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The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Dan Brooks, Head Women’s Golf Coach at Duke. The women’s golf team just won their 7th NCAA National Championship this past May. Brooks brought home his 136th all-time victory and seventh NCAA Championship since 1999. It marked his first team title since 2014 and the first since the event moved to match play in 2015. The NCAA Championship is the 17th overall in Duke Athletics history. Over the last 21 years, Duke has established itself as the nation’s top women’s collegiate golf team with seven national titles, 110 event titles, 15 ACC titles, four NCAA individual champions, and 14 ACC individual medalist honors. The Blue Devils have been tabbed No. 1 nationally in 11 out of the last 19 years.

The women’s golf team won the first five national titles in women’s athletics at Duke University, each coming during the Brooks era. The seven NCAA Championships are also the most by any team in school history.

Duke has collected 20 ACC Championship titles during Brooks’ term with the Blue Devils, while 19 individuals have captured medalist honors at the ACC event under Brooks. He has coached 36 All-ACC selections (95 total selections) and 13 Academic All-America choices. His efforts with the nationally known Duke squad haven’t gone unnoticed as Brooks was inducted into the National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA) Hall of Fame in 2001

In addition to his responsibilities with the women’s golf program, he teaches many students at the Duke Golf Club as a PGA Teaching Professional. He also directs a summer youth instructional program called the Duke Academy of Golf.

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Mark Your Calendar

12/18/19 – Christmas Party Luncheon
1/1/20 – HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!  (No meeting)
1/15/20 – Meeting at the Durham Nativity School, 1004 N Mangum Street.  Guest Speaker to be announced.

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Rick Steinbacher, Senior Associate Athletic Director for UNC. Steinbacher serves as UNC’s Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Communications. In that role, he manages all of the athletic department’s external communications including marketing, new media and gameday customer relations.

A 1993 Carolina graduate and football letter winner, Steinbacher has worked at UNC since 2000. He was part of the football program from 2000-06, and served as Associate Athletic Director for Marketing and New Media from 2006-12 before being promoted to his current position. He also is a long-time member of the Tar Heel Sports Network broadcast team and is currently the color analyst for UNC football broadcasts.

The Greenville, SC., native played football at Carolina from 1990-93, starting 30 games at inside linebacker and earning third-team All-ACC honors as a senior, when he captained a team that went 10-3.

After graduating with a degree in business administration, he spent five years in sales and marketing with Procter and Gamble, based in Charlotte. Steinbacher then joined Tar Heel Sports Marketing, where he was a Vice President for Account Development.

Steinbacher and his wife, Valerie, a 1989 UNC graduate, have two daughters, Donna and Kiersten. His brother Steve was also a football player at Carolina from 1984-88, his sister Donna was a swimmer from 1986-87, and his sister-in-law Erika Steinbacher was an All-ACC diver at Carolina from 1984-88.

Thank you for the info, www.goheels.com

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Mark Your Calendar

12/4/19 – Dan Brooks, Head Women’s Golf Coach, Duke
12/18/19 – Christmas Party Luncheon
1/1/20 – HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!  (No meeting)
1/15/20 – Stay tuned for details!

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Matt Jednak, Head Coach of the men’s and women’s fencing team at UNC.  He took over the role on May 1, 2019 becoming just the second coach in Tar Heel program history, following Ron Miller, who came to UNC in 1967 and spent 52 years at the UNC helm.  Miller coached the Tar Heels for 52 seasons and compiled a career record of 1,603-900. He initially retired in the spring of 2018 but stayed on for the 2018-19 season as UNC completed the search and hired a new coach.

As a Tar Heel Assistant Coach he was involved in all aspects of the program, coaching numerous NCAA Championships qualifiers while developing a broad base of experience and a strong coaching philosophy.  “My coaching philosophy develops student-athletes and staff into confident leaders and forges strong bonds with parents and alumni, while my passion and emotional energy create an environment that cultivates the highest levels of success,” Jednak said. “This is an unbelievable opportunity for me.”

Jednak coached locally as part of the North Carolina Fencing Development Program and with Apex Fencing Academy, where he worked with several national medal winners.

A three-year letter winner as part of UNC men’s epee squad, Jednak completed his North Carolina degree in 2009, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mathematical decision sciences. He served as a Carolina assistant coach from 2009-14, then founded and currently manages his own accounting and tax firm while coaching fencing on the Club level.

Mark Your Calendar

11/20/19 – Rick Steinbacher, Senior Associate Athletic Director, UNC
12/4/19 – Dan Brooks, Head Women’s Golf Coach, Duke
12/18/19 – Christmas Party Luncheon

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Jeff Mullins, former Duke and NBA standout. Mullins attended Duke University from 1960 through 1964, where he averaged 21.9 points per game for his career. His #44 Duke jersey was retired in 1994. In 2002, Mullins was named to the ACC 50th Anniversary men’s basketball team as one of the fifty greatest players in Atlantic Coast Conference history.

Mullins was a member of the United States Olympic basketball team that won the gold at the 1964 Summer Olympics.

Mullins was taken by the St. Louis Hawks in the first round (6th pick overall) of the 1964 NBA draft. After two seasons with the Hawks he moved to the Golden State Warriors where he enjoyed the best seasons of his career and was selected as an NBA All-Star three times – in 1969, 1970, and 1971. He helped the Warriors to the 1967 Western Conference title and the 1975 NBA championship. Upon his retirement in 1976 he had amassed a total of 13,017 points for a twelve-year career average of 16.2 points per game.

In 1985, Mullins was hired as the head men’s basketball coach and Athletic Director at UNC Charlotte. The program had struggled since making the NCAA Final Four in 1977, and in three years Mullins took the 49ers back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since their 1977 run. His 182 victories over eleven seasons stood as a school record until Bobby Lutz, Mullins’ former assistant coach, surpassed that total in 2008.

During Mullins’ tenure, the 49ers played in three conferences: the Sun Belt (1985–1991), the Metro Conference (1991–1995), and Conference USA (1995–1996).

Mark Your Calendar

11/6/19 – Special Guest Speaker
11/20/19 – A Different Special Guest Speaker
12/4/19 – We Can’t Tell You

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Brian Ketchum, Head Coach for the National Champion’s NC State Rugby Club. Here is a description of the success of the Club. NC State captured the DII men’s national title with a convincing 57-12 win over two-time reigning champions Wisconsin-Whitewater. It was the first national championship in program history. NC State came out of one of the toughest conferences in the country and finished the season unbeaten. It was the most skilled and athletic team in program history, with athletes converted from other sports, North Carolina kids who came through the growing youth program, and international students.

The NC State University Men’s Rugby Club is one of the oldest club sports at NCSU, dating its origins back to 1965. Over the years NC State has primarily focused on 15s play, however with the introduction of Sevens to the upcoming Olympic Games the Wolfpack has found recent success in this shortened version of the game. A few years ago, the Club took the Championship title for the Carolina’s League in its inaugural season and then competed in the Atlantic Coast Rugby League, both in 15s and 7s play. NC State had been the tournament champion for the ACI 7s in Greensboro, NC two years in a row and tied with four other teams to finish thirteenth overall in the first ever National Collegiate Sevens Championship hosted by USA Rugby. or back at home fighting for our country.

As far as competing on a D-II level, after winning the National Championship, Ketcham stated, “Some people give us grief because we are a D-I school but play in D-II. That happened for a number of reasons that aren’t due to us. The loss of the ACRL [Atlantic Coast Rugby League] left a void of D-I quality rugby clubs in this region and our Club status and minimal budget leave us few options when we need a conference to play and qualify. We beat a number of varsity level teams handily this year and the performance this weekend is an exclamation point on the validation if our volunteer, Club system”.

Mark Your Calendar

10/16/19 – Jeff Mullins, Duke and NBA Basketball star
11/6/19 – Special Guest Speaker
11/20/19 – A Different Special Guest Speaker

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Jeff Eisen, Vice-President for Athletics at the University of Mount Olive. Eisen was the Director of Athletics at the University for 10 years before being promoted to Vice President in 2015.

During his tenure, Trojan teams have won 28 regular season conference titles, 49 conference championships, and have earned 52 NCAA Tournament berths. The Trojans won a school-record eight conference championships in 2016-17. In addition, Mount Olive won the 2008 NCAA D-II Baseball National Championship, the school’s first-ever national championship.

Under Eisen, Trojan athletics has seen rapid growth, including the establishment of the Mount Olive Athletics Hall of Fame, the creation of new positions within the athletics department, and facility enhancements. Mount Olive has also expanded from 14 to 20 sports under Eisen, with the addition of men’s and women’s outdoor track and field in 2007-08, men’s and women’s indoor track and field in 2010-11, and men’s and women’s lacrosse in 2012-13.

Eisen was instrumental in restarting the Trojan Club, a fundraising organization for UMO athletics. The Trojan Club had more than 100 members in its first year alone and has grown to over 600 members and record-level donations.

Eisen is also an active representative of Mount Olive on the national and regional level. He is a member of the NCAA Division II Membership Committee and has been a member of the NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship Advisory Committee Southeast Region, the NCAA Division II Championships Committee and the NCAA Division II Membership Fund Selection Committee. He also served as the co-tournament director for the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship, which Mount Olive hosted from 2009 to 2016. He chairs the Championships and Awards Committee for Conference Carolinas and has previously served on a number of other conference committees.

Mark Your Calendar

10/2/19 – Special Guest Speaker
10/16/19 – Jeff Mullins, Duke and NBA Basketball star
11/6/19 – Special Guest Speaker

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Rasheed Wallace, Head Boys Basketball Coach at Jordan High School. The 44-year-old Wallace played for 16 seasons in the NBA after a two-year collegiate career at the University of North Carolina.

Rasheed played for the Washington Bullets, Portland Trail Blazers, Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons, Boston Celtics and New York Knicks during his career. He last appeared in an NBA game in 2012-13 with the Knicks.

Wallace was named an All-Star on four occasions, and he won his first and only NBA championship as a member of the Pistons in 2004. Over 1,109 career NBA regular-season games, Wallace averaged 14.4 points, 6.7 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.3 blocks per game.

After retiring as a player, Wallace was an assistant coach for the Pistons during the 2013-14 season, but he was not retained when Stan Van Gundy was hired as the new head coach.

Wallace’s first venture into head coaching will be a challenge, as he is taking over a Jordan High School team that struggled last season. Jordan went just 7-17 in 2018-19, including a 1-9 mark in Triangle-6 play.

In 1995, Wallace helped UNC reach the Final Four as a player, and he will look to make a similar impact in the coaching ranks in the state of North Carolina at Jordan High School next season and beyond.

Mark Your Calendar

9/4/19 – Ward Clayton, Producer/Documentarian, “Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk”
9/18/19 –  Special Guest Speaker
10/2/19 – Special Guest Speaker

The guest speaker for our next meeting will be Jim Steeg, former Senior Vice President, Special Events for the NFL. Steeg served the NFL for 35 years and was primarily responsible for controlling all aspects involved with the presentation and implementation of the Super Bowl for 26 years, growing revenues from $5 to $250 million and creating the second largest revenue source for the NFL. He had direct oversight of a departmental budget of $135 million, the largest departmental budget in NFL at the time. He provided organization skills to coordinate the oversight of 1,000’s of workers, contractors and organizations and developed innovative and creative concepts and activities that had never been utilized previously in a context of professional sports or special events.

Some of Steeg’s areas of responsibility included: ticket design, allocation and distribution; procurement of goods and services; staffing; management of hotel accommodations for Super Bowl teams’, media, NFL clubs, staff and affiliated groups (more than 16,000 rooms annually); media and party arrangements; stadium and game-day field preparations; stadium improvements, construction and décor; practice site preparations; selection of exclusive novelty vendor for the stadium, hotels and public venues and much more.

After leaving the NFL in 2005, Steeg has served as Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer of the San Diego Chargers for over 6 years. He now owns Steeg Sports Management and Media Consulting, advising companies on a variety of subjects including, but not limited to: stadium operations, fan enhancement, stadium physical structure; organizational structure; marketing programs for sports organizations; event plans; security; & explored varied entrepreneurial endeavors. Among his many endeavors, Steeg has worked with the NHL on organizing & planning outdoor games in LA & Chicago, Served as Director of the PAC 12 inaugural Football Championship Game, and has worked with UCLA, Qualcomm, STATS, LLC, SMRI, Helms Briscoe, The Buckeye Store, the Rose Bowl, Balboa Park 100th anniversary, Cleatskins, PrepAthlete, Frosty Towel, Elite Show Services, Multi Ventures Protection, & helped formulate Community Force

Mark Your Calendar

8/7/19 – NO MEETING!!
8/21/19 – Rasheed Wallace, Boys Basketball Coach, Jordan High School
9/4/19 – Special Guest Speaker (and regular 1st and 3rd Wednesday meetings for the rest of the year)

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Trei Oliver, Head Football Coach at North Carolina Central University. With 20 years of college coaching experience that includes five conference championships and three black college football national titles, Trei Oliver returned to his alma mater as North Carolina Central University’s 24th head football coach, the university announced on Dec. 13, 2018.

Oliver returned to NCCU as head coach after spending the previous three seasons (2016-18) as the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Southern University. The Jaguars are coming off a
Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) West division championship and a trip to the SWAC championship game.

In the prior 15 seasons (2004-18) as a coach at four different universities, Oliver has been a part of only one season with fewer than seven wins. During that time, he has celebrated 124 victories for an average of more than eight triumphs per year and a winning percentage of .725.

Prior to Southern University, Oliver served as the outside linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator at North Carolina A&T State University from 2011-15, when the Aggies shared consecutive Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) championships in 2014 and 2015, and were declared the black college football national champions in his final campaign in Greensboro as winners of the Celebration Bowl with a 10-2 overall record.

In four seasons at Grambling State University from 2007-10 as the outside linebackers coach, recruiting coordinator and special teams coordinator, the Tigers earned two SWAC West division crowns, and won the SWAC championship game and a black college football national title in 2008 with an 11-2 record.

Oliver’s first coaching stint at NCCU was as a defensive backs and wide receivers coach, recruiting coordinator and special teams coordinator from 2003-06. The Eagles captured back-to-back CIAA championships with consecutive trips to the NCAA Division II playoffs in 2005 and 2006, and were crowned as the black college football national champions following an 11-1 season in 2006.

He and his wife Yvette, also an NCCU graduate, are the proud parents of a son, Reggie.

Mark Your Calendar

***7/31/19 – Jim Steeg, Former NFL Director of Special Events (Super Bowl)
8/7/19 – NO MEETING!!
8/21/19 – Rasheed Wallace, Boys Basketball Coach, Jordan High School

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Meg Aronowitz, Coordinating Producer for ESPN. Meg is helping with the launch of the the ACC Network, which will debut this August. She helped launch the SEC Network in 2014.

Aronowitz also oversees ESPN’s coverage of Gymnastics and softball, including the Women’s College World Series. She has spent most of her career working on college sports and has overseen multiple NCAA championships as a coordinating producer. Meg also oversees the school production initiative which works with the 29 SEC and ACC schools on their productions for the network.

Aronowitz joined ESPN in 2001 as an assignment editor for Major League Baseball. Shortly after, in 2002, Baseball Tonight won the Emmy Award for best studio show. She was promoted in 2005 to senior production coordinator and handled the MLB, the College World Series and the Little World Series. Later that year Aronowitz moved to the Charlotte office as a Production Manager to help launch the ESPNU network.

In 2007, Aronowitz was promoted to coordinating producer at ESPN. Since that promotion, she has overseen the production of ESPNU college football, Under Armour events, volleyball, soccer, lacrosse, baseball, ice hockey, and various other Olympic sports as well as her current responsibilities.

Prior to ESPN, Aronowitz worked at the news desk at CNN in Atlanta, GA.

She played softball at Emory University and graduated in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history.

Mark Your Calendar

7/3/19 – NO MEETING!!
7/17/19 – Trei Oliver, Head Football Coach, North Carolina Central University
***7/31/19 – Jim Steeg, Former NFL Director of Special Events (Super Bowl)
8/7/19 – NO MEETING!!
8/21/19 – VERY Special Guest Speaker