Famous Ithaca College Alumni

Gavin MacLeod, best known for playing Captain Stubing on The Love Boat as well as being a regular cast member on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and McHale's Navy passed away in May. If you're over 45 or 50, he's probably the best-known Ithaca College graduate. This got me thinking about a blog post I wrote a decade ago listing the most famous Ithaca College alumni. I think now is a perfect time to update the list. 

Please note that this is in no particular order. It's very possible that I missed several notable graduates, so please contact me if there's someone that should be here. I also only included graduates. Therefore, even though actress/TV host Ricki Lake, singer Gavin DeGraw, and Emmy-award winning actor Jharrel Jerome all attended Ithaca College, they didn't make the list.

David Muir - Anchor of ABC World News Tonight.

David Boreanaz - Actor on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Bones, and Seal Team.

CCH Pounder - Actress on The Shield, ER, and NCIS: New Orleans.

Bob Iger - Former CEO of The Walt Disney Company

Jessica Savitch - One of the first national female anchors (and her story helped inspire Anchorman).

Mark Romanek - Film director of One Hour Photo and Never Let Me Go and Grammy and MTV Video Award winning video director. I highly recommend going down the rabbit hole of seeing how he works as a director and then watching some of the videos he directed. He's responsible for some of the most iconic videos of all time.

Karl Ravech - ESPN journalist.

Kevin Connors - ESPN journalist (and fellow member of the class of '97).

Aaron Tveit - Tony-nominated actor for Moulin Rouge who is likely going to be a Tony-winning actor for Moulin Rouge though it's still not a guarantee. 

Barbara Gaines - Former executive producer of The Late Show with David Letterman.

Time to take a look at Ithaca College graduates in the Pittsburgh sports community:

Lanny Frattare - Former Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster.

Jenna Harner - Sports anchor on WPXI.

Josh Getzoff - Pittsburgh Penguins broadcaster.

John Ross Bowie - Actor best known as Kripke on The Big Bang Theory and Jimmy DiMeo on the gone-to-soon show Speechless.

Ben Feldman - Mad Men and Superstore actor.

Jeremy Jordan - Tony-nominated actor also known for his TV work on Smash and Supergirl.

Robert (Bob) Marella - National Wrestling Hall of Famer better known as Gorilla Monsoon. 

Eileen Filler-Corn - Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and first woman to serve in this position.

Meghan Musnicki - Gold medal winning rower at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.

Tim Locastro - Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder.

The Birthday Boys - 6 of the 7 members of this sketch comedy group are IC graduates, and they had a show on IFC with some guy named Bob Odenkirk. 

Dane Fischer - William & Mary's men's basketball coach (and someone I interviewed!)

Zach Spiker - Drexel's men's basketball coach.

Ryan Bamford - UMass athletic director.

Liz Tigelaar - Executive Producer for Little Fires Everywhere, The Morning Show, and Nashville.

Ithaca has also produced these sports broadcasters:

Brandon Burke - Television play-by-play announcer for the New York Islanders.

Ed Cohen - Radio voice of the New York Knicks.

Drew Goodman - Television play-by-play broadcaster for the Colorado Rockies.

Nick Nickson - Los Angeles Kings' broadcaster.

Andrew (Andy) Daly - Seemingly the busiest actors in Hollywood. You might not know his name, but as soon as you see his picture, you know him (from Review, Modern Family, and even CarMax commercials).

Larry Teng - Television director and producer of Nancy Drew, Ed, and Medium.

Q Smith - Broadway actress in Mary Poppins and in the original cast of the incredible musical Come From Away.

Jan Singer - Former CEO of J. Crew and Victoria's Secret.

Bill D'Elia - Executive producer of Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, and How To Get Away with Murder.

Ed Glazer - Co-owner and co-chairman of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

Finally, Giorgio Tsoukalos. Who? This guy!

Sheffield Wednesday & Random Ramblings

This will be an odd blog post. I'm going to start by discussing Saturday's Sheffield Wednesday-Birmingham City game (including some random thoughts that have nothing to do with the game) and finish with some random ramblings. So if you're not interested in Sheffield Wednesday, scroll down. If you're not interested in my other ramblings, I'll let you know when to stop.

Sheffield Wednesday moved closer towards 0 and getting out of last place on Saturday by earning 3 points in a 1-0 win at Birmingham City. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Wednesday started the season with a 12-point deduction for breaking spending rules. After five matches in the English League Championship, they are now at -4 which continues to look extremely odd.

Just a few days ago, Wednesday signed Aden Flint on a loan from Cardiff City and Jack Marriott on a loan from Derby County. Despite not knowing their way around Wednesday's facilities yet, they both played on Saturday. Flint was pressed into service thanks to several injuries on the team's back line. Marriott also came in late in the second half. Both are experienced players, particularly with Flint's nearly 400 appearances, and they seem excited to join Wednesday. This gives the team even more depth. At the very least, the team should be able to get some good hotel rates thanks to the Jack's connection with Marriott.

Wednesday has now faced two music superstars over the past month. While they didn't fare well against Chris Martin and Bristol City, U2's Adam Clayton tripped Wednesday's Callum Paterson in the box, and Barry Bannon converted the penalty kick for the only goal of the game. Yes, Adam Clayton was stuck in a moment and couldn't get out of it.

There have been so many matches over the last few years where Wednesday had the lead only to concede a late goal. Birmingham City came close, but for once, Wednesday held on. That's nice to type.

I'm sharing this post-match video of Birmingham City defender George Friend, not for anything that he said (though he thought his team deserved a better result), but for him being a professional. When someone with a lawnmower or a leaf blower walks by around the 2:00 minute mark, Friend just talks louder. I'm guessing this isn't the first time this has happened to Friend in the middle of an interview. True professional!

Here are the match highlights:

And now for the non-Sheffield Wednesday portion of this blog post.

On Saturday night, we let three year old Luigi move from a crib to a big boy bed. It didn't go well as it took him nearly two hours to go to sleep. I think this deserves a separate blog post.

Broadway actor Aaron Tveit and I have a lot in common. We both did theater in high school, and we both graduated from Ithaca College. I'm sure there are other things too. The main difference between us though is that Tveit is probably going to be a Tony-award winning actor after being the only nominee in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category. The key word here is probably. Despite being the only nominee, he's not guaranteed to win the award. Tveit still needs to earn 60% of the vote. I really hope he wins, and it would be insulting and sad if he doesn't.

Random question. Do you put a dryer sheet in the dryer before you put the clothes in or after you put the clothes in the dryer?

I may be the only person born in Pittsburgh never to have seen the movie Sudden Death. That's going to change soon.

Finally, I'm really amused that someone in the Burning Bush neighborhood posted this on Nextdoor.