Some Friday Reads

 Obituary: Sportscaster and journalist Greg Gumbel, 78, has died after a bout with cancer.  He was in broadcasting for about fifty years.

He was the older brother of noted television host and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel.

Snip:

Greg Gumbel was born in New Orleans on May 3, 1946, and grew up in Chicago. He graduated from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1967.

Gumbel joined CBS Sports in 1989 after years of hosting and play-play duties for New York Knicks basketball and New York Yankees baseball for the Madison Square Garden Network, as well as three other weekly MSGN programs, which earned him a local Emmy Award. He also worked for ESPN, WMAQ-TV Chicago, where he won two local Emmys, and WFAN Radio in New York City

At CBS Sports, he hosted "The NFL Today," the network's NFL pre-game, halftime and post-game studio show, from 1990-93 and 2004-05, including Super Bowl XXVI in 1992, Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, and Super Bowl 50 in 2016. 

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For many years I have not written anything about my old employer, Washoe County School District, since I have long since moved on.  The last I had heard of former WCSD superintendent Pedro Martinez, he was at San Antonio ISD.  However, he did make his way back to where he started, in Chicago, heading the school district there.  It appears, however, he was sacked in recent days.  Despite being canned by the school board there, he was in contract bargaining with the teachers' union.

It sounds like the mayor was out of line:

On Tuesday, a judge granted Martinez a temporary restraining order, at least until the next court hearing on Jan. 9, six days before the elected school board members are sworn in.

The ruling bars Mayor Brandon Johnson's handpicked school board, who voted to fire Martinez last Friday, from the bargaining table with CTU, unless otherwise invited by the CEO himself.

"We're going to continue to act in good faith. All I've asked is allow me to do my job. Hold me accountable to it," Martinez said.

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He is no stranger to controversy, old Martinez.  He was wrongly fired at WCSD a decade ago thanks to the board violating Nevada's open meeting law.  Then he made off with a $700,000 settlement before winding up in San Antonio for a few years, then heading back to Chicago, where he is from or where he started his career.

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Obituary:  Actress Olivia Hussey, 73, died today.  She became famous when, as a teen, she starred in the title role of the 1968 film adaptation of Romeo & Juliet.   She died at her home.  She had had cancer off and on for the past fifteen years or so.  She retired from acting in 2016.

Snip:

Hussey was born on April 17, 1951, in Buenos Aires and moved to London as a child. She started acting at 13 and had minor roles in films before she was cast in director Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet. 

Once the film hit theaters in 1968, it became a box office sensation and was notable for being the first time a movie featured actors close to the ages of Shakespeare’s doomed lovers. Hussey was 16 and her costar, Leonard Whiting, was 17. 

"So much happened so fast," Hussey told PEOPLE in July 2018 when she was promoting her memoir The Girl on the Balcony. "It was overnight superstardom and I wasn't prepared for it."

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