Pitarresi: Happy birthday Coach Mac

This was a first.

 

Syracuse University football coach Greg Robinson walked into his weekly press conference Tuesday, and the first thing he did was … not discuss this week’s opponent, Rutgers.

 

No, Robinson, announced that it was Dick McPherson’s birthday.

 

McPherson, the coach who returned SU to football prominence in the 1980s, is still attached to the program as a radio broadcaster and elder statesman It was very nice of Robinson to announce the birthday – it was McPherson’s 78th – and beyond that, it was surreal when he led the media in singing happy birthday to the old coach, whose normal rosy complexion turned bright red all the while.

 

It was terrific.

 

Maybe that had been done before at a major college football press conference, but I can’t imagine where or when. Hey, one good win like Saturday’s victory over Louisville, and everyone in Syracuse gets slap-happy. Why not?