Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a surprise speaker at the Feb. 24 first-day ceremony in Los Angeles, Calif., for the John Wooden stamp. Photograph by Daniel Afzal, United States Postal Service.
First-day-of-issue ceremonies are of interest to me, and I wish I could make it to all of them, but for obvious reasons, that isn’t possible.
One recent ceremony I couldn’t attend was for the commemorative forever stamp honoring basketball coach John Wooden issued Feb. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif., at UCLA.
Normally, a list of guests is circulated in advance, even if on a smaller scale to local media, but this time, things were a little quieter than usual.
That’s because the planners were keeping back a surprise guest: basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. A photograph nearby provided by the Postal Service shows him speaking at the podium at the event.
I heard the crowd was extra enthusiastic when he was introduced. This is an awesome feeling when attending a ceremony, and I was happy to hear something like that took place.
And that guest appearance was noticed by lots of national media outlets, too, including major networks, sports outlets and even a cruise ship newsletter.
Interest in stamps from all types of sources is always positive in my view.
