When it comes to TU football, Don Tollefson is one of the few (only) media 'good guys'

Temple's permanent locker room at Lincoln Financial Field

Photo by Dave Gerson


By Mike Gibson
Can't talk about 2009 Temple Football Fan Fest without first talking about the 2008 version of Temple Football Fan Fest.
Last year's TFFF came on Aug. 20. I remember that date because I did a doubleheader.
Fan Fest late afternoon, followed by Phillies game at night.
First, though, I heard Don Tollefson on my radio.

Don Tollefson and Jim Gardner back in the day.

I know his wife is an Archbishop Ryan and Temple grad, like myself, so I picked up my cell phone, called 950 ESPN and told the producer I wanted to talk Phillies.
(That's the only way a Temple football call gets on sports radio in this town, fool the producers, but I digress.)
I did talk Phillies.
Kind of.
"Don, I'm headed down to the Phillies, but first I'm going to stop off at Temple Football Fan Fest," I said.
"Wow," Tolley said. "Al Golden is doing a great job with those Owls."
"Yeah, I'm a Temple grad and an Archbishop Ryan grad," I said.
"Double wow," Tolley said. "You have like no degrees of separation with my beautiful wife."

That's the only way a Temple football call gets on sports radio in this town, fool the producers

Tolley and I then went on to talk for 10 minutes about Temple football and how they were going to spank Army in the opener.
The university couldn't have paid enough money for that positive airtime.
Oh yeah.
I never got around to my Phillies point.
Didn't matter.
What Fan Fest really is, or is designed to be, is to get Temple some positive press and mention in media that it normally gets neglected by, places like Comcast and sports talk radio.
If it alerted thousands of people to the game and energized the fan base, it was a success.
The biggest news coming out of this year's Fan Fest was that Vaughn Charlton was named the starter at quarterback, but I had that on this website last week.
Didn't make this year's Fan Fest because of an inner ear infection, but 3,000 of my fellow Owl fans did and they got to see the beautiful facility the Owls have.
No other college football team in America plays in a better stadium.
None.
Now it's high time for Owl fans to fill that stadium and make it a real house of horrors for opposing teams.
Starting in about one week.