It will serve as the team’s practice facility and corporate headquarters. The building will include a comprehensive sports medicine, treatment and rehabilitation facility managed by Henry Ford Health System.
Showing posts with label Detroit Pistons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Detroit Pistons. Show all posts
Groundbreaking kicked off this morning for the new Henry Ford-Detroit Pistons Performance Center in the New Center area of Detroit.
It will serve as the team’s practice facility and corporate headquarters. The building will include a comprehensive sports medicine, treatment and rehabilitation facility managed by Henry Ford Health System.
It will serve as the team’s practice facility and corporate headquarters. The building will include a comprehensive sports medicine, treatment and rehabilitation facility managed by Henry Ford Health System.
The Bad Boys and members of the 1989 NBA Championship team are coming together to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their first NBA Championship, a title that energized the City of Detroit and solidified the Bad Boys’ place in basketball history. A special charity fundraising event called “Bad Boys Unite” will take place on Thursday March, 27 at the Westin Book Cadillac hotel in Detroit. Team members will gather the following day for a special halftime celebration on Friday, March 28 when the Pistons take on the Miami HEAT at The Palace of Auburn Hills (7:30 p.m.).
The 1988-89 Detroit Pistons won 63 regular-season games and stormed through the postseason beating the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls and finally the Los Angeles Lakers. Team members included Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer, John Salley, Mark Aguirre, Dennis Rodman, Vinnie Johnson, James Edwards, Rick Mahorn, John Long, Fennis Dembo and Micheal Williams. Constructed by Jack McCloskey and coached by the legendary Chuck Daly, Brendan Malone and Brendan Suhr, the 1989 team was cherished by fans in Detroit and gained national notoriety for their physical style of play.
Hosted by the Come Together Foundation, “Bad Boys Unite” will raise funds for six local charities – Forgotten Harvest, Capuchin Soup Kitchen, Cornerstone Schools, Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, Rhonda Walker Foundation and CATCH (Sparky Anderson’s Charity for Children).
“The Bad Boys mean so much to our franchise, our fans and the City of Detroit,” said Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores. “They played with toughness, passion and heart. They are champions. They reflect the spirit of the people of Michigan in so many ways. It is an honor to celebrate their legacy in a way that continues to inspire and give back to the community.”
For fans interested in joining in the 25th anniversary celebration and cheering on this historic group of Pistons Legends, the Pistons vs. HEAT game on Friday, March 28 will include a special halftime ceremony featuring player introductions and video tributes that honor the “Bad Boys” and the 1989 NBA Championship team.
“The 1989 NBA Championship is a special moment in our franchise’s history,” said Pistons President of Basketball Operations and 1989 NBA Finals MVP Joe Dumars. “Detroit fans supported our team with great passion and it’s fitting to commemorate the 25th anniversary of that team in a way that supports the city and connects with our fans.”
“I’m pleased to help bring our team together again in a way that impacts the turnaround of this great city through education, youth development and basic needs.” said former team captain Isiah Thomas. “The Detroit community has always been important to us and I look forward to celebrating the history and tradition of the Pistons organization in a meaningful way.”
“During hard times such as these, it is even more important we find ways to help children with basic needs such as shoes,” said Pistons forward Tayshaun Prince. “We are excited to participate in this event and give back to the Detroit community.”
Employees from National City, Fathead, Palace Sports & Entertainment and Pistons mascot Hooper will be volunteering during the event. This event is part of the NBA Cares “Week of Service” where every NBA team is giving a day of service to their local community. Fathead is also supporting National City and the Pistons to help provide the 1,000 pairs of shoes and socks. Parking accommodations were made possible by the Detroit Opera House.
Samaritan’s Feet, founded in 2003, is a humanitarian relief organization based in Charlotte, NC that puts shoes on the feet of children all around the world. With over 300 million children going without shoes everyday, their goal is to provide 10 million pairs of shoes to 10 million impoverished people in 10 years. To date, nearly one million pairs of shoes have been collected for children around the world.
President and Founder, Manny Ohonme, received his first pair of shoes at the age of 9 from a missionary. He started playing basketball and other sports with these new pair of shoes and earned a spot on a traveling basketball team and eventually his high school team. Upon graduating high school, he was offered a scholarship to play basketball at the University of North Dakota (Lake Region), where he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees.
To learn more about their organization, www.samaritansfeet.org or contact Todd Melloh at 317-417-3525.
http://www.hometownlife.com/Dining With the Stars will close out the 2009 spring season with George Blaha, a familiar voice in the broadcast and sports world in metro Detroit.
Tell us in 100 words or less why you want to have lunch with Blaha at Buddy's Pizza in Farmington Hills. E-mail your entry to BuddysDiningStars@gmail.com by 5 p.m. Thursday, June 4.
Dining With the Stars is sponsored by Buddy's Pizza and the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers.
The contest winner will be treated to a limo ride from Class Plus Limo, a makeover courtesy of Christine from Beauty Salon in Birmingham, a $100 gift certificate from Reaver Diamond Co. in Southfield and a dance exhibition by the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Bloomfield Hills.
A local broadcasting icon and one of the most recognizable personalities in Detroit and the NBA, Blaha recently completed his 33rd consecutive season as the television and radio play-by-play voice of the Detroit Pistons. The “Voice of the Pistons” is the longest tenured play-by-play announcer in the state of Michigan following the retirement of legendary Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell.
Blaha brings a high-energy style to go with his extensive basketball knowledge and demonstrates a true passion for Pistons basketball. His trademark colloquialisms such as, “two and 22 to play” and “a high glass gun that goes” have thrilled Pistons fans of all ages for three decades.
Blaha handles play-by-play duties on either television or radio for all 82 regular-season games plus pre- and postseason games on FSN Detroit and WDFN — the Pistons' flagship stations. He also hosts the Pistons Weekly television program, which airs Sunday nights on WDIV TV4 at midnight, and has handled play-by-play duties for Michigan State football since 1971. In 2002, he was made an honorary alumnus of Michigan State University.
by Keith LangloisChuck Daly, the coach who guided the Bad Boys to NBA titles and the Dream Team to gold medals, died at his Jupiter, Fla., home early Saturday morning.
Daly, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February, was 78. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Daly came to the Pistons in 1983 when they were a franchise awash in a history of mediocrity, playing before thousands of empty blue seats in the Pontiac Silverdome, and left them nine seasons later firmly established among the NBA’s most respected and successful franchises.
Daly’s No. 2 – representing the two NBA titles he won in 1989 and ’90, at the height of the NBA’s competitive best and bracketed by dynasties on both sides – hangs from The Palace rafters alongside the retired numbers of many of the players he coached, including Hall of Fame guards Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars. Daly was voted to the Hall of Fame in 1994.
“The Daly family and the entire Detroit Pistons and Palace Sports & Entertainment family is mourning the loss of Chuck Daly,” family spokesman and Pistons vice president Matt Dobek said. “Chuck left a lasting impression with everyone he met both personally and professionally and his spirit will live with all of us forever.”
Though Daly already had three decades in basketball when he came to the Pistons, it will be his time with them for which he will be most remembered despite his three other NBA stops and his college head coaching stints at Boston College and Penn. In 14 NBA seasons, Daly went 638-437, including 467-271 with the Pistons.
Daly’s greatest gift was his ability to manage egos and personalities – and there was no shortage of them with the Bad Boys, as the Pistons came to be known for their hard-nosed, blue-collar defense.
“It’s a players’ league,” he once said. “They allow you to coach them or they don’t. Once they stop allowing you to coach, you’re on your way out.”
Jack McCloskey, the man who brought Daly to the Pistons, assembled a deep and talented roster by the time the Pistons were ready to compete with the dynastic Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. It took Daly’s deft touch to keep all of those sometimes volcanic personalities in check and manage the playing time of a team that had eight or nine players who were talented enough to start for most teams.
It was Daly’s achievement with the Pistons – both his winning and his hand at managing egos – that led USA Basketball to tab Daly to coach the 1992 “Dream Team” at the Barcelona Olympics. It proved to be a perfect fit.
“There were some huge egos there,” Palace CEO Tom Wilson said. “You never heard a bit about them. Somehow you had to manage all that stuff with a goal toward winning and managing minutes for guys who all felt they were the best player in the world. It was perfect. Plus the persona – Daddy Rich, the smooth operator. The image was perfect for that group of guys. The best coach in the world and the best group of players.”
That “Daddy Rich” nickname was bestowed upon him by John Salley for Daly’s affection for stylish suits. Daly’s wardrobe – he favored double-breasted suits, mostly in dark blues and grays – and perfectly groomed hair were the subject of constant media references as the Pistons rose to prominence.
But Daly never took himself seriously. Dubbed the “Prince of Pessimism” by Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, whose relationship with Daly went back to his Boston College days, Daly would say he was an “optimist with experience.”
Daly was born in Kane, Pa., and graduated from Bloomsburg State in 1952. He coached at Punxsutawney, Pa., High School from 1955-63, but networked throughout the East at coaching clinics and finally landed a job as an assistant at Duke in 1963, where he stayed until taking the head coaching job at Boston College in 1969.
After three years at BC, Daly went to Pennsylvania in 1971 – McCloskey, after a decade as Penn’s coach, had left five years earlier – and won four straight Ivy League titles, posting an overall record of 151-62 as a college coach.
He left Penn and college basketball after the 1977 season to join his longtime friend, Billy Cunningham, on Cunningham’s Philadelphia 76ers staff.
His first NBA job came in 1981 when Cleveland owner Ted Stepien hired him. The Cavs were a notoriously bad team, and badly run franchise, under Stepien. Daly knew it would be a tough job. He never even signed a lease, choosing instead to take a room at the Holiday Inn near the old Richfield Coliseum. He lasted 41 games – spending 93 nights at the Holiday Inn – and didn’t get his next chance for another season and a half, when McCloskey came calling.
That call not only launched the richest chapter in Pistons history, it established Chuck Daly as one of basketball’s all-time great coaches.
The first truck delivery to help Michigan families in critical need was distributed to 400 families of Orchards Children’s Services in Flint this morning starting at 10 a.m. “For more than 46 years Orchards Children’s Services has remained committed to its mission of strengthening the community through programs and services. As a native of Flint and a leader of the organization providing services in this community we are excited to be a part of the city’s revival,” says CEO of Orchards, Michael Williams.
“With the support of the Pistons, Fathead and Rock Financial we are truly able to have a direct positive impact on Flint families by supplying them with needed food and valuable personal care items. This is truly a collaborative initiative and Orchards is blessed to be part of this outstanding effort in the city of Flint.”
Volunteers from Rock Financial and Fathead including Fathead CEO, Patrick McInnis and the Mayor of Flint, Michael K. Brown, will be on hand to help distribute free food and personal care items to pre-identified needy and foster families of Orchards Children’s Services. Each family is receiving a 25 pound box of food and a box of personal care items.
“It’s a great feeling to come back home to Flint and lend a hand to those who could use some help,” McInnis said. “I know I speak for all Rock Financial and Fathead team members in saying we are very proud to have been involved in helping so many families right here in Michigan.”
The funding for the food and supplies came from the Pistons Care Telethon, which culminated in a 17-hour telethon day and telecast of the team’s game on March 11, raised more than $450,000 in pledges to benefit FTC, with proceeds going to families in critical need of food and basic necessities throughout the state of Michigan.
Proceeds were raised with the help from fans, schools, churches, businesses, Pistons Care Telethon sponsors, Palace Sports and Entertainment employees and the generous support of the media. Fathead and Rock Financial supported the telethon with enough money to stock two trucks with enough food and supplies to feed 800 families. Truck deliveries will take place through December 2009 feeding and helping to sustain over 25,000 families across the state.
Orchards Children’s Services is located at 225 East 5th Street, Flint, MI 48502. Orchards can be reached at (810) 239-3264.
Feed The Children was founded in 1979 by Larry and Frances Jones and is consistently ranked as one of the 10 largest international charities in the U.S., based on private, non-government support.
Feed The Children is a Christian, international, nonprofit relief organization with headquarters in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that delivers food, medicine, clothing and other necessities to individuals, children and families who lack these essentials due to famine, war, poverty or natural disasters.
In FY 2007, Feed The Children distributed more than 135 million pounds of food and other essentials to children and their families in all 50 states and internationally, supplementing almost 800,000 meals each day. Since its founding, the organization has reached out to help those in need in 118 countries around the globe. For more information, please visit http://www.feedthechildren.org/.
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