This past Friday, the Los Verdes Golf Club hosted the 25th Annual Athletic Golf Classic.
The event was led by Tony Barbone, athletic director, and assistant event coordinators Luukia Smith from adminstration and Patty Miller, athletic events coordinator.
All were seeking the same goals to attain volunteers, contributions and sponsors.
“Once the players start arriving, the day goes pretty well, everybody is happy. It’s a good time,” Barbone said. “It’s the 364 days after or before that goes into it with all the preparation comes the work.”
Barbone said that the field of golfers averaged about 128 with a good tournament.
On the day of the event, 116 individuals participated, including some faculty, staff, students and a few guests.
“We use people’s strengths to make it a good event because the winners are the students, that’s who benefits from it,” Barbone said.
In the men’s division, Mason Farnsworth, Jeff Dickey, Cal Watson and Jefferey Dixon came up as winners.
Greg Arnold, Patricia Brink, Kile Molloy, and David L. won a title for the the mixed division.
Our very own LeValley Pattison, women’s volleyball coach, won the women’s four-some with her teammates, Ethel Pattison, Carolyn Biedler and Liz Hazell.
Pattinson ended up taking the top spot in the women’s division.
“If you come in as an individual, the entry fee is $150 but they have all these different sponsored packages and that’s really where the tournament makes most of their money,” Smith said. “When they get corporations to donate more money, that extra money goes into the program that can be used to pay for tutors and computer rooms for athletes to work in.”
The $150 per individual golfing in the tournamnt includes greens fees, golf cart, muligan package, tee package, contest, dinner and prizes.
The end goal was to raise $25,000 to go towards the athletic department.
“A big portion of the proceeds go to tutoring service and paying for counseling to keep the athlete’s in their classes,” Miller said.
In the past few years, the contributions and proceeds from the event have been put into a funding and budgeting program known as Scholar Baller.
Scholar Baller is a non-profit organization that specializes in rewarding student-athletes for their academic successes.
It’s geared toward fulfilling needs such as tutors, counseling, and work rooms for scholar athletes.
“It’s all going to athletes to help them get through the system,” Miller said.
The amount of money that was raised from the event has yet to be determined.
“I think the biggest thing is that it makes a great statement when you can have people colaborate, get together and do something for the students,” Barbone said.
