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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”.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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***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

The guest speaker for this meeting will be Coleman Scott, Head Wrestling Coach at UNC. He came to UNC as an assistant in 2014, and was named Head Coach in 2015. He is the sixth head coach in the history of the program.

Scott is a four-time All-America wrestler at Oklahoma State and the 2008 NCAA champion at 133 pounds. He has also excelled at the international level as a four-time member of the United States National Team. His crowning achievement came at the 2012 London Olympics, where he won a bronze medal in freestyle wrestling at 60 kg.

In 2018, Scott led the Tar Heels to their best showing at nationals in almost 25 years. Led by All-American performances from senior Troy Heilmann and junior Chip Ness, UNC finished the competition in 20th place with 27.0 team points, its most since 1996.

Scott works directly with the light and light/middle weights on technique and training for UNC. Following his career as a wrestler, Scott had his first international coaching experience in 2017 as a member of the USA Wrestling World Championships Team staff. The United States won the world team title in Paris, it’s first world freestyle title since 1995.

Prior to starring at Oklahoma State, Scott was a three-time Pennsylvania state champion at Waynesburg Central High School. Scott and his wife Jessica have three children: daughter Leighton Ann and sons Stetson Lewis and Cash Allen.

Thanks, goheels.com!

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The Bob Bickle Lacrosse Award will also be presented at this meeting.  This award is given to the most outstanding high school lacrosse player in Durham.

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Mark Your Calendar

6/5/19 – Scholar-Athlete Awards Night (5:30)
6/19/19 – Special Guest Speaker!!
7/3/19 – NO MEETING!!
7/17/19 – Special Guest Speaker

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Tim Brewster, Assistant Head Coach/Tight Ends Coach at UNC.

Tim Brewster returned to Chapel Hill for his second stint on Nov. 30, 2018, when Mack Brown hired him to be his Assistant Head Coach and tight ends coach. Brewster previously coached with Brown at UNC (1989-97) and Texas (1998-2001). He returned to the UNC staff after spending the last six years with Jimbo Fisher, five at Florida St. and one at Texas A&M. Brewster has spent over 30 years in coaching. He was a collegiate head coach for four seasons, an NFL assistant coach for five seasons and an assistant coach at six different “Power 5” schools.

Brewster was the head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers from 2007-2010 before spending the 2011 season as a college football analyst for Fox Sports. He led the Golden Gophers to the Insight Bowl in both 2008 and 2009.

Prior to Minnesota, Brewster spent five seasons in the NFL. He concluded his second season as tight ends coach for the Denver Broncos in 2006. Brewster instructed the San Diego Chargers tight ends from 2002-04 and held additional responsibilities as the team’s assistant head coach for the 2004 season

A former two-time All-Big Ten Conference selection at the University of Illinois, Brewster led the nation’s tight ends in receiving in 1983 and captained Illinois to the 1984 Rose Bowl against UCLA. Brewster, who graduated from Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in political science, participated in training camps of the New York Giants (1984) and Philadelphia Eagles (1985).

Thanks, goheels.com!

Mark Your Calendar

5/15/19 – Lewis Scott, Head Wrestling Coach, UNC
6/5/19 – Scholar-Athlete Awards Night (5:30)
6/19/19 – Special Guest Speaker!!

The guest speaker for our upcoming meeting will be Paul Haagen, Law Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Sports Law and Policy at Duke.

Professor Haagen was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and raised in Connecticut. After graduating from college, he studied history first at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and later at Princeton. He was an editor of Yale Studies in World Public Order and editor-in-chief of the Yale Law and Policy Review. Since law school, he has clerked on the United States Court of Appeals and then practiced law in Philadelphia for two years before coming to Duke in 1985. Professor Haagen has been a visiting faculty member on the law faculties of the Georg August University in Goettingen, Germany (2005), the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria (2002) and the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City, Mexico (1998). He was Chair of the Academic Council of Duke University from 2005-2007, and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the Law School (1991-93, 2009-2012).

Haagen earned his B.A at Haverford College; another B.A. and M.A. from Oxford; a Ph.D. from Princeton and his J.D. from Yale.

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Mark Your Calendar

5/1/19 – Tim Brewster, Assistant Head Football Coach, UNC
5/15/19 – Special Guest Speaker
6/5/19 – Scholar-Athlete Awards Night (5:30)