Shirley Whipple Struchen didn’t even attend St. Bonaventure, but the impact one man made on her life more than 60 years ago compelled her to establish a $50,000 endowment to the university in his name.

The Bob Davies Excellence in Sports Media Endowment will enhance the sports media student experience in the Jandoli School of Communication. Funding will support programming, experiential learning, and other opportunities that engage students in sports-focused areas of journalism and communication.

Davies covered Bonnies basketball longer than any beat reporter in Olean Times Herald history, for 17 years until a stroke took his life in October 1980. Davies covered two of the most glorious periods in SBU’s basketball history: the 1970 Final Four team and the 1977 NIT title team.

In a column published the day after Bob’s passing, managing editor Chuck Ward called Davies “an honorable reporter doing an honest story,” a compassionate man who would “never distort a coach’s or player’s words for a better story.”

Tributes in subsequent days by sports desk colleagues Mike Abdo and Chuck Pollock were heart-wrenching, detailing the cosmopolitan life of a “renaissance man” who cared about so much more than sports.

Davies had a vast book and record collection, traveled to New York twice a year to see a run of Broadway shows and returned to Olean to review them, and was never afraid to sample a restaurant menu item he had never tried before.

Pollock called him “the most thoughtful, considerate, sensitive man he’d ever met.”

That’s why Shirley Struchen wants to honor his legacy.

“We didn’t go to a lot of Bonnies game, but we were avid radio listeners on game days and always read Bob in the OTH for updates,” said Struchen, a 1960 graduate of Olean High School. “I came to know Bob when I was a teenager because our families both went to First United Methodist Church (now Christ United). Bob was very active in the church, and he was always so good to me. He was the one who encouraged me to go to college, and I was the first person in my family to do so.”

Upon Struchen’s graduation from Olean High, Davies gave her a book of poems by Emily Dickinson. He gave her another book when she graduated from Oral Roberts University.

The two remained in touch through the decades, with Davies continuing to mentor and encourage her.

 “When he’d come to New York City, he’d take me to a posh restaurant or museum,” said Struchen, who still lives in Manhattan. “He was always so thoughtful and considerate. He had an impact on so many people I grew up with.”

In January of 1980, Struchen’s pastor, with whom she had been close, died. Just 10 days later, her father passed away. Davies knew the emotional toll those back-to-back tragedies had on her.

“Bob was the first person I saw and the first person to hug me at my father’s funeral,” Struchen said.

Only nine months later, Davies died, just hours after covering a Bonnies press conference in Rochester. He was 58.

“A friend convinced me to fly up for Bob’s funeral and I’m so glad she did,” said Struchen, a retired communications executive with the United Methodist Church. “He was a remarkable man. I’m hopeful that others who were impacted by Bob, or who believed in what he stood for and the way he lived his life, will be interested in supporting the endowment.”

Those interested in supporting future Jandoli School students through the Bob Davies Excellence in Sports Media Endowment may contact Melissa DeRose at mderose@sbu.edu or visit www.sbu.edu/donate.

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure is a community committed to transforming the lives of its students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a commitment to academic excellence and lifelong civic engagement. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #8 for value and #19 overall by U.S. News and World Report (2025).