Another Fun-Filled Banquet Sports Awards Banquet Knows Formula For Success
Maybe the annual Sports Awards Banquet has retained its popularity through its lack of surprises.
Once again Wednesday night, at the Spokane Ag Trade Center, the 47th edition of the banquet followed a familiar - and successful - formula.
They honor athletes, needle each other on the head table, crack wise and then offer enough of the requisite inspirational yadda-yadda-yadda to make the fan forget about all the fat on the prime rib.
As usual, master of ceremonies Dennis Hull skated back and forth across the boundaries of dubious taste, but did so deliciously and with an infectious grin that displays the high level of bridgework provided to former National Hockey League stars.
This year, he found a worthy new foil in Cliff McCrath, a motivational speaker and soccer coach at Seattle Pacific.
Volleying barbs for most of the evening, they turned this into a banquet of laughs.
As the anchor speaker, former All-Pro receiver and current NBC sports heavy delivery from Mike Ditka and Jerry Glanville.
Serious and unrelentingly coach-y, those two belabored the usual messages and skipped the type of anecdotes from the fields and locker rooms that can truly entertain the audience.
Rashad was not so foolish.
The most important moment in his career, Rashad revealed, was the day he married his wife Phylicia - the actress who played the wife and mother on The Cosby Show.
“From that day, I’m Phylicia Rashad’s husband,” he said. “I have no background, I have no career.”
His best material came in the form of stories about football terrorists Dick Butkus and Jack Tatum, and about the amusing aging process he is sharing with former teammate Fran Tarkenton.
Rashad even deftly fielded questions at the end of his presentation.
Why did the struggling, expansion-team Seahawks trade you in 1976?, he was asked. “Because they liked me,” he quipped.
Rashad used a national sports telecast as a forum for asking Phylicia to marry him. What would you have done if she said no? “I figured I’d have had so much sympathy across the country, it’d be no trouble finding another woman,” he said.
Hull, meanwhile, tapped some of his favored fonts of humor:
- His mother-in law: “I shouldn’t say much about her because she’s on life-support. She’s hooked to our refrigerator.’
- Banquet organizer Dick Wright: “He’s doing well, he actually can afford to go to Disneyland. He’s just too short to get on the rides.”
- Spokane city projects: “I’m glad I’m going to be back for the next five years, just so I can see the Spokane Transit Authority building finished.”
- Bill Clinton: “He was going to come down to Hilton Head for a romantic weekend. But he couldn’t get rid of Hillary.”
McCrath was not outclassed as a smart-aleck, though.
“I wanted to start with a story that would knock the hair off your head,” he said. “But I see half of you have already heard it.”
The most imposing sight at the
head table was that of Washington State defensive lineman Chad Eaton. Eaton looked all of his 288 pounds, 270 if you subtract the earrings.
Spokane’s Sister Madonna Buder, a nun known for her success as a triathlete, gave a moving and Earth-conscious invocation, which might have exceeded the attention span of the audience by just a stanza or two.
Hull could not even let the nun off the hook. “Of course, you know I’m gonna have to tell all the guys that Madonna was here.”