What Would Shirley Say

If Shirley Povich awakened today from his nearly 15 year sleep and saw the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism website, he would scream, “Yikes! What’s my name doing on a Journalism Center site, I don’t deserve this. I’m just a working stiff who has a column to write for tomorow’s Post.” That’s when the true modesty would end.

He would dive into the content making sure stories were relevant, thoughtful, well written, creative and never-to-be-found elsewhere. And because that is the mission of the website, he would be so proud and honored that his name was on the masthead.

My sister and brother and I, as well as the extended Povich family never imagined what began 6 years ago as a professorship in Dad’s name would lead to such a vibrant undertaking. The Povich Center has become a huge part of the Merrill College of Journalism. This website is inspired by the Povich Center’s director, George Solomon, who was Dad’s favorite editor for 20 years and more importantly, his dearest friend.

You will get to know my Dad even more through this website with a great past is present feature of Povich columns. Since Dad wrote over ten thousand columns, leave it to George and his staff to find something of meaning in 2013 that Shirley Povich wrote about over seven decades. And now you can converse and even argue about those columns every day the way we did at the dinner table every night so long ago.

Maury Povich is the host of the syndicated talk show “Maury”.