Fame

HOUSTON - It was one of the toughest tasks in the legendary career of Philadelphia University head basketball coach Herb Magee. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame welcomed him Wednesday as a member of the induction Class of 2011 but asked him to keep the news a secret. So he had to go five days before Monday's official announcement here before he could tell anyone. "We've tried so hard to keep it quiet," said Kay Magee, his daughter. "It's been horribly hard. His closest friends and coaches are all here.

For the last 16 years, Charles Tomasco has been involved with seeking out the best sportsmen and sportswomen in Delaware County for consideration as candidates for the local chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. This year is no different. Tomorrow night at September's Place on Baltimore Pike in Springfield, 11 new members will be inducted into the local Hall of Fame. Each member of the Delaware County chapter gets a vote on the nominees. "Everybody thinks you have to be a coach or a player to be inducted, and I'm trying hard to break that image," said Tomasco, the director of the Hall of Fame.

He got along with everyone while he was a player, so why should anything change now? Friends came up to John Kruk Thursday morning to bust his chops, minutes before a news conference to announce he would be inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame on Aug. 12. "I had to get up early for this?" "You were No. 13 on a list of 12," said a familiar face, with a smile. "Johnnnnyyyyy," another exclaimed with a hug. On more than one occasion, Kruk was able to bring the room full of media members to a roaring laughter: The kind that comes from the stomach, deep within.

On one side of the fairway walked Amy Alcott, the guest of honor, the woman the gallery was fervently trying to root into the LPGA Hall of Fame on what could have been a history-making day at the Atlantic City Classic yesterday. On the other side walked Jane Geddes, a fine player and nice person in her own right, who spent the day playing the unwelcome role of party pooper. And try as the spectators might to will Alcott's putts in the hole, it was Geddes who made the clutch shots when they counted and spoiled Alcott's coronation by capturing a 1-stroke victory in the $300,000 tournament at Greate Bay Country Club.

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. - Bert Sugar, an iconic boxing writer and sports historian who was known for his trademark fedora and ever-present cigar, died Sunday of cardiac arrest. He was 75. Jennifer Frawley, Sugar's daughter, said his wife, Suzanne, was by his side when he died at Northern Westchester Hospital. Sugar also had been battling lung cancer. "Just his intelligence and his wit and his sense of humor," Frawley said when asked what she will remember about her father.

Three men and four women, all with ties to Southeastern Pennsylvania, will become members of the Pennsylvania Lacrosse Hall of Fame on Feb. 8 at the sixth annual induction dinner sponsored by the Philadelphia Lacrosse Association. The dinner will be held at the Desmond Hotel in Malvern, Chester County. The newest inductees are Peter Ortale, Chris Dent, Ted Haynie, Anne Sage, Gail Allebach, Christine Sailer and Julie Williams. Ortale, who played four years at Penn Charter, will be honored posthumously.

IT MIGHT COME as a surprise to some Philadelphia-area boxing fans, but Pittsburgh is located in Pennsylvania. So are other towns in the commonwealth that have produced notable fighters who were not born in, or primarily based in, Pennsylvania's most populous city. It's a long-overdue honor, but the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame finally gets around to enshrining one of the state's all-time greats on May 19, when Charley Burley - who was born in Bessemer, Pa., on Sept. 6, 1917, and was 75 when he died on Oct. 16, 1992, in his longtime hometown of Pittsburgh - heads the 10-member Class of 2013.

I take great exception to the letter titled "Phils' Pantheon" (letter, Aug. 7). It seems that the author has some agenda regarding the Phillies and their willingness to recognize the accomplishments of black and Hispanic players. He also seems to think that the Phillies organization has failed to recognize the 1980 World Championship Team, and claims that the club has placed too much emphasis on the 1993 National League Champions. He centers most of his argument on the Phillies Wall of Fame.

FREEHOLD, N.J. - Rocknroll Hanover, harness racing's 2005 Horse of the Year and a 2012 inductee into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame, was euthanized Thursday after suffering from a gastric impaction. Rocknroll Hanover, who was 11, was standing stud at Perretti Farms of Pennsylvania. On the racetrack, Rocknroll Hanover won 15 of 26 career starts and earned $2.75 million. Trained by Brett Pelling for owners Jeffrey Snyder, Lothlorien Equestrian Center and Perretti Racing, he won 12 of 18 races in 2005, including the North America Cup, Meadowlands Pace and Breeders Crown, and earned $2.22 million.