Pitarresi: MacPherson deserving of Hall of Fame

 

Dick McPherson is going into the College Football Hall of Fame.

 

I’m glad to hear it.

 

Aside from being the guy who returned Syracuse University to football prominence, no easy thing, McPherson always has been a personality. A positive one, in my experience.

 

McPerhson’s record at Massachusetts and SU was 111-73-5, his most memorable victory was an upset of No. 1 Nebraska in 1984, and his landmark season was 1987, when the Orange went 11-0-1, played a famous tie with Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, and finished fourth in the nation. This just a few years after many SU fans had despaired that the team would ever be good again.

 

I’ve had many conversations with McPherson, and have always been entertained or informed or both. And sometimes confused! But wins aside, conversations aside, here’s what I’ll remember about him:

 

Dick is an old friend of former New Hartford athletic director Ed Taylor. Both grew up in Old Town, Maine and went to Springfield College. That’s probably why, shortly after Dick was named coach at SU in 1981, he came to New Hartford to speak at the dinner Klein’s All-Sports put on for coaches each year at Alfredo’s on Seneca Turnpike. I was sitting interviewing him before the dinner when one of the TV guys came up.

 

“Dick,” he said. “We need you on TV.”

 

I was used to this. The TV guys always wanted to be first, and players, coaches and whoever, if you were interviewing them, normally would jump to go on camera.

 

Not Dick McPherson.

 

“I’m talking to John,” he said.

 

“But I’m Jimmy Jones from WWWW,” the man said. “We need you now!”

 

“I’m talking to John right now,” McPherson said. “When I’m done talking to him, I’ll talk to you.”

 

“That’s okay, Coach,” I said. “Go ahead.”

 

“No,” McPherson said. “I’m talking to you. When I’m done talking to you, I’ll talk to him.”

 

And that’s what happened.

 

You might not think that was such a big deal. I did, and I still do. If Dick McPherson never won a game at Syracuse, I would have liked him anyway.”