Tag Archives: short-story

10.29.25
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Gone: Hard to believe, Harry (Donahue)

At the 4:15 time stamp, Harry Donahue makes the greatest radio call in Temple history.

One day, two sucker punches to the solar plexus.

Two giants in Philadelphia radio, one giant of Temple sports radio.

First, heard that WMMR music radio legend Pierre Robert passed away listening while listening to the radio around 2:43 p.m. today.

Then, 15 minutes later, flipped open the phone and saw that my former colleague at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mike Jensen, posted that Harry Donahue passed away.

Both were hard to believe, especially Harry.

Harry was particularly fond of the Cherry helmets with both White and Cherry uniforms.

Robert, because I just listened to a block of The Grateful Dead that an erstwhile healthy Robert played on Tuesday at noon. Grateful Dead. Maybe it was a premonition.

“I’m going to play a block of the Dead,” is the exact way Robert said it.

One day before he died.

Wow.

He sounded good but less than 24 hours later was found dead in his home. Just goes to show you never really know how long you have and to treat every day like a blessing.

Also didn’t know Harry was sick, but haven’t seen him in a couple of years but didn’t hear that he had any health issues.

Harry Donahue was the favorite of a generation of Temple fans, both football and basketball, because of his longevity. He wasn’t the best in my mind but that’s no knock on Harry because Wayne Hardin brought over the great Ron Menchine, the longtime Navy play-by-play guy, to do Temple football when Hardin got the Owls’ job.

Yet Harry was the ONLY one a generation of Temple fans knew because he did both basketball and football for 30 years.

I will say this. Donahue had the greatest single call of a Temple sporting event I’ve ever heard and that was the upset of No. 10 Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. in 1998.

In those days, the Temple road games weren’t on television and the only way you could keep up with them was a transistor radio. I was jogging up East River Drive (I still refuse to call it Kelly Drive) wearing my Temple football jersey and holding the transistor in one hand.

When they won and Harry made that call (4:15 timestamp, top video), I did a 37-inch vertical leap and pumped both my fists. Coming at me the other way was another guy wearing Temple swag.

“Did Temple win?” he asked.

“28-24, they won,” I said.

“I’m Raheem Brock’s father,” he said.

“Are you Zach Dixon?”

“No, I’m his stepfather. Great news.”

Great news delivered by Harry on that day, sad news about Harry on this one.

Hard to believe indeed.

Friday: East Carolina Preview

03.23.25
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Keeler’s first play call: Split the helmet baby

The greatest Temple helmet in history IMHO.

In the grand scheme of things, not one of the top 10 things K.C. Keeler needs to do as a head coach but it is certainly an important play call only he can make.

Go back to the “TEMPLE” helmet or keep the university signature “‘][‘ Logo.

Or do both.

The status quo is not an option.

There is a direct correlation between winning football at Temple and the TEMPLE helmet.

Had a long discussion with Matt Rhule about this a couple of days after he was hired and he said: “I don’t know if that’s my call.”

Told him that it was because the precedent had been established by a number of coaches before him.

Wayne Hardin changed an absolutely putrid-looking Owl logo to simply “TEMPLE” spelled out on the helmet.

“We want people to know who we are, that’s why I did it,” Hardin said at the time. “Plenty of teams have a logo or a T. We want to spell it out so there is no confusion.”

No consultancy fee necessary so splitting it in two is perfect.

TEMPLE had some–err, most–of its best football years wearing that helmet. It lasted from Hardin through Bruce Arians before Jerry Berndt switched it back to the T and 20 years of hell followed.

Like Rhule, though, Al Golden didn’t know if it was “his call” and stuck with the T through his first season, which was a 1-11 one.

After that season, though, Golden changed it and rubbing that helmet put some luck back in the program. Then Steve Addazio changed it back to the “T” and more hell followed after that.

“I did it because I associated that TEMPLE helmet with some of the toughest teams I played when I was at Penn State,” Golden said.

That’s why, when Rhule answered my first congratulatory email with “Mike, give me a call” I thought that was a good place to bring it up.

Rhule also stuck with the T, proving that the person inside the helmet was either just as or more important than the brand itself.

Since then, my King Solomon Solution has been my constant recommendation.

Split the baby.

Temple has had some bad helmets (and one good one) over the years.

“TEMPLE” on one side and the ‘][‘ on the other. The helmet was one of many things that didn’t make sense during the Stan Drayton Era because it had the ‘][” on one side and the number on the other. Talk about the Department of Redundancy Department.

The number was on both sides of the jerseys and didn’t need to be on a third spot.

Splitting the baby and putting the football logo on one side of the helmet and the university logo on the other would be the logical solution and it would be a bloodless one.

Somewhere up there, we think both Hardin and King Solomon would approve.

Friday: Some Progress