March 17, 2015: Original award announcement:
USBWA Mary Jo Haverbeck Award presented to inaugural winner Sue Donohoe for commitment and service to women's basketball
by Barb Kowal, CoSIDA Director of External Affairs
"When this game needed her the most, Mary Jo gave her most. She always knew what was was going on with the media and what stories to tell. At the Final Four, as part of Rick Nixon's media coordination group, if you had a question, she had the answer. And, if you had a problem, Mary Jo solved it. It touches me and warms my heart to be the first recipient of this award."
-- Sue Donohoe, Kay Yow Cancer Fund Executive Director, summing up the late Penn State SID Mary Jo Haverbeck's contributions and commitment to the sport of women's basketball.
Sunday night in Tampa, Florida at the NCAA Division I women's basketball Final Four, it was fitting that an inaugura
l award - the USBWA Mary Jo Haverbeck Award - was presented in the city where award-winning sports information director Mary Jo last volunteered for this major women's basketball event.
Prior to the start of the 2015 NCAA Women's Final Four semifinals Sunday evening, the United States Basketball Writers Association
(USBWA) announced their annual awards. The inaugural Mary Jo Haverbeck Award was presented to Sue Donohoe, executive director of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund and the former NCAA Vice President of Division I Women’s Basketball. Donohoe also is the current president of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Directors.
The Mary Jo Haverbeck Award recognizes those in college women's basketball who have rendered a special service to the USBWA and
the media who cover college basketball. The presentation was made at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, site of the NCAA Women's FInal Four.
The award is named for Haverbeck, the beloved award-winning associate sports information director for Penn State University from 1974-1999 who served on the NCAA Women's Final Four Media Coordination Committee for 17 years.
Tampa was the site of the 2008 Women's Final Four and was the last final four championship that Haverbeck work at, as she served on the NCAA media coordination committee from 1992 through 2008.
The Haverbeck Award is the women's basketball equivalent for the USBWA men's basketball Katha Quinn Award, named in memory of the late St. John's University SID who passed away of cancer at the age of 35. The 2015 Katha Quinn winner is
Tom Jernstedt, a 38-year employee of the NCAA and a former president of USA Basketball.
Upon receiving her award from USBWA's Mel Greenberg, Donohoe stated that "It truly touched my heart when I received the phone call for Mel telling me that I was the inaugural recipient of the Mary Jo Haverbeck Award. I knew Mary Jo for nearly 15 years, as she served for a long time on our NCAA women's basketball media coordination committee each year at the Final Four.
"Mary Jo started a resource website devoted to women's basketball, its news and history, called "Cup of Coffee" - she had women's
basketball history and links to media and other resources, along with the greatest
and latest women's basketball news. I spent my mornings with a what I would call a "cup of (Mary) Jo."
Havebeck, who passed away on Jan. 6, 2014 due to a brain tumor, served at PSU from 1974-1999 and a long-time advocate for women
sports and women in the athletic communications profession. She was the first woman inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 1995 and was the first recipient of the organization's Trailblazer Award in 2001.
A pioneer in publicizing college women's sports in the '70s and '80s, she was relentless in her pursuit to place stories about PSU's Lady Lion student-athletes and coaches. With the advent of Title IX legislation in 1979, Mary Jo was a passionate crusader to advance the awareness and publicity for women's college sports. A photo of a Penn State women's lacrosse player appeared on the cover of
Time magazine - and unheard-of placement at the time. Her persistence paid off as Penn State’s women’s program was featured on ABC’s Wide World of Sports and in
Sports Illustrated. Her contacts and relationships with national media in advocating for women's sports coverage were second to none.
Upon her 1999 retirement from PSU, she continued writing for a variety of publications and maintained the resource website "Cup of Coffee" which had women's basketball news. links to national stories and a resource list of basketball history and information on journalists covering women's basketball. She started that website in the mid 1990s. The CoSIDA Trailblazer Award was renamed in her honor in 2014 and is given annually to an individual who is a pioneer in the profession and who has mentored and helped improve the level of ethnic and gender diversity within CoSIDA.
When receiving the award Sunday in Tampa, Donohoe summed up Haverbeck's contributions and commitment to the sport of women's basketball.
"When this game needed her the most, Mary Jo gave her most. She always knew what was was going on with the media and what stories to tell," Donohoe said. "At the Final Four, as part of Rick Nixon's coordination group, if you had a question, she had the answer. And, if you had a problem, Mary Jo solved it. It touches me and warms my heart to be the first recipient of this award."
The USBWA handed out all its major women's awards prior to Sunday's Final Four semifinals. For the second straight season, UConn's
Breanna Stewart won the
Ann Meyers Drysdale Award as the National Player of the Year, while Princeton coach
Courtney Banghart was named
National Coach of the Year following an unbeaten regular season. Ohio State's
Kelsey Mitchell, the nation's leading scorer, took home
National Freshman of the Year honors. Additionally, the USBWA recognized an earlier 2015 award and its recipient on Sunday, with Mount St. Joseph's
Lauren Hill honored with the
Pat Summitt Most Courageous Award as she battles DIPG - a rare and terminal form of pediatric brain cancer - while raising over $2 million for cancer research. Accepting the award for Hill was her Mount St. Joseph's coach Dan Benjamin, while Summitt's son, Tyler Summitt (current Louisiana Tech women's basketball head coach), presented the award on behalf of his mother.
In addition to her current work and work as vice president of NCAA Division I basketball, Donohoe served as director of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship, served on the board of USA Basketball, and previously worked in athletic administration at the Southland Conference and the University of Arkansas. She also was an assistant women's basketball coach at Stephen F. Austin.
In her role at the NCAA, Donohoe reached out to the media covering the women’s game, holding the first "mock media bracket exercises" by inviting the media to the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis to give them a behind-the-scenes look at the selection, seeding and bracketing process for the NCAA Championship. To date, over 300 individuals have taken part in those exercises.
“Sue was also instrumental in forming the first large group discussions that brought the various women’s basketball stakeholders to the table to discuss the best future path for the game, including media, broadcast partners, head coaches and corporate entities.” stated Rick Nixon, NCAA media coordinator for the Women's Final Four.
Upon hearing of Donohoe's award in March, Connecticut women's basketball head coach Geno Auriemma stated that “For all the years she put into the NCAA and growing the game to where we had 30,000 at the Alamodome (in San Antonio), no one deserves (the Haverbeck Award) more than Sue Donohoe. When you look at Sue and Tom, there’s two people who were driving forces behind the tournament. They were visionaries that the NCAA really needed at the time. I got to know both of them really, really well and I just admire them a lot.”