By Tim Tassa -- Daily Staff Writer

WINCHESTER — Ken Mease wasn't sure if this is the 10th or 11th time he is to emcee the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival's Sports Breakfast.

After hosting the event that's previously attracted speakers such as Don Shula, Dick Vitale, Red Auerbach, Bruce Smith and Sam Snead, Mease said he'd have to match faces by year and by program to recall the official number.

"I just enjoy the whole atmosphere, it just amazes me how the community and the region throws itself into this thing," Mease said.

"For a town this size to be able to get the sports celebrity quality they do is amazing to me."

And on Friday he revisited memories from an impressive list of celebrity guests who have attended the breakfast.

"Sam Snead came in and he stood up and said 'If I knew I had to speak I wouldn't have come,'" Mease said. "And he [spoke] for 45 minutes."

A vivid and humorous moment for Mease, 66, was following Olympic swimmer Amy Van Dyken's speech, which was an inspirational story of her bout with asthma and overcoming the condition.

"While the next person was speaking, Red Auerbach lights up his cigar and Amy leans over to me and says, 'I can't breathe, I've got to get out of here,' and she left. Auerbach never realized what he had done," Mease said.

"Then in messages to the kids, he gets up and he says, 'If you really want to win, cheat."

And calling it "spellbinding," Mease noted last year's speech by former NFL great Bruce Smith — following the attack at Virginia Tech — as tremendous.

"To hear it from him and talking about the atmosphere there and how everyone was dealing with it was really, it was good medicine," Mease said. "It helped the perspective of everything."

Mease, a television and radio broadcaster since graduating from Susquehanna University, last did pre-game, halftime and post-game broadcasts for the Washington Redskins in 2004-05. However, he is not actively pursuing any future television gigs, admitting that "it's a young person's business."

"It's what I did ... I had my good run, whatever ever happens, happens when it comes up," said Mease, who has turned his attention to writing "the great American novel" and business investments in medicine and energy.

He said some of his career highlights included WUSA-TV's dominant coverage of Super Bowl XXII between the Redskins and Broncos, and during the 1987 NFL players' strike, when Gene Upshaw's proposal to NFL officials was rejected live on the air during an interview.

"It's stuff like that that you just dream of," Mease said. "You're scooping the nation."

Beginning at 8 a.m., Mease will introduce this year's sports breakfast highlighted by speakers Gale Sayers, an NFL Hall of Famer; Nadia Comaneci, a five-time Olympic gold medalist; and Sterling Grooms, a Special Olympics gold medalist.

"Obviously every one of those people brings something different," Mease said. "I mean how different can you be from an NFL Hall of Famer and arguably the world's greatest female gymnast ever.

"It's that dichotomy that makes it interesting."

*Contact Tim Tassa at ttassa@nvdaily.com

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