Author: Dsp9048sjasdf

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be J.J. Cooper, Executive Editor of Baseball America.

J.J. Cooper’s first assignment covering baseball was a lucky one–he was assigned to cover the 1995 Macon Braves, which meant he watched Baseball America Minor League Player of the Year Andruw Jones play day after day. Often Jones was roaming center field for Macon while facing off against future Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero playing for Albany. While that may have ruined him for years as far as expectations for minor league outfielders, it ensured he was hooked on covering baseball. Cooper came to Baseball America in 2002. He’s covered baseball at every level since then, although he still has a soft spot for the overlooked player, be they in a smaller college, international baseball or indy ball.

 

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MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

4/17/19 – Paul Haagan, Duke Law Professor and Head of The Center for Sports Law and Policy
5/1/19 – Tim Brewster, Assistant Head Coach/Tight Ends Coach, UNC
5/15/19 – Special Guest Speaker
6/5/19 – Scholar-Athlete Awards Night (5:30)

 

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Dave Odom,  former Head Basketball Coach at Wake Forest and the University of South Carolina, and college basketball expert.

Odom began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant at Wake Forest University in 1976 under head coach Carl Tacy. After three years at Wake Forest (1976–1979), Odom became the head coach at East Carolina University, where his squad compiled a 16-11 record, the university’s best since 1965. Odom stayed with the program until 1982, when he was offered a chance to return to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) as an assistant at the University of Virginia.

As an assistant at Virginia (1982–1989) under head coach Terry Holland, Odom participated in some of the university’s most successful seasons, including five National Collegiate Athletic Association berths and a trip to the Final Four in 1984. During this time, Odom coached future No. 1 NBA draft pick Ralph Sampson, who graduated in 1983. Odom served as acting head coach when Holland missed several games due to illness in the 1988-1989 season. Odom left Virginia in 1989 to return to Winston-Salem as the head coach of Wake Forest University.

Odom was named ACC coach of the year in 1991, 1994 and 1995. He led his team to consecutive ACC Championships in 1995 and 1996. Much of the success during these two years is attributed to star center Tim Duncan, whom he recruited as a player in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1994. In 1995, led by Duncan, the team put up a 26-6 overall record, including winning the ACC Tournament by defeating North Carolina by the score of 82-80, with the victory coming from a last second shot by point guard Randolph Childress. In 1996, the team successfully defended its title with a record of 26-6 by defeating Georgia Tech by a score of 75-74.

 

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MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

4/3/19 – J J Cooper, Executive Editor, Baseball America
4/17/19 – Paul Haagan, Duke Law Professor and Head of The Center for Sports Law and Policy
5/1/19 – Tim Brewster, Assistant Head Coach/Tight Ends Coach, UNC

 

 

 

 

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be David Cutcliffe, Head Football Coach at Duke University.  Cutcliffe, the 2013 National Coach of the Year who has earned both ACC and SEC Coach of the Year honors in a distinguished career that includes the mentoring of Super Bowl MVP quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning, was named Duke University’s 21st head football coach on December 15, 2007.

Cutcliffe is 67-72 (.482) in 11 seasons at Duke and owns an overall head coaching ledger of 111-101 (.524).

In addition to guiding the Blue Devil gridiron program, Cutcliffe serves on the American Football Coaches Association’s Board of Trustees.

Duke’s ascension into the national college football landscape has been spearheaded by Cutcliffe, who took over the program prior to the 2008 campaign after the Blue Devils had won just 10 total games in the previous eight seasons.  Cutcliffe’s vision has come together in the last seven years with 52 victories, six bowl appearances and the 2013 ACC Coastal Division championship.

Cutcliffe, born September 16, 1954, came to Duke after serving the previous two seasons as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at the University of Tennessee. His head coaching experience includes a six-year stint at the University of Mississippi from 1999-2004 where he compiled a 44-29 (.603) ledger with five winning seasons, five bowl game appearances and a share of the SEC Western Division championship in 2003. Cutcliffe was named the SEC Coach of the Year in 2003 after leading the Rebels to a 10-3 record including a 31-28 victory over Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl.

Cutcliffe has participated in 28 bowl games including the 1982 Peach, 1983 Florida Citrus, 1984 Sun, 1986 Sugar, 1986 Liberty, 1988 Peach, 1990 Cotton, 1991 Sugar, 1992 Fiesta, 1993 Hall of Fame, 1994 Florida Citrus, 1994 Gator, 1996 Florida Citrus, 1997 Florida Citrus, 1998 Orange, 1998 Independence, 1999 Independence, 2000 Music City, 2002 Independence, 2004 Cotton, 2007 Outback, 2008 Outback, 2012 Belk, 2013 Chick-fil-A, 2014 Hyundai Sun, 2015 New Era Pinstripe. 2017 Quick Lane and 2018 Walk-On’s Independence Bowl. He owns a 8-4 record as a head coach in bowl tilts with wins over Oklahoma, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Indiana, Northern Illinois and Temple.

Thanks, www.GoDuke.com

 

 

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Mark Your Calendar

3/20/19 – Dave Odom, College Basketball Expert
4/3/19 – J. J. Cooper, Executive Editor, Baseball America
4/17/19 – Paul Haagan, Duke Law Professor and Head of The Center for Sports Law and Policy

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Jones Angell, the “Voice of the Tarheels.”  Angell’s visit comes just hours before the first UNC – Duke basketball game of the season.

Angell started out his career calling high school football and baseball games in Jacksonville, North Carolina in 1999.

Angell’s very first job with the Tar Heel Sports Network was calling play-by-play of a Little League Baseball game for WIZS while still an intern. John Rose, who was the engineer for the Tar Heel Sports Network at the time, is part of the family that owns WIZS.

Angell continued to call high school football games while still an undergraduate at UNC Chapel Hill.  He also started doing color commentary for North Carolina Tar Heels women’s soccer and women’s basketball.

Angell spent most of his childhood in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He grew up listening to Woody Durham and Mick Mixon calling Tar Heel football and basketball games on the radio with his family.  Growing up, Angell wanted to do NCAA Division I play-by-play announcing, against the objections of his mother.

While a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Angell enrolled in what was then known as the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Between his sophomore and junior years, he started interning with the Tar Heel Sports Network, where he feels he received most of his training.

After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill, Angell worked in various radio and hosting positions within the Tar Heel Sports Network.  Prior to becoming the Voice of the Tar Heels, Angell was best known for providing color and later play-by-play commentary for Tar Heel baseball from 2000 to 2011, and for working alongside Durham and his staff as a host and color analyst for football and men’s basketball broadcasts from 2005 until 2011.

As assistant director of new media at UNC Chapel Hill, Angell has produced many features that have been shown on the video boards at Kenan Stadium and the Dean Smith Center.

 

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Mark Your Calendar

3/6/19 – David Cutcliffe, Head Football Coach, Duke
3/20/19 – Dave Odom, College Basketball Expert
4/3/19 – Special Guest Speaker!

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be David Wyant, Director and Chief Scout for Officiating Recruitment for the National Football League. Wyant has been involved in football officiating for 50 years, with 23 of those as a Side Judge in the NFL. During his time in the NFL, he worked one Super Bowl (XLVIII), two Conference championships, two Pro Bowls, and 14 playoff games. David also has 45 years of basketball officiating experience, more than 30 years of lacrosse officiating experience, and more than 10 years of baseball umpire experience, making it to the NCAA level in those sports. He has also served as an NFL trainer for the Side Judge position.

Wyant is a graduate of the University of Virginia with his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Civil Engineering. After graduation, he worked for 30 years researching transportation issues and developing plans to solve future potential problems. Wyant has authored and published over 40 papers in these research areas and has made presentations at international conventions. While at UVa, he played baseball and helped start and coach the women’s softball team in 1980.

David and his wife, Gail, live in Crozet, Virginia, and have 3 children and 4 grandchildren. He is a life-long resident of his County and the 4th generation owner of Wyant’s Country Store, which was established in the early 1800’s.

In 2014, Wyant was inducted into his high school Hall of Fame.

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Mark Your Calendar

2/20/19 – Jones Angell, Radio Play-by-Play, UNC
3/6/19 – David Cutcliffe, Head Football Coach, Duke
3/20/19 – Dave Odom, College Basketball Expert

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach at Duke.  Pollard became Duke’s 25th head baseball coach in June of 2012, taking over the reins of the Blue Devil program after successful stints at Pfeiffer University and Appalachian State University.

Under Pollard’s guidance, Duke put together a historic 2018 campaign. Ranked in the preseason for the first time in program history, the 2018 team lived up to early season hype, recording the first 40-win season in program history while also earning a program-record 18 ACC wins and advancing to the first NCAA Super Regional in school history. 

Baseball America ranked Duke in its top 25 for 13 weeks during the regular season, more than doubling the total number of weeks the Blue Devils were ranked in the first 36 years of the publication’s rankings (6). With a 45-18 overall record, Duke not only set a program record for wins in a season but also reached 30 wins for the fifth straight year, the program’s longest such stretch since the Blue Devils compiled a run of seven-straight 30-win campaigns from 1992-98.

Just two years earlier, Pollard led Duke to an at-large bid to the 2016 NCAA Tournament, ending the program’s 55-year drought without making the postseason event. After beginning the season 10-13 (1-7 ACC), the Blue Devils went 23-9 over their final 32 regular season games, including a 13-8 ACC record. During that span, Duke went 9-7 against Top 20 RPI teams, collected series victories over Georgia Tech, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State and Pitt, and posted a perfect 10-0 mark in non-conference play.

The first head coach to lead Duke to the NCAA Tournament since the Kennedy administration, Pollard is also the fastest Blue Devil head coach to reach 100 wins at Duke. In over 110 seasons before his arrival, Duke totaled 10, 30-win seasons. Since taking over the program, Pollard has guided the Blue Devils to five seasons of 30 or more wins. 

thanks, www.GoDuke.com

 

Mark Your Calendar

2/6/19 – David Wyant, Director of Scouting, National Football League
2/20/19 – Special Guest Speaker
3/6/19 – Special Guest Speaker

This is a “members and their guests only” meeting.  Luke DeCock from the News & Observer will be presenting the “Sports Year in Review”.

 

The next meeting that will be open to the public will be Wednesday, January 16th, 2019.  Happy Holidays!

 

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Mark Your Calendars!

1/2/19 – NO MEETING!!!!
1/16/19 – Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach, Duke
2/6/19 – Special Guest Speaker!

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Alan Matthews, “Southeast Regional Crosschecker Scout” for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Matthews grew up in Durham, was a catcher at Northern High School, and went on to journalism school in college before taking a job at Baseball America here in Durham in 2002.  After meeting some people who worked in professional baseball through his position as writer/editor at Baseball America, the Rockies offered him a full-time scouting position covering Georgia, Alabama and North Florida in 2007. His first draft pick was Charlie Blackmon (second round, 2008) from Georgia Tech. Blackmon just appeared in his second All-Star game in 2018 and is still the starting Center Fielder in Colorado. Two other players he signed while with the Rockies, Jordan Patterson (2013, 4^th round University of South Alabama) and Sam Howard (3^rd round, 2014, Georgia Southern University) have since made it to the majors, as well

In August of 2015, Matthews accepted a regional crosschecking position with the Dodgers, covering the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Puerto Rico. He supervises four area scouts in the Southeast. Matthews moved back to Durham from Atlanta, where he had relocated while working that area for the Rockies.  For more information, check out https://dodgers.mlblogs.com/how-a-baseball-america-scribe-landed-in-the-dodgers-scouting-department-968b60d64e5

 

 

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Mark Your Calendars!

12/19/18 – Durham Sports Clubs’ Annual “Christmas Party” with Luke DeCock’s “Sports Year in Review”
1/2/19 – NO MEETING!!!!
1/16/19 – Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach, Duke

 

 

 

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Anne Keene, Author of the book “The Cloudbuster Nine – The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II”.  In 1943, the New York Yankees won the World Series but one of the nation’s strongest baseball teams practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Sain were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The “Cloudbuster Nine” was recently named as a finalist for the 2018 CASEY Award for “Best Baseball Book of the Year” by Spitball magazine.

Anne’s work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic Books, the Dallas Morning News and the Raleigh News & Observer and sports publications such as Boston Sports Extra. She served as a governor-appointed board member to the Texas State Archives Historical Records Advisory Board dedicated to the preservation of the state’s archives and documentary heritage. She is an advisor to Texas Our Texas, a Texas PBS documentary and education network, and serves as a board member of the Friends of Libraries and Archives of Texas. Anne swims for Longhorn Aquatics Masters at the University of Texas and is passionate about supporting fitness for veterans and children.

Anne began her career as a writer after graduating from UNC with a journalism degree, working in radio news/television documentary research and production, and serving as a press secretary and speechwriter in both Congress and a Presidential Administration.

 

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Mark Your Calendars!

12/5/18 – Alan Matthews, Southeast Regional Crosschecker, Los Angeles Dodgers
12/19/18 – Durham Sports Clubs’ Annual “Christmas Party” with Luke DeCock’s “Sports Year in Review”
1/2/19 – NO MEETING!!!!
1/16/19 – Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach, Duke

 

 

 

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Tara Hittle, Assistant Women’s Volleyball Coach at Duke.  Tara joined the Duke volleyball program in April 2018 and serves as an assistant coach, aiding in all aspects of the program including recruiting, practice planning, match preparation, scheduling and team travel.

A former NCAA Division I student-athlete and professional volleyball player, Hittle brings ample experience as a both a coach and a recruiter. She spent the 2017 season as an assistant coach at Portland State, helping the Vikings to their first 20-win season since 2013 while helping guide four Vikings to All-Big Sky Conference honors.

Before her arrival at Portland State, Hittle spent the 2016 campaign as a member of the Dartmouth coaching staff. Prior to her time in Hanover, N.H., Hittle served as a high school and club volleyball coach in her home state of Colorado. She was the head volleyball coach at Valor Christian High School from 2014-15 and Doherty High School from 2011-14. Hittle led Doherty to the 2012 state championship and was named 2012 Colorado Coach of the Year.

From 2011-16, Hittle was also the head coach of the Colorado Juniors Volleyball Club, leading her squad to two Colorado Crossroads Championships as well as a second-place finish at the 2016 National Tournament. She successfully guided her team members through the collegiate recruiting process, sending 100 percent of her players to the next level.

Before embarking on her coaching career, Hittle participated in both volleyball and basketball at the University of Hawaii, graduating with a degree in physical education and health in 2009. A four-time letterwinner, she remains in the school’s volleyball record book for both career digs (4th | 1,315) and digs per game (7th | 2.83). Following her collegiate career, Hittle then played professionally for the Volleyball Franches-Montagnes in Switzerland during the 2010-11 season.

Thanks, goduke.com

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Mark Your Calendars!

11/21/18 – Anne Keene, Author, “The Cloudbuster Nine”
12/5/18 – Alan Matthews, Southeast Regional Crosschecker, Los Angeles Dodgers
12/19/18 – Durham Sports Clubs’ Annual “Christmas Party” with Luke DeCock’s “Sports Year in Review”