Mel Greenberg of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a pioneer in the coverage of women’s basketball, has been selected to receive the Jake Wade Award by the College Sports Information Directors of America.
He will receive his award at the organization’s awards luncheon on Monday, July 4 at the CoSIDA Workshop to be held in Philadelphia, Pa.
The Jake Wade Award is named in honor of Julius Jennings Wade, a longtime sports writer and sports information director at the University of North Carolina. Given annually since 1958, the award is presented to an individual or organization that has made an outstanding contribution in the media to the field of intercollegiate athletics.
Greenberg, a pioneer in the coverage of women's college basketball, has been at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1969.
He has covered almost every national finals dating back to the era of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), when his first event was in 1976 at the finals at Penn State. He also has covered the WNBA extensively every summer since the pro league's beginning in 1997, as well as the former American Basketball League during its brief existence from 1996-98.
From 1976-94, Greenberg was the coordinator of the national women’s Associated Press Basketball Poll, which he created until the AP switched to a writer’s panel and administered it internally.
In March, 1991, the Women's Basketball Coach Association (WBCA) created a media award to be given annually at its convention at the Women's Final Four to an individual who as made significant contributions to the sports through the profession.
Greenberg was the first winner and then-WBCA president Kay Yow of North Carolina State announced that the award thereafter would be called the Mel Greenberg Media Award.
In 1992, he was inducted into the Big Five Hall of Fame in Philadelphia, one of the few persons who was not an athlete or coach, for his support of the women's game.
The United States Basketball Writers Association elected Greenberg to its Hall of Fame in 2002, making him the first writer of women's basketball to be inducted by that organization.
The Big East honored him with a media award a year ago for his coverage of the conference which celebrated its 25th anniversary and he has also been honored by the local chapter of the Women's Sports Foundation.
Greenberg was also inducted on May 15th to the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, joining such local notables as famed 76ers statistician Harvey Pollack, retired Temple SID Al Shrier, Penn athletic director and former Quaker star Steve Bilsky, the late Temple men's basketball coach Harry Litwack, NBA founder, the late Eddie Gottlieb, former Inquirer columnist Frank Dolson, and Ed Snider, owner of the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers.