Mighty Macs take a bow at Phila. Sports Hall of Fame

Four decades after their last basketball game, Theresa Grentz and her Immaculata teammates were back in the spotlight Thursday night, posing for pictures, shaking hands, and smiling a lot before their induction into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

"It's amazing, and it's so nice that all these people still want to remember us," the 62-year-old Grentz said at the reception that preceded the Hall's annual Sheraton Society Hill banquet.

First, there was the 2009 film, The Mighty Macs, about their improbable run of three national championships. This past summer, they entered the Basketball Hall of Fame. Now they were being honored in their hometown.

"Every time we think it's over for us," she said, "something else comes along."

That pioneering women's team, coached by Cathy Rush, was joined by 16 individuals in the Hall's 11th class.

The eclectic group included living former professional stars Curt Schilling, Mike Richter, Marvin Harrison, Eric Allen, Geoff Petrie, Chet Walker, and Brian Propp; three deceased stars, the Yankees' Herb Pennock, the Athletics' Chief Bender, and the Eagles' Bobby Walston; four Olympic gold medalists, boxer Meldrick Taylor, rower Paul Costello, swimmer Ellie Daniel, and high-jumper Jean Shiley; Phillies broadcaster By Saam; and longtime Inquirer columnist Frank Dolson.

"Just look at some of the basketball players from Philadelphia who have been inducted before this [including Wilt Chamberlain, Tom Gola, and Earl Monroe]," said Petrie, the Springfield (Delco) native who played in Portland and was a general manager there and in Sacramento. "The Palestra, the school gyms, the playgrounds. We all played in them. There's a really rich history here."

Given his background as a two-time NBA executive of the year, the 66-year-old Petrie was asked about the 76ers' controversial strategy of jettisoning most of their roster and sacrificing their present to better acquire talent for future success.

"It's risky," he said. "There's no question about that. But at least they've had the guts to be honest about what they're trying to do."

Richter, 48, the goalie from Flourtown and Germantown Academy who played in 15 NHL seasons and helped the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup in 1994, was thrilled to be entering the same Hall of Fame as his boyhood idol, Flyers goaltender Bernie Parent, inducted in 2004's charter class.

"As athletes, we grow up emulating the stars from [our] town," Richter said. "And the Flyers were the best in the business when I was growing up. They had a great work ethic and an unreal personality. From Bernie Parent to Bobby Clarke, it was an amazing group."

Eddie Collins III, who was there to represent his grandfather, Pennock, talked about his own rare distinction.

"I've got to be the only person here whose two grandfathers are not only in this Hall of Fame but baseball's Hall of Fame," he said, noting that his paternal grandfather and namesake, a star A's infielder, entered the Philadelphia Hall in 2009. "Maybe my father [Eddie Jr. played for the A's and was a Phillies executive] will be next."

Taylor, 48, the welterweight and light-welterweight champion who had some memorable battles with Julio Cesar Chavez, looked around the room packed with local stars and, between bites of a bacon-wrapped hors d'oeuvre, nodded his head approvingly.

"This right here is what it's all about," he said. "This is nice."