Meeting Recap for May 13, 2013
If it was the goal of our Program Committee to make yours truly officially feel like a geezer, it worked! Pac 12? Pac 10? Whatever happened to the Pacific 8 Conference?
That was the conference I covered as a sportswriter. What about the glory days of Steve Bartkowski, Jim Plunkett and Jay Cruze? OK, the Cruze days were a little lacking in glory. But he did have an amazing repertoire of fumbles. And then there was Chuck Muncie. (You old-timers get the picture.)
Danette Leighton, Rotary Club of Sacramento’s guest speaker Monday, brought back lots of memories. More importantly, she reminded all of us just how good the “Pac –whatever” conference is.
Leighton, introduced by Chair of the Day and Past President Skip Lawrence, is Chief Marketing Officer for the Pacific 12 Conference. Working with Commissioner Larry Scott, it is Leighton’s task to lift the image (and revenues) of the Walnut Creek-based Pacific 12.
Leighton is more than up to the task. After all, as Vice President of Marketing and Brand Development for the Sacramento Monarchs, she created prestige despite her employers. She opened her presentation with a winning factoid: What conference has won more NCAA championships than any other? The answer (of course): The Pac-12 with some 456 NCAA titles (as of the prior day’s water polo win by USC). Next closest? The Big 10 at 258, then the Atlantic Coast Conference at 124. “None of the others are even close,” she said. “Our problem is that we never told our story effectively and so there was all of this mythology about the other conferences—especially in the east.” With legendary powerhouses like USC (11 football championships) and UCLA (11 basketball titles, 10 of them under John Wooden—including seven in a row), who could compete?
Still, the conference lagged in TV revenues until Scott took over and hired Leighton to do for the conference what she did for the WNBA champion Monarchs. Until Leighton arrived on the scene, the Pac-12 was a distant sixth in TV revenues, grossing less than a third of what the Big 10 and Southeastern Conference received. Three years later, the Pac-12 has leap-frogged them all to the number one position with more than 2,000 events televised annually. All it took was someone taking a fresh look at numbers like these: Pac 12 athletes won 45 medals in the London Olympics—more than Germany.
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Past President Tim Pinkney introduced the club’s newest Sacramento Rotary Fellow: Leesa Fons. A member of the club for a decade, Leesa has been active in a wide range of RCS activities. The Rotary Fellow is the highest award the club bestows on members.
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David Hill of SGC Financial Services was installed by President Peter Dannenfelser II as the newest member of Rotary Club of Sacramento. He was sponsored by John Wood and Leesa Fons (the latter made the introduction to the club).
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Cindy Yeafoli of Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department received the club’s Service Above Self Award for her work in the community. She was nominated by senior law enforcement chaplain Mindy Russell. The award was presented by Heidi Hershenhouse.
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Clayton Lee informed us that there is still room in the upcoming two week trip (Sept. 27 - Oct 11th) to Ethiopia to continue work in the birthplace village of Seifu Ibssa.
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Past President Diane Mizell and Mark Huffman made another in the Centennial Moment series of presentations about club history. This one focused on the history of women in the club. The first to be admitted was the late Jean Runyon in 1987. Mizell was the first to be RCS president, in 2001-02.
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Leslie Botos announced that RCS had again won the annual contest with Point West Rotary to see which club could donate the most blood. However, it was extremely close: only two units made the difference. Next year it will be a three-way contest with Rotary Club of Roseville also involved.
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Past President John Hamlyn provided the thought for the day and Dick Osen led the club in singing “God Bless America.” Hamlyn also sponsored the pre-meeting wine reception, which was accompanied by Elfrena Foord on the piano.