Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach at Duke. While at Duke, Pollard has coached more than 33 Major League Baseball Draft picks, 16 All-ACC selections, four Freshmen All-Americans and three All-Americans. In addition, he has led the program to two Super Regionals (2018, 2019) and an ACC Baseball Tournament Championship title (2021), each the first in program history. Duke reached three consecutive postseasons (2018, 2019, 2021) for the first time in program history and his first postseason appearance in 2016 broke a 55- year drought. In 2021, Pollard became the first Duke coach to reach 100 career ACC wins, becoming one of six active head coaches to achieve that mark at the time.
Our guest speaker for next meeting will be Professional and UNC Basketball player, Tyler Zeller. As a freshman at UNC he played on the 2009 national championship team, and as a senior was an All-American and the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year. Following college, Zeller was a first-round draft pick of the Dallas Mavericks then traded that same night to the Cleveland Cavaliers. He played 2 seasons with Cleveland, 3 seasons with the Boston Celtics, and had stints with the Milwaukee Bucks, the Atlanta Hawks, the Memphis Grizzlies and the San Antonio Spurs. He was named to the NBA’s All- Rookie team following his first season in Cleveland.
Our guest speaker for next meeting will be Dan Brooks, Head Women’s Golf Coach at Duke University. In 38 years as the coach of the Duke Blue Devils, he has helped guide his squads to seven NCAA National Championships, 21 ACC Championships and 140 team victories, which is the most of any women’s golf coach in Division I history. Other accomplishments include a final ranking of No. 1 seven years in a row (2001-07); 10 straight top 10 finishes at the NCAA Championship from 2001-10; a final No. 1 ranking in 2021 and much more. To learn more about Brooks and all of his accomplishments, go to https://goduke.com/sports/womens-golf/roster/coaches/dan-brooks/4464
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Lewis Bowling, speaking on the history of Duke football. Bowling is an author of numerous local and sports history books, including Duke Basketball: A Pictorial History, Alabama Football Tales, North Carolina Central University Athletics – A History of the Eagles, and Wallace Wade: Championship Years at Alabama and Duke. He has also written books about the history of Granville County and Oxford in particular – part of the “Images of America: North Carolina” series of books.
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11-2-22, Jim Dodson, Author
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Jim Dodson, author of numerous books about golf. His critically-acclaimed and bestselling books include Final Rounds, Faithful Travelers, The Dewsweepers, Beautiful Madness, The Road to Somewhere, A Golfer’s Life (with Arnold Palmer), Ben Hogan – An American Life, which won the Herbert Warren Wind/USGA International Book Award for 2004. In 2008, he was a featured commentator in the award-winning HBO documentary “Back Nine at Cherry Hills.”
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Steve Wiseman, who has covered Duke athletics since 2010 for the Durham Herald-Sun and Raleigh News & Observer. He placed second in both beat writing and breaking news in the 2019 Associated Press Sports Editors national contest. Previously, Steve worked for The State (Columbia, SC), Herald-Journal (Spartanburg, SC), The Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS), Charlotte Observer and Hickory (NC) Daily Record covering beats including the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints, University of South Carolina Athletics and the SC General Assembly. He’s won numerous State-level press association awards. Steve graduate from Illinois State University in 1989.
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Mike Maniscalco, Television and Radio Play-By-Play broadcaster for the Carolina Hurricanes. Maniscalco is in his seventh season with the Hurricanes and third as the team’s television play-by-play announcer. Maniscalco previously served as the team’s television and web host, where he served as host of Hurricanes LIVE prior to all of the team’s games on FOX Sports Carolinas and Southeast, as well as hosting and producing video content for CarolinaHurricanes.com.
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9-7-22, Boo Corrigan, NC State AD
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Boo Corrigan, Director of Athletics at NC State University. Boo Corrigan began his tenure as NC State’s Director of Athletics in April of 2019, and the Wolfpack has enjoyed unprecedented success under his leadership.
Since he arrived in Raleigh after spending eight years as Director of Athletics at West Point, NC State has led the ACC in team championships. The Wolfpack has also posted back-to-back top-25 finishes in the Learfield Directors’ Cup for the first time in school history, recording its second-highest finish ever with a No. 17 mark for the 2021-22 academic year.
Four Wolfpack teams finished in the top five of the national rankings in 2021-22, led by the women’s cross country squad that won the first NCAA title ever by a Wolfpack women’s team and the school’s first national team title in any sport since 1983. In addition, men’s swimming and diving finished fourth nationally, while women’s basketball and women’s swimming and diving finished fifth. In total, 11 teams finished in the top 25 of their sport’s national rankings.
Wolfpack teams brought four ACC titles home to Raleigh in 2021-22. Women’s cross country won their sixth straight league crown, wrestling won a fourth straight and women’s basketball won a third straight. The men’s swimming and diving team won its seventh ACC title in the last eight years. NC State boasted 102 All-Americans and 21 individual conference titles, while five Wolfpack student-athletes won national titles. Academically, 21 of the Wolfpack’s 23 teams posted 3.0 GPAs or higher in both the fall and spring semesters of that academic year.
You can learn more about Corrigan at https://gopack.com/staff-directory/boo-corrigan/2752
(Thanks, www.GoPack.com)
Mark Your Calendar
9/21/22 – Steve Vacendak, Former Duke and ABA Basketball player
10/5/22 – Mike Maniscalco, Carolina Hurricanes Play-By-Play Announcer
10/19/22 – Steve Wiseman, Reporter, News & Observer
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Kelly Miller, President of three Southern Pines-area golf courses. Miller grew up in Indiana and attended the University of Alabama to play golf, and there he met Peggy Ann Bell, the middle child of Peggy and Warren “Bullet” Bell, the owners since 1953 of the Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club that featured a 1928 Donald Ross course. Since the Bells’ oldest daughter, Bonnie, was traveling the country with her husband, Pat McGowan, on the PGA Tour, and son Kirk was just entering college, it fell to Kelly and Peggy Ann to follow in the footsteps of Peggy and Bullet in running the golf course and lodge. In 1994, they partnered with three individuals in buying the Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club across Midland Road – yet another Donald Ross course. Over the ensuing years, Miller would occasionally play Southern Pines Elks Club, another Ross course from the early 1900s owned since 1951 by the Benevolent Order of Elks. He tried at various junctures to either buy, lease or have a management contract for the course, but none of those initiatives worked until he was able to acquire the course in July 2020. You can learn more about Miller at https://www.homeofgolf.com/pine-needles-kelly-miller-golf-profile/
Mark Your Calendar
9/7/22 – “Boo” Corrigan, Director of Athletics, NC State University
9/21/22 – Steve Vacendak, Former Duke and ABA Basketball player
10/5/22 – Mike Maniscalco, Carolina Hurricanes Play-By-Play Announcer
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8-3-22, Da (Durham) Bulls
Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Chip Allen, the Assistant General Manager of Revenue for the Durham Bulls Baseball Club. Allen is responsible for helping companies grow their brands, build sales teams, increase revenue, and create a great fan experience. He is on a mission to build better sponsorship, ticketing, and marketing departments, focusing on improving processes to allow more creative thinking that leads to better experiences for fans and marketers.
Prior to taking on his role at the Durham Bulls, Chip gained experience in advertising and sales as the Vice President of New Business with numerous advertising/marketing agencies located here in the Triangle and GSDM in Austin, Texas.
Chip is a United States Air Force veteran and holds a Bachelor of Science in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin.
It should be interesting to learn what happens “behind the scenes” of Minor League Baseball’s most famous season. Please be sure to RSVP for this meeting.
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Mark Your Calendar
8/17/22 – Kelly Miller, President/Owner of three Southern Pines-area Golf Courses
9/7/22 – “Boo” Corrigan, Director of Athletics, NC State University
9/21/22 – Steve Vacendak, Former Duke and ABA Basketball player