In S.F., Marisa Ingemi profiled Fox Sports sideline reporter PAM OLIVER and wrote she has been a "trailblazer in sideline reporting since the early 1990s, when the position was a new regular feature to broadcasts." Joining in 1995, she is the network’s "longest-tenured on-air personality" aside from NFL analysts TERRY BRADSHAW and HOWIE LONG, who began the season before. Fox NFL director ARTIE KEMPNER said, “She contributes so much to the broadcast. Sometimes it’s a report, but it’s her insights that she gained from doing her own research and she shares it. Not everyone shares that kind of stuff. I think she’s one of the great interviewers of today, too, she just brings so much" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 12/9).
PROCEEDING AHEAD: Members of the television crew working on a limited series about hockey legend BÖRJE SALMING’s life are now “more determined than ever to finish the project in his memory.” Salming had “given the green light” to the venture after meeting with Warner Bros. and Swedish actor VALTER SKARSGÅRD, who will “play him.” The Hockey HOFer passed away when filming “was in its final stages in Toronto, with shooting in Sweden already complete” (TORONTO STAR, 12/11).
WARRIORS GIVING BACK: STEPHEN CURRY and his wife AYESHA were “responsible for creating a magical holiday experience for 2,000 Oakland children from marginalized communities” on Sunday. The Currys’ Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation “partnered with dozens of local groups to identify children in need and bring them” to the tenth annual “Christmas with the Currys.” The day included “visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus swinging on illuminated swings, decorating cookies, playing with snowballs, skating, taking photos in a special ‘Snow Globe,’ storytime with gifts of books, and visiting with one particularly famous basketball player” (S.F. CHRONICLE, 12/11)....Warriors F ANDREW WIGGINS and G JORDAN POOLE “surprised 50 children and teens” from the Boys & Girls Club of Oakland at a Target in Alameda. The group of kids “already knew they would have $200 to spend on anything they wanted, but they didn’t expect to get help from a pair of NBA champions” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 12/10).
NAMES: Pistons owner TOM GORES will "pledge a $350,000 donation to the children at SAY Detroit," a nonprofit organization that “seeks to improve the lives of Detroit’s neediest citizens through shelter, food, medical care, volunteer efforts and education” (DETROIT NEWS, 12/9)....Senators RW ALEX DEBRINCAT on Oct. 22 sold his “five-bedroom, 3,700-square-foot house" in the Chicago neighborhood of Roscoe Village for $1.28M (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 12/9).
IN MEMORY: CHARLES HARRIS, Arizona State's AD from 1985-95, died Dec. 7 at 71. Harris became the first African-American AD in what was then the Pac-10 and later went on to be MEAC commissioner (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 12/11).
