‘Billy ran the show’: Big honor for former Philly AD Bill Bradshaw feted by local luminaries

Steve Javie, a Catholic deacon in recent years, offered a little prayer before lunch. Since this was a sports crowd, Javie first put a whistle in his mouth.

“Blow your whistle,” Philly hoops czar Sonny Hill said to him.

The longtime former NBA official did just that.

“Technical on Sonny Hill,” Javie said.

It was that kind of affair last week at White Manor Country Club in Malvern. Vague affiliations throughout the room, but all connected to one man. Where else would you see Temple’s acting president, two Olympians, a retired NCAA director of basketball officiating, a current Big 5 head coach, two former Big 5 executive directors, and a former New York Mets general manager?

“How many Big 5 Hall of Famers are here?” asked master of ceremonies Dan Baker.

Someone from virtually every table stood up.

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This group was there for former La Salle and Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw, to celebrate the fact that Bradshaw is receiving a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of College Directors of Athletics. Bradshaw is the first from a Pennsylvania school to receive the James J. Corbett Memorial Award, given out for over half a century.

“I’d compare this award to the Heisman,” said retired St. Joseph’s athletic director Don DiJulia, explaining that Bradshaw is one of only five to receive the award who didn’t work in what is now termed a Power 5 league.

So he’s been deemed a heavyweight by his peers, regardless of affiliation.

The luncheon was hosted by Brian Gail, a former Bradshaw baseball teammate at La Salle. “My roommate and best bud,” Bradshaw said. Baker did master of ceremonies honors, with DiJulia, Fran Dunphy, and Hank Nichols lending thoughts.

DiJulia mentioned that 6,500 people will be in Orlando on June 12, most expected to be in attendance when Bradshaw formally receives the Corbett award at a banquet.

“For someone not from Philadelphia, he is as much of a Philly-Philly guy as anyone you ever met,” DiJulia said. “He caught what was in the air.”

“About time one of our own was recognized,” Baker said. The voice of the Phillies for over five decades pointed out that under Bradshaw’s watch, Temple somehow had gotten Penn State and Notre Dame to show up here to play football in the same season.

While basketball was Dunphy’s sport when he was at La Salle, the current Explorers head coach, hired by Bradshaw as Temple’s coach, recalled the season he spent as a part-time shortstop with Bradshaw as La Salle’s full-time second baseman.

“Billy ran the show,” Dunphy said. “If you weren’t going to have some fun, you weren’t going to do well on this team.”

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Bradshaw grew up in Niagara Falls, N.Y. After he broke his ankle a couple of times, Bradshaw’s minor league baseball career was over. He started in coaching, switched to administration, and got to La Salle as AD when he was barely over 30 — “38 years as a Division I AD,” said DiJulia, who is a rare AD who can top that.

Maybe DiJulia was riffing when he mentioned the “14,621 games and events” that Bradshaw had attended as an athletic director, and the “6,167″ athletes who had come through during his times in charge at La Salle, DePaul, Temple, and La Salle again. But you get the idea, DiJulia pointed out those schools were in the East Coast Conference, the Great Midwest, the Atlantic 10, the Big East. You can add the American Athletic Conference, plus the Mid-American Conference for Temple football, which was a key Bradshaw move.

DiJulia pointed out that over 100 teams reached the NCAA tournament “in 15 different sports” under Bradshaw. Among his feats: Hired Speedy Morris to coach La Salle’s women, then moved Morris over to coach the men. At Temple, he hired Al Golden and later Matt Rhule as first-time head football coaches.

He had some misses, too, but that’s for another luncheon. Athletic directors are often judged externally by their coaching hires, and Bradshaw usually connected, even if a couple were flared singles, with a double or two in the gap and several long fly balls caught at the warning track, in addition to those notable ones that made it over the wall.

Bradshaw was dealt an interesting hand at Temple and he maneuvered football from independent into the Mid-American and finally, in what looked like a coup, back into the Big East for all sports. That didn’t hold, however. The American Athletic Conference turned out to be close to ideal for football, not so much for basketball.

Nichols, the top NCAA official before becoming the first head of officials, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, grew up a couple of towns from Bradshaw, was an early Bradshaw baseball coach.

“I know a lot of Billy’s secrets,” Nichols said when he got up to speak. “I’ll decide how many I’m going to tell — keep him in suspense.”

Nichols said part of Bradshaw’s secret was that he paid attention. He saw something he liked, “he’d steal it.”

Bradshaw said it took him some years to learn that hiring good people and letting them do their jobs was the way to do it. He also related how when he first was interviewing to become a young AD at La Salle, he met with DiJulia for two hours, allowing him to ace the interview.

What was the connection with Joe McIlvaine, once the Mets GM, a pro ballplayer himself, signed out of the St. Charles seminary? McIlvaine was a Bradshaw teammate for Narberth in the Penn-Del League, “then I faced him in the Appalachian Rookie League,” Bradshaw said. “Joe pitched for Bristol [Tigers organization], I was shortstop for Wytheville [Senators organization.]”

The rest of the story: “I grounded out.”

“There are a lot of wonders of the world here,” Bradshaw said of the room that had come to applaud and maybe lightly roast him. “This is Philadelphia.”