Mike Jensen spent 35 years covering basketball and other sports for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His book about Philadelphia basketball will be published in 2026 by Temple University Press. In 2024, Mike was inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame. He also won national Eclipse Awards for his horse racing coverage of Smarty Jones and Barbaro. Among other honors, he was named Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year and won the Jim O'Connell Award by the United States Basketball Writers Association for Excellence in Beat Reporting. He still has the trophy for winning a foul-shooting contest at the 1976 Julius Erving Basketball Camp.
His subject, the legendary William "Speedy" Morris, spent more than fifty years coaching basketball in Philadelphia on the. high school and college levels.
Morris's speech on being inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.
Mike Jensen article on the Speedy Morris "coaching tree."
Comprehensive coverage of Morris after he coached his final game, in 2020. The photo of Morris, taken when he was coaching Penn Charter high school in 1983, is from this site.
Morris teaching the pump fake.
