Purdy one of several headed to SJ HOF
Super Bowl w inners George Seifert and James Jones, two- time Olympic gold medalist Summer Sanders and award-winning former Mer - cur y News columnist Mark Purdy will all be inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2021.
Seifert won five Super Bowls with the 49ers, including two as head coach in Super Bowl XXIV and XXIX. Jones, a three-sport athlete at Gunderson High School and a standout wide receiver at San Jose State, won Super Bowl XLV with the Green Bay Packers.
“It means more to me because I’m a San Jose kid,” Jones said Wednesday by phone. “I didn’t just come to San Jose to play or coach, I’m a San Jose kid. I went to elementary school, high school and college in San
Jose, and now to be in the San Jose Hall of Fame, my hometown, it’s huge. It’s something that you really can’t even dream of.”
Sanders was the most decorated swimmer of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, as she won two gold medals, one silver and one bronze. Her career at Stanford in 1991 and 1992 included six individual national championships and four titles in relay events. She also helped the Cardinal win the NCAA team championship in 1992.
Purdy worked at the Mercury News for 33 years until his retirement in 2017 and is the first local career journalist to be enshrined into the Hall, which is now in its 26th year and has inducted 114 people.
Purdy has covered 14 Olympic Games, nearly three dozen Super Bowls and numerous other significant sporting events on the local and national stage, including the 1989 World Series and the Loma Prieta earthquake, the debut of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks in 1991, and the 1999 Women’s World Cup.
Purdy’s voice became synonymous with sports in San Jose. While with the Mercury News, he was named one of the Top 10 Sports Columnists by the Associated Press Sports Editors several times and was also recognized by the Wall Street Journal for writing one of the country’s ten best sports columns.
Some of Purdy’s columns in the late 1980s urged San Jose voters to pass a measure that would allow millions of dollars of redevelopment funds to be spent on a new civic arena. The
measure passed in 1988 and the arena, now called SAP Center, broke ground in 1990 and was completed in 1993 at a cost of $162.5 million — $132.5 million of which was funded by the city.
“In my 35 years in the Bay Area, nobody has been a greater champion for San Jose and the South Bay than Mark Purdy,” said Bud Geracie, Bay Area News Group’s executive sports editor. “I’m not joking when I say there should be a statue of him outside the SAP Center. Without Mark’s relentless support, the Sharks might not be here, which means the arena probably wouldn’t be here.
“San Diego named its stadium after the sports editor of the local newspaper, even erected a statue of Jack Murphy and his dog. I’m not suggesting San Jose rename its arena the Purdy Center, or include Mark’s
dog Zimmy, but a statue is worthy of consideration.”
Purdy has been involved with the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame since 1995. Since then, Purdy has lent his voice – written and narrated – to the inductee video vignettes that have become a staple of the annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony and dinner.
“My selection wouldn’t have happened without A, the Mercury News making the commitment to cover sports they way they did when I got here,” Purdy said by phone Wednesday, “and B, the readers who were nice enough to read what I wrote and support the Mercury News so (the paper) could send me around the world to do what I did.”
The date for the 2021 San Jose Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony and dinner will be announced after local COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.