Durham Sports Club

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

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Elliott Avent, Head Baseball Coach for NC State. Entering his 24th season as head baseball coach at NC State, Avent has molded the Wolfpack into one of the nation’s best and most consistent programs. Starting with his hiring in 1996, he has taken the Wolfpack to the NCAA Tournament in 18 of the last 23 seasons and 13 of the last 15.

He joined an elite group during the 2017 season, as he surpassed 1,000 career victories to become one of four active coaches in the ACC to reach the milestone. He currently ranks among the top 12 winningest active head coaches.

In 2019, NC State turned in a 42-19 record in 2019, which marked the second consecutive year and 10th time under Avent that a team has posted 40+ wins in a single season. The squad was undefeated through its first 19 games, securing its best start to a season in program history as it was one of the nation’s last two remaining unbeaten teams. Thanks to its hot start, the Pack was ranked No. 1 in a major poll for the first time in program history as it occupied the top spot in the Collegiate Baseball Rankings for three consecutive weeks.

Four players earned All-ACC and All-America honors, headlined by Will Wilson who was named NC State’s first-ever ACC Defensive Player of the Year and its first consensus All-American since 2012. Patrick Bailey, a Buster Posey Award semifinalist, and Wilson, a Brooks Wallace Award finalist, were additionally among the candidates for the Golden Spikes Award.

The Wolfpack had eight players selected in the 2019 MLB Draft, which was the second-most in program history in a single season. Wilson was selected as the No. 15 overall pick to the Los Angeles Angels, becoming the first Wolfpack player since 2014 to go in the first round. Additionally, Evan Edwards was selected in the fourth round as the No. 111 pick to the Miami Marlins, marking the first time since 2014 that NC State had two players taken in the first four rounds of the MLB Draft.

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Mark Your Calendar

2/19/20 – Elliott Avent, Head Baseball Coach, NC State. Meeting at Durham Nativity School, 1004 N Mangum Street
3/4/20 – Billy Lee, Former Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coach
3/18/20 -Dave Odom, College Basketball Guru.  Meeting at Croasdaile Country Club

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach for Duke, who is entering his 8th season with Duke. Pollard led the Blue Devils to a magical postseason run in the NCAA Tournament in 2019, culminating in the program’s second straight and second NCAA Super Regional appearance. The NCAA Tournament selection marked the second consecutive appearance for the Blue Devils and the third in the last four seasons.

The Duke baseball program concluded the 2019 campaign as a consensus top-20 team for the second consecutive season. The Blue Devils received rankings as high as 16th in the national polls, while being recognized as a top-20 team amongst five different publications. Duke wrapped up the campaign as a consensus top-20 team for the second straight year: Baseball America (No. 18), Collegiate Baseball (No. 16), D1Baseball (No. 16), NCBWA (No. 17) and Perfect Game (No. 18).

Duke’s 35 wins in 2019 marked Pollard’s sixth consecutive season with 30-plus wins, making the Blue Devil skipper the first head coach to lead Duke to six 30-win seasons in his first seven campaigns.

Pollard is the first head coach to lead Duke to the NCAA Tournament since the Kennedy administration, Pollard is also the fastest Blue Devil head coach to reach 100 wins in Durham. In over 110 seasons prior to his arrival, Duke totaled 10, 30-win seasons. Since taking over the program, Pollard has guided the Blue Devils to five seasons of 30 or more wins.

Thanks, goduke.com

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Mark Your Calendar

2/19/20 – Elliott Avent, Head Baseball Coach, NC State. Meeting at Durham Nativity School, 1004 N Mangum Street
3/4/20 – Special Guest Speaker.  Meeting at Croasdaile Country Club
3/18/20 -Dave Odom, College Basketball Guru.  Meeting at Croasdaile Country Club

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Gary Hahn, who has been the radio voice of NC State football and basketball on the Wolfpack Sports Network since the 1990-91 season.

Before coming to NC State, Hahn worked on statewide radio sports networks for the University of Louisville, Ohio State University, and the University of Alabama. He was part of the broadcast team when Louisville won the NCAA Basketball Championship in 1980. He also called the 1985 Rose Bowl for the Ohio State Radio Network. In addition, Hahn described the 1986 NIT Championship that was won by the Buckeyes.

From 1981-83 Hahn was a sports anchor/reporter for the NBC Radio Network in New York City. He began his broadcasting career in 1970 while still a college student and also worked at WLWI-TV in Indianapolis in 1974-75.

Hahn also served as the radio play-by-play voice of the Carolina Cobras of the Arena Football League and the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks of the World League of American Football. He is a 1974 graduate of Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana, with a BS degree in Radio-TV.

Thanks for the info, www.gopack.com

This meeting will be held at the Durham Nativity School, 1004 N Mangum Street.  It used to be the Grace Baptist Church.  Lunch will be provided.

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Mark Your Calendar

2/5/20 – Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach, Duke.  Meeting at Durham Nativity School, 1004 N Mangum Street
2/19/20 – Elliott Avent, Head Baseball Coach, NC State. Meeting at Durham Nativity School, 1004 N Mangum Street
3/4/20 – Special Guest Speaker.  Meeting at Croasdaile Country Club
3/18/20 -Dave Odom, College Basketball Guru.  Meeting at Croasdaile Country Club