Our guest speaker for this meeting will be George Bell, former Harlem Globetrotter and the tallest man in the United States. Born in 1957 in Portsmouth, Virginia, Bell is the tallest man in the United States at 7 feet 8 inches (234 cm) as recognized by Guinness World Records. He was a deputy sheriff in Norfolk, Virginia, he played college basketball at Morris Brown College, Biola University, then played with the Harlem Wizards and Harlem Globetrotters.
Bell was featured on the AMC show Freakshow, throughout its two seasons. In an interview for the show, he revealed that he had appeared as an alien who landed on top of the L.A. Coliseum at the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He also appeared on season 4 of American Horror Story. He first showed signs of his impending tallness when he was 9 or 10, Bell said, but through high school he never grew so tall that he felt out of place. By the time he hit his early 20s, however, his height had exceeded 7 feet. When he last measured himself, about 20 years ago, he said, he was 7 feet 7 inches. But the measurements for the Guinness book showed he had grown another inch. Bell said he has a medical condition called gigantism, which causes excessive growth hormone secretion during childhood. (Thanks, Wikipedia)
Mark Your Calendar
All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
10/18/23 – David Shumate, Radio Play-by-Play Announcer, Duke
11/1/23 – Art Chase, Senior Associate Athletic Director, Duke
11/15/23 – Wes Moore, Head Women’s Basketball Coach, NC State
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Jolene Nagel, Head Volleyball Coach at Duke University. Jolene Nagel became Duke University’s fifth head volleyball coach in 1999, joining the Blue Devil staff after successful stints at Cornell and Georgetown.
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Jon Scheyer, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Duke University. Scheyer was named the 20th head coach in Duke University’s storied basketball history on June 4, 2021. He enters his second season as head coach in 2023-24, with vast experience on the Duke bench, having served on Mike Krzyzewski’s staff since the 2013-14 season. His previous roles with the Blue Devils include special assistant, assistant coach, and the previous three years as associate head coach.
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Andrew Carter, Reporter for the News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer. Carter spent 10 years covering major college athletics, six of them covering the University of North Carolina for The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer. Now he’s a member of The N&O’s and Observer’s statewide enterprise and investigative reporting team. He attended N.C.State and grew up in Raleigh dreaming of becoming a journalist.
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Brian Kalbas, Head Women’s Tennis Coach at UNC. Kalbas has been named the National Coach of the Year three times, including this year, when the Team won its first NCAA National Championship and seventh ITA National Team Indoor Championship. Over the course of his 21 seasons at UNC, he has won 6 ACC Championships, been named ACC Coach of the Year 5 times, coached 3 NCAA Doubles National Champions and one NCAA Singles National Championship.
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Valerie Gillispie, University Archivist at Duke University. Gillispie will be speaking about the earlier history of Duke Football.
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Dave Odom, Former Head Basketball Coach at Wake Forest, University of South Carolina and others. In 1965, Odom accepted a job as the coach of Goldsboro High School while enrolled at East Carolina University in pursuit of a master’s degree in physical education. Odom coached Goldsboro High School for four seasons between 1965 and 1969, he was also a drivers ed instructor during this time. After graduating from East Carolina in 1969, Odom took a job at Durham High School. He coached at Durham for seven years (1969–1976) where he was voted his league’s coach of the year five times.