THE SPOKE • OCTOBER 25, 2018 (Oct 25, 2018)

Greeter: Justin Lealand

Invocation: Garro Ellis

Flag Salute: Ken Beurmann

Song: Rob Noriega

Good News & Announcements

Kristen Beall reminded us that in two weeks (November 15th) we'll be offsite, meeting at the Homeless Center with host Louis Gill.
Jeff Guitierrez had us all excited for a minute when he mentioned "free tickets", hoping for a Dodger seat, but, no, it was for the Kern Sustainability conference... or something like that, I stopped listening when he didn't say "Dodger Tickets".
Mike McCoy announced that his daughter got married, congratulations Mike!
Dave Wheldon reminded us that we'll be bell ringing again this year on Friday, December 7th. Put it on your calendar.

Program

Dr. Lynnette Zelezny introduced her guests from the women's basketball program at CSUB. Greg McCall, head women's basketball coach, and Zach Grasmick, assistant women's basketball coach talked a little about their women's basketball team. Greg McCall was a former player in 1990, after getting his degree, he started coaching high school football, then later was offered a job coaching women's CSUB basketball in 2007.

After a slow start, the Roadrunners tied for second in the Western Athletic Conference with a 10-4 record in 2017.

Limited at times to just six players during his first campaign, the Roadrunners continued to compete, winning two of their final four games to finish the 2011-12 campaign with a 7-22 record. CSUB improved to 12-17 in year two, winning a school Division I record nine consecutive games at one point.

Playing a tough schedule that featured five teams that finished the 2015-16 season in the top 25, the Roadrunners went 12-19 and returned to the semifinals of the WAC Tournament for the third consecutive season.

McCall led the Roadrunners back to the WNIT in 2014-15 as CSUB won a Division I school record 23 games (23-9). The Roadrunners finished second in the Western Athletic Conference for the second consecutive season.

McCall gave a passionate speech about the energy of the CSU fans and encouraged us to come out and support their team. He feels this could be a good year for them in the Big West league.

He went on to talk about some of the success stories of his student-athletes.

Following coach McCall, Zack Grasmick took to the podium to give us his take on women's basketball at CSU.

Zack Grasmick will begin his eighth season as an assistant coach on the CSU Bakersfield women’s basketball.

Grasmick moved over from the Bakersfield men’s basketball staff after beginning his coaching career in 2008 as a graduate assistant. He became the Roadrunner men’s basketball director of operations for the 2009-10 campaign before becoming an assistant coach on the men’s basketball staff for the 2010-11 campaign.

He finished a four-year career for the Roadrunners as one of the top perimeter threats in Bakersfield men’s basketball history, ranking No.3 all-time in three-point field goals (160), fourth in games started (64), seventh in minutes played (2,561) and eighth in games played (104).

Coach Barnes showed up a little late, so he didn't have much time. He thanks new CSUB president, Lynnette Zelezny for her tremendous support. He talked about how proud he is of his "scholar" athletes. Currently, the grade point average of a student-athlete is 3.0.

He went on to talk about how he wants to promote Bakersfield, not only nationally, but internationally.