"Invited to the party': Dean Terry Hynes, UF President Bernie Machen, Linda Connelly, PR 1980, and Michael Connelly, JM 1980, prepare for the fall commencement ceremony. (Photo by Boaz Dvir)
‘Making up for lost time’
UF names pro golfer, best-selling author Distinguished Alumni
By Boaz Dvir
Bestselling detective novelist Michael Connelly, JM 1980, has received nearly every important award in his field – the Edgar, the Nero and the Barry, to name a few. He’s also big in Japan (where he won the Maltese Falcon award), France (the .38 Caliber and the Grand Prix), and Italy (the Premio Bancarella).
Yet he appeared far from jaded when UF President Bernie Machen named him and pro golfer Deb Richard, ADV 1986, Distinguished Alumni during the fall commencement ceremony at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
“This award,” said his wife Linda Connelly, PR 1980, “means more to him than most of the awards he’s received in his life.”
Connelly considers himself lucky
In the moments leading up to commencement, Connelly seemed more like a student prepared to turn his tassel than a Distinguished Alumnus about to accept one of UF’s highest honors. Having skipped his graduation ceremony 24 years earlier, he treated this occasion as a chance to relive his youth.
“It’s a little like making up for lost time,” said Connelly, whose 15th novel, The Closers, hits bookstores May 16.
In his first career, Connelly covered the crime beat for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Los Angeles Times. He became a novelist in 1992 with the publication of The Black Echo, in which he created LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) detective Harry Bosch. Eleven of Connelly’s novels, including Closers, feature the flawed, brainy, good-hearted policeman.
“I try to be balanced about cops,” said Connelly, named one of the College’s Alumni of Distinction in 2003. “I’m mostly interested in how their job affects them as human beings.”
Like another L.A. institution (Hollywood), Connelly has developed a successful formula and plans to stick with it.
“I’ve been invited to the party and I plan to stay there,” said Connelly, president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2003 and 2004.
The Tampa resident often returns to the College to give students a glimpse into his world. He recently spoke in several classes, including Reporting, taught by Master Lecturer Mike Foley, JM 1970, MAMC 2004, and Literary Journalism, by Prof. William McKeen. “I tell them what they learn here can take them places,” Connelly said.
He cared little for school work until he entered the journalism program. It paid off handsomely. After he broke both elbows and four fingers in a bike accident during the fall 1979 semester, he dropped out of all his classes except journalism ethics, taught by the late Prof. Buddy Davis, JM 1948, MAMC 1952 (see letters to the editor, Page 4).
“It was pretty much destiny,” he said.
For his newspaper reading assignment, Connelly randomly picked the LA Times. Years later, when he reported for duty at that paper, he knew enough to quickly get past his rookie status.
“It gave me a head start,” he said. “I had learned a lot about the paper and the city.”
Some of his work from the LA Times appeared earlier this year in Crime Beat, Selected Journalism 1984-1992, a limited edition hardcover book that also includes stories from the Sun-Sentinel.
His path to success seems clear: He worked hard, made the right decisions, nurtured his talent and built a foundation of insight and sensibility. But the unassuming Connelly attributes much of it to luck.
“Luck played a role in it,” he said. “There are people who are more talented than I – even in my genre – who are not as successful.”
'Over the top': Deb Richard, ADV 1986, (center), her family and former UF golf coach Mimi Ryan (to her right) in the hours leading up to the commencement ceremony. (Photo by Boaz Dvir)
Richard relives the good old days
In the hours leading up to the ceremony, Richard and her UF coach Mimi Ryan joked around as if they still competed on the Lady Gator golf team. They reminisced about the early days, when the then-high school senior came from Kansas to visit Florida State and Florida. The Seminoles asked Richard to prove she could play, she recalled. The Gators trusted her and made an exception at the time by offering her a scholarship.
“I didn’t need to take too many out-of-state players,” said Ryan, who retired in 1994.
“Hey,” said Richard, a Top 50 UF Athlete of the Century, “I got you over the top.”
She sure did, helping UF win its first women’s golf national championship in 1985. “We killed,” Richard recalled. “We won by 16 shots.”
She became a golfer in a roundabout way. When she was a child, her family took it up as a sport, so she played along. But she “hated it,” she said. “I played every sport – football, basketball, softball – but I thought golf was slow.”
She quickly caught up. In 1984, she won the U.S. Amateur Championship and Low Individual Honors in the World Cup Championship. In her two decades with the LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association), the Ponte Vedra Beach resident has $3 million in earnings.
In 1985, she founded the Deb Richard Foundation to help the disabled. For her charity work, she received the Samaritan Award and the Kids Good Sports Award from Sports Illustrated. She also won the Founder’s Cup Award from Golf Digest.
She plans to retire, but won’t say when. She just might continue promoting the sport. “Golf is a revered sport in so many corners of the world,” she said. “In Asia, it’s the sport.”
