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10-4-23, George Bell, Former Harlem Globetrotter (and more)

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

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9-20-23, Jolene Nagel, Head Volleyball Coach, Duke

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.

Under her guidance, Duke has earned a reputation as one of the elite programs on the East Coast. Nagel has led the Blue Devils to 12 NCAA Tournament appearances, including an ACC-record seven consecutive trips to the postseason event from 2005-11.

A perennial contender in the ACC, Duke has recorded 20 or more wins in 14 of Nagel’s 19 campaigns and consistently finished among the top three in the conference. Nagel earned her 600th career victory September 9, 2017 as the Blue Devils downed TCU in straight sets. With the win, Nagel became the 22nd active NCAA D- I head coach to reach 600 career victories.

The winningest Duke volleyball coach on record, she also ranks among the league coaching leaders in overall winning percentage, ACC winning percentage, ACC wins and NCAA Tournament appearances.

Nagel began her coaching career in 1983 as a graduate assistant at Kent State University following graduation from Edinboro University. In 1985 she accepted a position as first assistant coach at the University of North Carolina and spent three seasons in Chapel Hill before moving to on to Cornell in 1988.  (thanks, GoDuke.com)



Mark Your Calendar
All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
10/4/23 – George Bell, former Harlem Globetrotter and USA’s Tallest Man
10/18/23 – Special Guest Speaker
11/1/23 – Art Chase, Senior Associate Athletic Director, Duke

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9-6-23, Jon Scheyer, Men’s Head Basketball Coach, Duke

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.

 

Leading the Blue Devils to a 27-9 mark in his first season, Duke captured the ACC Tournament title and went undefeated at home as Scheyer became the first coach in the conference’s storied history to post an undefeated home record in a debut season and the first to lead a team to an ACC title as both a player (2009, 2010) and as a head coach (2023).

 

Scheyer was named a finalist for the Joe B. Hall Coach of the Year Award, presented annually to the best first-year coach in college basketball.

Scheyer and his wife, Marcelle, play an active role in the Durham community, starting the “Scheyer Kid Captain” program in 2022-23. The program provides a connection between the Duke Basketball program and the life-saving work performed daily at Duke Children’s Hospital by inviting a patient and family from Duke Children’s to spend a gameday with the team, attend practice and sit behind the bench.

 

 

Mark Your Calendar
All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
9/20/23 – Wes Moore, Head Women’s Basketball Coach, NC State
10/4/23 – George Bell, 7’8″ Former Harlem Globetrotters player
10/18/23 – Jolene Nagel, Head Volleyball Coach, Duke

 

 

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8/2/23 – Andrew Carter, Sports Reporter, News & Observer

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.

The National Sports Media Association named Carter the “North Carolina Sports Writer of the Year “for 2022, the second time the Raleigh-based writer has earned the honor.


Mark Your Calendar
All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
8//16/23 – Joleen Nagel, Head Volleyball Coach, Duke University
9/6/23 – Jon Scheyer, Head Men’s Basketball Coach, Duke University

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7-19-21, Brian Kalbas, Head Women’s Tennis Coach, UNC

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.

Kalbas is a 1989 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he was a four-year varsity player, playing at the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in singles. He was captain of the Fighting Irish men’s tennis team his senior year and received the most valuable player and sportsmanship awards from Notre Dame. After graduation, Kalbas served as an assistant coach for the Notre Dame men’s tennis team from 1989-92. During his tenure, the Fighting Irish made their way to the Top 20 for the first time in school history, and, in 1992, the Irish reached the NCAA Championship match.

Kalbas and his wife, Suzanne, have two children, Sarah and Joseph, who currently serves as the Director of Data Analytics for the program.


Mark Your Calendar
All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
8/2/23 – Andrew Carter, Reporter, News & Observer
8/16/23 – Special Guest Speaker
9/20/23 – A Different Special Guest Speaker

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6-21-23, John LeBar, Teacher/Coach/Author

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Club Member John LeBar, who will be talking about recent developments with college football and basketball. LeBar has been a teacher/coach at 3 universities, teaching and coaching at Rice University for 2 years. the University of Missouri in Kansas City for 4 years, and then at Duke University for 47 years as a tenured faculty. When he stopped coaching at Duke, he became the Director of Undergraduate Studies for his department and a full-time teacher.

LeBar has played, taught and/or coached many sports, including Football, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, Swimming, Squash, Racquetball, Handball, Fencing and Tennis.

LeBar has published 4 books: #1- Learning Tennis Together, # 2- dissertation: An ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF FACTORS IN THE ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS OF SELECTED DUKE UNVERSITY GRADUATES OF 1959-1960-1961, #3-Marching Toward Madness, and #4- COLLEGE SPORTS ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER, which was published last year.

John was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. He graduated from Wyandotte High School, then received a BS degree from Kansas State college in Pittsburg, Kansas. He received a MS degree from Kansas State Teachers in Emporia, Kansas, and received his Ed.D from Duke University.

 

Mark Your Calendar
All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
7/19/23 – Brian Kalbas, Head Women’s Tennis Coach, UNC
8/2/23 – Andrew Carter, Reporter, News & Observer

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6/7/23, Scholar-Athlete Awards Luncheon

Our next meeting will be our Durham Sports Club Scholar-Athlete Awards Luncheon. Please note this will be a LUNCH meeting! We’ll be honoring the top male and female scholar-athletes from Durham’s six high schools, Durham Academy and Voyager Academy. We’ll be paying tribute to Harold Strawbridge, Mildred Barnes, Russell Blunt, Willie Bradshaw, and our own Tommy Hunt by awarding $27,000 in scholarships to these students. Attendance is expected to be heavy, so we will insist on RSVPs to attend. Guests are welcome – the guest fee will be $25.


After this meeting, we’ll move into our summer schedule. The meeting dates will be 6/21, 7/19, 8/2, 8/16, 9/20. After that, we’ll go to our regular 1st and 3rd Wednesday meetings for October, November and December.

Mark Your Calendar
All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
6/21/23 – John LeBar, Club Member and Author
7/19/23 – Brian Kalbas, Head Women’s Tennis
8/2/23 – Andrew Carter, Reporter, News & Observer

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5-17-23, Valerie Gillispie, Archivist, Duke University

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.

Coming to Duke in 2011, she leads the University Archives (UA) in facilitating undergraduate research opportunities, working with campus offices and student groups to collect their records, and incorporating university history into numerous classes and campus events. UA has actively expanded its online holdings, with digitization of the Chronicle student newspaper, student radio broadcasts from the late 1960s, and the entirety of the Chapel Recordings collection, a grant-funded project completed in partnership with the Divinity School. UA is also actively collecting electronic records, including social media and websites. UA is a key resource for next year’s Duke Centennial, and Val and her team, in partnership with student curators, will be installing a yearlong exhibit to celebrate Duke’s 100 years. As the University Archivist, Val is especially interested in understanding Duke’s complex and sometimes painful history, and making sure that all voices are included in the records collected by UA.

 

Mark Your Calendar
6/7/23 – Scholar-Athlete Awards LUNCHEON
6/21/23 – John LeBar, Author
7/19/23 – Special Guest Speaker

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5-3-23, Trei Oliver, Head Football Coach, NCCU

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Trei Oliver, Head Football Coach at North Carolina Central University.  Oliver was named the 2022 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference “Football Coach of the Year”.  In his third season as head football coach at his alma mater, he led the Eagles to their first conference championship in six years and an overall record of 10-2, including a victory over Jackson State in the Cricket Celebration Bowl – the National Championship for Historically Black Universities and Colleges.  The team was just the sixth team in school history to win nine games in the regular season, and the third to win 10 or more in total.

Oliver was named as the 24th Head Football Coach in December, 2018. In the prior 15 seasons (2004-18) as a coach at four different universities, Oliver was a part of only one season with fewer than seven wins. During that time, his teams had 124 victories for an average of more than eight wins per year and a winning percentage of .725.

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

5/17/23 – Valerie Gillespie, Archivist, Duke University
6/7/23 – Scholar-Athlete Awards LUNCHEON
6/21/23 – Special Guest Speaker

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4-19-23, Dave Odom, Former College Basketball Coach, Wake Forest & more

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.

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.  Upon his arrival in Winston-Salem, Odom inherited a team that had suffered four straight losing seasons under head coach Bob Staak. In his 12 seasons (1989–2001) as head coach, Odom compiled a record of 240-132, making him the second-highest winning coach in Wake Forest history, as well as the second highest winning percentage in school history. During this time, Wake Forest earned 7 straight NCAA Tournament appearances and one NIT championship.  Odom was named ACC coach of the year in 1991, 1994 and 1995.

Odom left Wake Forest to accept the job as head coach of the University of South Carolina in 2001, replacing former coach Eddie Fogler. During his tenure at South Carolina, his team earned one NCAA tournament bid, and made three appearances in the NIT, winning the championship in 2005 and 2006. He was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2004. On January 2, 2008, Odom coached his 400th collegiate victory as a head coach. Later that month, on January 18, he announced that he would retire at the end of the 2007-2008 basketball season, his seventh at South Carolina. He coached his final game for USC on March 14, 2008, in the SEC tournament.

 

Mark Your Calendar

5/3/23 – Another Special Guest Speaker to be announced
5/17/23 – Yet Another Special Guest Speaker to be announced
6/723 – SPECIAL EVENT – Stay Tuned!