Durham Sports Club

Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Mike Elko, Head Football Coach at Duke. He comes to Duke after four years as the Defensive Coordinator at Texas A&M University under Jimbo Fisher. In Elko’s 23 years of coaching, 18 have been spent as a defensive coordinator, including eight at the FBS Power 5 level. He has twice been named a semifinalist for the Frank Broyles Award (2017 and 2021), which is given annually to the top assistant coach in college football.

Elko, 44, has coached in eight bowl games, helped two different teams to NCAA Division I-AA quarterfinal appearances and been part of four league championship squads. Elko’s bowl games include the 2009 Humanitarian, 2012 Military, 2013 Little Caesars, 2016 Military, 2017 Citrus, 2018 Gator, 2019 Texas, and the 2020 Orange Bowl.

Prior to Texas A&M, Elko spent one season at Notre Dame with Head Coach Brian Kelly where he helped the defense rank in the top half nationally in four major defensive categories. The Irish were 10-3 during his lone season in South Bend, including a 21-17 win over LSU in the 2017 Citrus Bowl.

Elko served three seasons (2014-16) at Wake Forest University as the defensive coordinator and safeties coach for head coach Dave Clawson. His 2016 unit ranked in the top-20 nationally in fumbles recovered (3rd), turnovers forced (10th), sacks (12th), defensive TDs (17th), red zone defense (17th) and scoring defense (20th).

Elko is married to the former Michelle Madison of Franklinville, N.J., and they are the parents of three children Michael, Andrew, and Kaitlyn.

Mark Your Calendar – All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club

3/2/22 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
3/16/22 – Dave Odom, College Basketball Guru
4/6/22 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced

Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Scott Forbes, Head Baseball Coach at UNC. Forbes is entering his second season as the head baseball coach and his 25th season as a college coach and his 21st on the Tar Heel coaching staff. He previously served as Associate Head Coach, Batting Coach, Pitching Coach and Recruiting Coordinator.

During his first year at the helm of the program, Forbes guided the Tar Heels to their fourth consecutive NCAA Regional appearance. UNC finished the season with a final record of 28-27 against one of the nation’s toughest schedules with one of its youngest teams. Pitcher Austin Love earned Fist Team All-ACC and ABCA All-Atlantic Region honors, while outfielder Justice Thompson received second-team all-conference accolades under Forbes’ tutelage. He helped Love, Thompson and Caleb Roberts develop into 2021 Major League Baseball Draft picks.

Forbes has a record of 1,008-431 in 24 seasons in the dugout. Collegiate Baseball named him the National Pitching Coach of the Year in 2008, and Baseball America named him one of the country’s top assistant coaches in 2018.

The Sanford, NC, native began his coaching career with former UNC Head Coach Mike Fox in 1998 at NC Wesleyan and followed Fox to Chapel Hill in 1999. He served as an assistant coach fat Carolina or four years (1999-2002) before a three-year stint as an assistant coach at Winthrop (2003-05). He returned to UNC in 2006 as pitching coach, a position he held for 11 seasons (2006-16) before taking over as hitting coach in 2017.

Mark Your Calendar – All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club

2/16/22 – Mike Elko, Head Football Coach, Duke
3/2/22 – Special guest speaker to be announced
3/16/22 – Dave Odom, College Basketball Guru

Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Kim Landrus, Head Gymnastics Coach at NC State. Landrus was hired in May, 2017, after spending 15 years at Illinois – the last 7 as Head Coach.

Landrus had a stellar first year with the Wolfpack as she was named Southeast Region Coach of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches/Women. She helped lead NC State to an East Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL) Championship for the first time since 2013.

In 2021, Landrus led the Wolfpack to its highest national finish in 21 years with a final ranking of 15th in the country. Highlights included its first-ever NCAA Regional final appearance, along with being crowned the 2021 Regular Season Conference Champions. In addition to the historic season, the two-time EAGL Conference Head Coach of the Year (2019 & 2020) guided the Pack to earn 11 All EAGL conference honors in 2021. Nine of the 11 honors were first-team All-EAGL accolades, which tied the most in the league.
Additionally, the Wolfpack also continued to thrive academically under Landrus as 18 gymnasts were named to the All-EAGL Scholastic Team.

As a student-athlete at Iowa State University, Landrus was one of the most decorated gymnasts in Cyclone history. She was ISU’s first-ever national qualifier in 1997, a two-time All Big XII Conference pick, the school’s Most Valuable Gymnast in 1996 and 1997, and she recorded the first ‘Perfect 10’ in school history with a perfect performance on the floor exercise at the 1997 Big XII Championships. The four-year letter-winner was named ISU’s Woman Athlete of the Year in 1997 and was inducted into the Iowa State Hall of Fame in 2013, becoming the first Cyclone female gymnast to accomplish this feat.

Mark Your Calendar – All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club

2/2/22 – Special guest speaker to be announced
2/16/22 – Special guest speaker to be announced
3/2/22 – Special guest speaker to be announced

Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Paul Haagen, Professor of Law at Duke. Haagen is the Co-Director of the Center for Sports Law and Policy. His principal academic interests are contracts, the social history of law and law and sports.

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).

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

12/15/21 – Christmas Party – Members and Invited Guests only
1/5/22 – NO MEETING (Croasdaile Country Club closed)
1/19/22 – Special Guest Speaker

Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Que Tucker, Commissioner of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. A native of Rockingham County, Tucker came to the Association in 1991 after a stint as an assistant coach for the North Carolina State University women’s basketball program. She worked under storied head coach Kay Yow. Among her duties there was to oversee the team’s academic progress.

Prior to becoming Commissioner, Tucker serve as the Assistant Executive Director, developing the Association’s student services program, one of the unique offerings by a state association in the country. The program dealt with substance abuse education, leadership development, academic accountability, and citizenship. She helped organize the Student-Athlete Summer Institute (SASI) programs across the state. To operate this program, she oversaw a budget of over $500,000, state monies from the NC General Assembly.

Tucker was an outstanding athlete at Stoneville High School in Rockingham County and went from there to Mars Hill College. She played basketball and graduated in 1974 with a B.S. degree in physical education. Tucker earned her master’s degree in physical education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1977, serving as a graduate assistant in women’s volleyball and basketball. Her first teaching position was in the McDowell County system, where she taught and coached at West McDowell Junior High in Marion, NC. She finished her public school career teaching at Reidsville Junior High while serving as Varsity Volleyball and Basketball Coach at Reidsville High School.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

12/1/21 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
12/15/21 – Stay Tuned!!!
1/5/22 – Stay Tuned!!!

Our Guest Speaker for October 20 will be Kara Lawson, Head Women’s Basketball Coach at Duke.  Lawson, a 2003 Tennessee graduate, brings her decorated basketball career, both on and off the court, to the Blue Devils after spending the 2020 season as an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics. She had helped Boston to a 43-21 record and into third place in the Eastern Conference prior to the stoppage of the 2019-20 NBA season due to COVID-19. Lawson was the Celtics first female coach in the franchise’s 73-year history.

Her impact on the women’s basketball community is evident as she was named one of the 100 most influential people in women’s college basketball as announced by Silver Waves Media in the summer of 2020.  Lawson is also a founding board member for the Boston Celtics United for Social Justice.

Following an exceptional playing career, Lawson spent two years as the primary television analyst for the Washington Wizards while also broadcasting games for ESPN Radio.  In addition to her role covering the Wizards for NBC Sports Washington, Lawson served as a game and studio analyst for men’s and women’s college basketball and the NBA for ESPN. On January 12, 2007, she became the first female analyst for a nationally-televised NBA game.  Lawson also served as a color announcer during the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo with NBC.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

11/3/21 – Coach K
11/17/21 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
12/1/21 – Yet Another Special Guest Speaker

Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Jeff Gregory, Head Baseball Coach at Wingate University. In his 11th season in 2021, Gregory guided the Bulldogs to their first-ever NCAA D-II national championship, which was also the first-ever trip to the World Series, after capturing the first NCAA region title in program history. Gregory enters his 12th season as the head coach at Wingate University in 2022. In his first 11 seasons at Wingate, Gregory has compiled an overall record of 331-221, with a 166-110 mark in SAC play. The 2021 season saw the ‘Dogs go 39-13 overall and 20-10 in the SAC, setting the record for wins in the NCAA era. The Bulldogs also won their seventh SAC Tournament title. Gregory was named the 2021 NCBWA National Coach of the Year. He has guided Wingate to one regular season SAC title and three tournament championships, earning SAC co-Coach of the Year honors in 2014.

The 2021 title was the first national title in the history of SAC baseball. It was just the second SAC team to win a national championship in a SAC-sanctioned sports, joining the 2016 Wingate men’s soccer team. The ‘Dogs closed out the year by winning 16 of their last 18 games. Wingate went 13-2 in postseason play, with nine of those victories coming over ranked opponents.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

10/6/21 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
10/20/21- Kara Lawson, Head Women’s Basketball Coach, Duke University
11/3/21 – Another Special Guest Speaker to be announced

Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Jeff Gravley, Director of Content Strategy for NC State Athletics. In this role, Gravley is responsible for producing original content in conjunction with the NC State creative team and more effectively sharing the Wolfpack story. Additionally, he will serve NC State Athletics in a variety of special event settings.

Gravley joined NC State after a 35-year career in broadcasting, 31 of which was spent at WRAL in Raleigh. He began his tenure with Raleigh’s top-rated station as an intern in 1985 and worked his way through the ranks as a sports photographer to a reporter, and ultimately as one of the most respected anchors in the region.

During his broadcasting career Gravley was twice honored as North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. Additionally, he was a seven-time regional Emmy Award winner.

During his career he covered 31 ACC Tournaments, 20 Final Fours, five US Open Golf Championships, a pair of Super Bowls and was part of WRAL’s team on site for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

A native of Oxford, NC, Gravley is a 1985 graduate of NC State and was a walk-on pitcher for the baseball team under NC State Athletics Hall of Famer Sam Esposito

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

9/15/21 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
10/6/21 –  Another Special Guest Speaker to be announced
10/20/21- Yet Another Different Special Guest Speaker

The next meeting will be on August 8th at noon at Croasdaile Country Club. Our Guest Speaker for this meeting will be Elliott Avent, Head Baseball Coach at NC State. Through 25 seasons as head baseball coach at NC State, Elliott Avent has molded the Wolfpack into one of the nation’s best and most consistent programs. He is NC State’s all-time winningest coach with 926 victories (1,150 in his 33-year head coaching career), has taken the Wolfpack to the NCAA Tournament in 19 of the last 25 seasons and 14 of the last 17. Avent captured both ACC and National Coach of the Year honors in 2003. He joined an elite group on Feb.14, 2020 as he collected his 1,100th career win with a 4-0 result over James Madison. On April 6, 2021, Avent reached the 900-win milestone at NC State with a 13-2 rout of App State.

In the 2021 season, Avent saw a league-leading seven players collect All-ACC honors and a program-best five collect All-ACC Academic Team honors, headlined by ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year Jonny Butler. Additionally, Butler, Evan Justice and Tyler McDonough collected a combined seven All-America honors.

In the past three seasons, a combined 18 players have been selected in the MLB Draft, headlined by first rounders Will Wilson (2019, Los Angeles Angels) and Patrick Bailey (2020, San Francisco Giants). They are the first Wolfpack players to be drafted in the first round in back-to-back seasons. The eight players taken in the 2019 and 2021 MLB Drafts tied for the second-most in a single season, and were one shy of the program-record nine in 2008.

efore coming to NC State, Avent spent eight seasons (1989-96) at New Mexico State University, where he compiled a 224-213 record and left as the second-winningest coach in school history. Avent took over a New Mexico State program that school administrators were considering dropping and guided it to its greatest success ever.

Mark Your Calendar

9/1/21 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
9/15/21 – A Different Special Guest Speaker
10/6/21 –  Yet Another Different Special Guest Speaker

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Billy Lee, Former Head Basketball Coach at Campbell University and former Assistant Women’s Basketball Coach at UNC. Lee is a well-respected coach with over four decades of coaching experience in the state of North Carolina.

A 1969 graduate of Mount Olive College, Lee was an assistant coach at East Carolina for two seasons before taking the head job at Pembroke State (now UNC Pembroke) in 1978. During his time in Lumberton, Lee won three conference titles, advanced to the NAIA National Tournament and posted back-to-back 20-win seasons.

In 1985, Lee took over as the head men’s coach at Campbell, where he led the Camels for 18 seasons. A five-time conference coach of the year, Lee guided Campbell to the 1992 Big South Conference title and a bid to the NCAA Tournament, where his team faced eventual national champion Duke. In addition to winning over 400 games in his career, Lee was the director the Campbell University Basketball School, considered to be the largest and oldest of its kind in the United States.

After leaving Campbell in 2003, Lee spent three seasons at St. Andrews before retiring from the coaching ranks to work as a basketball consultant and television analyst.
In addition to his work on the sidelines, Lee has authored two books on basketball strategy. Lee has also been part of a number of organizations including the USA Basketball committee, the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Amateur Sports Association, the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the Board of Advisors for the NC High School Athletic Association and the National Speakers Association. In 2009, Lee was inducted into the Mount Olive College Athletics Hall of Fame.

GEORGE McAFEE AWARD PRESENTATION

The Durham Sports Club will be presenting it’s first annual George McAfee Award to an outstanding high school football player from Durham at this meeting. George McAfee was a professional American football player. He played halfback and defensive back for the Chicago Bears from 1940 to 1941 and 1945 to 1950. As an undergraduate at Duke University, McAfee starred in baseball and track and field as well as college football.  The recipient of this inaugural award is a very impressive young man. Come to the meeting to learn more about him.

Mark Your Calendar

3/18/20 -Dave Odom, College Basketball Guru.  Meeting at Croasdaile Country Club
4/1/20 – Special Guest Speaker
4/15/20 – A Different Special Guest Speaker