Basketball honors for Grentz, Raveling

THERESA GRENTZ and George Raveling, highly successful basketball players and coaches with Philly roots, will be among the recipients of the 2013 Lapchick Character Award.

Grentz (then Shank), who was a star for Cathy Rush on the three Immaculata AIAW national championship teams from 1972-74 and helped bring the women's game out of the shadows into the mainstream, went on the coach at Saint Joseph's, Rutgers and Illinois. She also coached the 1992 USA Olympic women's team. Her college teams won 671 games.

Raveling, who played at Villanova from 1957-60 and had 746 rebounds in his final two seasons, was an assistant at his alma mater instrumental in recruiting the great Howard Porter before joining Lefty Driesell at Maryland, where he was critical in recruiting Len Elmore and Tom McMillen. Raveling was the head coach at Washington State, Iowa and USC, winning 337 games, before becoming Nike's Director of International Basketball. Raveling has been selected to receive the 2013 John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The Lapchick is named after Hall of Famer Joe Lapchick, a star on the Original Celtics and a highly successful coach at St. John's and with the Knicks. Hall of Fame coach Don Haskins, who won the 1966 NCAA championship at Texas Western and passed away in 2008, is the third 2013 Lapchick Award winner. The awards will be presented on Nov. 21 with the honorees being recognized that night at the 2K Sports Classic, benefiting the Wounded Warrior Project at Madison Square Garden.

The Lapchick Award was first given out in 2008. Its winners include Naismith Hall of Famers Dean Smith, Pat Summitt, Lou Carnesecca, John Thompson, Bob Hurley Sr., Pete Carril, Jody Conradt, Cathy Rush, Morgan Wootten, Pete Newell, C.M. Newton and the late Kay Yow.