Monthly Archives: September 2017

by Colin Hanna, C’68, PAR’96

Colin Hanna, C’68, PAR’96

This half-century of remembrance is especially poignant to me, because it’s also the celebration of the golden anniversary of my marriage to Pricie Hemphill.  She was in the class of ’69 but graduated in ’68 at the end of the first summer session, so she can claim membership in our class as well as the one behind us!

My years at Penn were both a lot of fun and instrumental in setting me on my life’s course in communications.  One of my main non-academic interests upon arriving at Penn was broadcasting, so I became an announcer and talk show host on WXPN, which was entirely student-run at the time.  My father had been a director in radio, television and the theatre, and that may have been what whetted my appetite.  Some may remember a TV commercial I did for Wildroot while at Penn.  It earned me enough money to marry Pricie in December of our senior year!

At Penn I entered the NROTC program, and when commissioned an officer in the Navy, I was assigned to the office of the Chief of Information in the Pentagon.  There I did a daily radio news feature on the Navy’s activities in Vietnam and announced a couple of Navy training films. Upon leaving the Navy, I landed a job with CBS Radio in New York.  I wanted to be on the air with WCBS Newsradio, but took a job in sales instead, thinking that once I was in the company, I’d make the move to an on-air job – a move that never happened because I found sales so rewarding. When we were in New York, Pricie joined Citibank and quickly rose to become one of its first woman officers.  CBS then transferred me to a sales management job back in Philadelphia, where Pricie and I became season ticket holders for Penn football. She joined Scott Paper and soon became Assistant Treasurer and eventually the company’s first woman Vice President.  I did a few more TV commercials along the way, and after about 7 years with CBS, I became President of a small advertising agency. We moved to West Chester and had two children, Jeannie (Penn 1996) and Colin (Wheaton 2003).  I sold the advertising agency and began twenty years or so of entrepreneurial ventures, the common thread of which was communication. I also became politically active, joining the Republican Committee of Chester County as a precinct Committeeman.  In 1995, I was elected Chester County Commissioner, where I served for eight years, four as Chairman.

After leaving office at the end of my second term, I founded a conservative public policy organization called Let Freedom Ring, which I continue to lead on a full-time basis. I have appeared around fifty times on TV, mostly on the cable news channels like Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, and hundreds of radio talk shows around the country. I created and hosted a weekly radio talk show on WNTP in Philadelphia called Conservative Solutions and appeared for several years as a regular on Monday Morning Match-Up on Chris Stigall’s show on WPHT. I’m also a regular commentator on American Radio Journal, syndicated on over 200 small radio stations in 45 states.

I’ve now embarked on what is undoubtedly the most ambitious project of my life: a full-length dramatic film of the life of Frederick Douglass, intended for theatrical release. My team includes one of most-respected biographers of Douglass, Dr. C. James Trotman, the great-great granddaughter and great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass, a former Hollywood studio CEO and a 1968 Penn classmate: John Altman.  2018 will be the bicentennial of Douglass’ birth, and we hope that the attendant publicity will make the film especially timely.  That’s to say nothing of how much 21^st-century America needs to learn from the story of this great 19^th-century American hero.  If the project stays on track, it’ll be something to talk about during our reunion film conversation.

by Carolyn Marcus Jacobs, CW ‘68

Row one: K. Merritt, E. Morrow,  Co-captain. Barbara Linnehan (Ellis), Co-captain, N. Ball Row two: F. Bardman, Coach, J. Miller, P. Whatley, P. Gardner, J. Sanders, B. Stocking, Carolyn Marcus (Jacobs), CW’68. Row three: A. Garvine, A. Williams, F. Martin, T. McMullin, E. Sommerfeld.

Over the winter of 1967-1968, the women’s basketball team completed an undefeated season.

Before we get all excited about that, let me describe the climate of women’s sports at Penn.

Remember, it was the late ‘60s and Title IX which mandated that equal money be spent on sports for men and women was still several years away.

We often had to drag a bag of practice balls from campus to 30^th Street Station to take the train to Swarthmore or Bryn Mawr. This was, of course, the cheapest way to get us to the Main Line and back.  We had no training staff and when one of us was injured (and I had notoriously weak ankles), our coach, Faye Bardman, went to the men’s trainer to ask how she should be taping ankles.  Women, as you know, could not be expected to run the full length of the court, so we played a game with six team members … two permanent forwards, two permanent guards and two rovers, the only ones permitted to cross the center line. Defense was almost always a zone … a box, a diamond or a triangle with a one-on-one if we needed to stop the other team’s star player. Oh, and we had to wear little dresses with bloomers underneath. (Let me not disparage the basketball uniforms. They at least existed, unlike the softball team whose members wore whatever we had with a Penn logo. Check out the team picture in our yearbook and note that one of our players was even wearing a Yale sweatshirt)

We played an 8-game schedule and, if we played a team from a school with a top-flight phys ed program like Temple or West Chester, we likely played their third string team since the varsity or JV would have run roughshod over us.

Nevertheless, we persisted.

In our freshman year, we also had an unblemished record, one unblemished by a win. Our indomitable coach, Faye Bardman, stuck by us, worked us hard, taught us to dribble without looking at the ball, to play relentless defense, to shoot and shoot and shoot. She never gave up on us. In successive years, thanks to an influx of both height and talent, we won two games, then four games and finally, all eight.

Our ’67 – ’68 team was led by co-captains Barbara Linnehan, and Ellen Morrow, both dead-eye shooters and hard-nosed defenders who played the rover positions. Our offense was ably supported by underclassmen Barbara Stocking and Joan Sanders. For me, Kate Merritt and Jan Miller who “stuck it out” for four years, that season was the reward for all of the hours and hours of practice in Weightman Hall, all the late nights getting home from away games and missed meals in the dorm cafeterias.

The personal highlight for me was the final game of the season against Immaculata which, if you recall, went on to win the first national championship in 1972. Math tells me that not a single one of the national championship players in 1972 would have been playing in 1968. Whew! I recall being the high scorer in that game and sinking some crucial foul shots which (in my maybe-distorted memory) were instrumental in our final victory. It was the game that gave us an 8-0 record and was the capstone to four years of devotion to this team.

Next time you are in the Palestra, look (hard) for the display cabinet dedicated to women’s sports at Penn and you will see a picture of a women’s basketball team from that era in our navy blue jumpers. Erroneously (and sadly), that picture is of the ’66-’67 team, but nonetheless it honors a very special time for those of us who proudly wore the Red and Blue.