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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.

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All Meetings at Croasdaile Country Club
4/6/22 –Brad Allen, NFL Referee
4/20/22 – Special Guest Speaker to be announced
5/4/22 – Another Special Guest Speaker to be announced

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Steve Vacendak, former Duke and ABA Basketball player, and 2017 inductee into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. After graduating from Duke University, he was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors in the fourth round of the 1966 NBA draft, but he never played for them. Instead, he played professional basketball for the American Basketball Association and later joined the sales staff at Converse Rubber Company.

In 1980, he went back to work at Duke as an associate athletic director for five years. Perhaps his most significant contribution to his alma mater came during this period when he strongly recommended an unknown young coach at Army – Mike Krzyzewski or Coach K – for the Duke head coaching job. Ironically, Vacendak also played a big role in recommending that NC State consider Jim Valvano for their open head coaching job and State hired Jimmy V just nine days after Duke hired Coach K. After working at Duke, he became the director of athletics and head basketball coach at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

You can learn more about Vacendak at https://www.ncshof.org/stevevacendak

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3/6/24 – Kevin Kelly, Club Member and Senior Games Leader
3/20/24 – Bob Bender, Retired College and Pro Basketball Coach
4/3/24 – Special Guest Speaker

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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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