August 2005
I would like to welcome you to FROM THE PRESS BOX TO PRESS ROW. I am a huge fan of sports talk radio. My favorite national show is probably The Jim Rome Show. I listen to sports talk radio shows, no matter what locale I am in.

But while I love all sports, I have found that rarely is there a show that talks about Black college sports. That is where this show comes in. The first national sports talk show, whose focus is Black college sports. There are plenty of former Black College student-athletes now competing at the highest level of their profession. Guys like Ben Wallace (Virginia Union) Ronald “Flip” Murray (Shaw), Darrell Armstrong (Fayetteville State), Michael Strahan (Texas Southern) and Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State) just to name a few.

There are also plenty of former HBCU student-athletes now in Pro Hall of Fames. Names like Walter Payton (Jackson State), Sam Jones (North Carolina Central), Art Shell (Maryland State) Larry Little (Bethune-Cookman) Larry Doby (Virginia Union), the American League’s first black player, Paul “Tank” Younger (Grambling) Earl “The Pearl” Monroe (Winston-Salem State), Deacon Jones (South Carolina State) and Ken Houston (Prairie View) just to name a few. (My alma mater Morgan State has three pro football Hall of Famers including Willie Lanier, Leroy Kelley and Roosevelt “Rosey” Brown). When these players played sports talk radio was non-existent.

For the first set of players I mentioned from the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s, sports talk radio was popular and coming into its own, but even these players, again at the highest level of their profession now, were hardly ever mentioned when they played in college when it came to sports talk shows.

FROM THE PRESS BOX TO PRESS ROW will talk about what’s hot in Black college sports and will talk to and about the stars of tomorrow.

I would like to thank: God who makes all things possible even for a shy, quiet youngster from Silver Spring, MD; Zyrus Campbell, the sites Webmaster and my boyhood friend since 1985; Lawrence Johnson of All-Pro Photo who provided the pictures for the show’s logo; Lemmy Ogah of Lemmy’s Photography Studio, who provided the press box shot; Demarcus Williams of freshdesignz.net who designed the Web site logo; Jack Boston who I have worked with for the last two years, who sounds a little like the guy from NFL films and is very creative and does outstanding voiceovers and radio production and; my family and friends, especially my wife Kim for without her support this project nor any of my other projects would have never happened. (She allows me to stay up late and work.)

I would like to thank Lamont Germany, the voice of Morgan State for over 25 years now who taught me everything I have learned about radio, particularly sports talk and play-by-play; the late Chester Davis, Voice of the Shaw Bears and CIAA who was very influential to me in radio and life; Black college media pioneers such as Eric Moore of the Onnidan Group and onnidan.com, Lut Williams of the Black College Sports Page and Michael Pippen of Inside Black College Sports, who have taken Black college sports to a new level; old school entities such as the Pittsburgh Courier and the Carolinian who covered Black college sports like no other newspaper have or will and; George Johnson, Bonita Best, Maurice Hicks, David Forston and Brandon Matthews who helped me to put together my first show.

I would like to give a special thanks to the Sports Information Directors of the schools. Most time, it's the SID who makes the athletic departments run. It's a tireless and thankless job, but one of the most important to the colleges and universities.

I would like to thank you for your support in this endeavor and this show is for you the listener. The time is now.

Donal Ware
Founder/CEO
DWCommunications