the NCAA regional at Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton next March.
The Guru got a brief scare on his arrival when some local bankers on the organizing committee approached him about a bailout.
It turns out, Grentz was a few minutes late making the long across the turnpike haul from Chester County where she is now a vice president of her alma mater.
"I don't know how it happened, I certainly didn't ask for it," Grentz said of her new position that was a quick promotion after her hire last year.
The native of Upper Darby entertained the audience, and said the movie about Immaculata "Our Lady of Victory," is still targeted to be released at Easter, also the time of the Final Four in St. Louis.
Much of what else Grentz had to say has been reported her before about her life-after-coaching.
She also offered a few inspirational thoughts.
Following the speech, Grentz emceed a fashion show of which most of the models were members of the Mercer County business community.
One, however, was Rider assistant coach Rashana Barnes, the former Penn State star from Philadelphia's West Catholic High, who was a member of the Nittany Lions 2000 Final Four contingent.
Barnes, known as a "quiet" individual in her day, showed she might have another career the way she appeared on stage twice in different sports apparel.
When she appeared quickly after modeling the first outfit, Grentz qupped, "Gee it usually took you longer to come out of the locker room at Penn State," recalling the former Big Ten wars between the Illini and PSU.
Looking ahead, the Guru will be at Temple late Wednesday afternoon for the Owls' matchup with Dartmouth on the front end of a doubleheader with the men.
-- Mel
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