Next Speaker – November 6, 2014 – Emmy Award Winning College Basketball Analyst – Jay Bilas

Jay Bilas, ESPN broadcaster and attorney, is one of basketball’s strongest voices. He joined ESPN as a college basketball analyst in 1995 and today serves as game and studio analyst, working more than 40 games a season and co-hosting ESPN’s popular road show, College GameDay. He also is a regular contributor to SportsCenter, ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine and ESPN radio, and he provides commentary on coverage of the NBA Draft and NCAA Final Four.

Bilas is a two-time Emmy nominee for Best Studio Analyst and in 2010 was named Best Game Analyst by Sports Illustrated. He received “Best Column of the Year” from the US Basketball Writers Association and the “Distinguished Young Alumni Award” from Duke Law School.

The 6’8” Bilas was a four-year starter for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke from 1982-86. He finished his career with 1,062 points, 692 rebounds, and was third among Duke’s all-time career field-goal percentage leaders (56 percent). As a senior, Bilas was a starter on the 37-win Duke squad that played in the 1986 NCAA Championship game.

He graduated from Duke with a degree in political science in 1986 and from Duke Law School in 1992. He has been litigation attorney with the Charlotte, N.C., firm of Moore & Van Allen, PLLC since 1992.

Bilas was one of two student-athletes in the nation appointed to the NCAA’s Long-Range Planning Committee (1984-86). He appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation on April 7, 1985 to discuss academics and athletics. During summers, he worked as a production assistant for ABC Sports, which included stints at the 1983 PGA Championship, the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and in 1984 and 85 with Monday Night Baseball.

A 1986 NBA draft pick of the Dallas Mavericks, Bilas played professionally in Italy (1987-88) and Spain (1989) before returning to Duke as an assistant coach from 1990-92. The Blue Devils made three NCAA Championship Game appearances during his tenure as a coach, winning the championship in ‘91 and ‘92.

A member of the Screen Actors Guild, Bilas has appeared in various commercials, an episode of the television show The White Shadow and had a feature role in the 1989 Columbia Pictures movie I Come in Peace. A native of Rolling Hills, Calif., Bilas averaged 23.7 points and 13.5 rebounds as a senior at Rolling Hills High School.

Next Meeting – David Feherty – April 30, 2014

HSC members and their guests will enjoy an entertaining evening from one of golf’s most comical, yet enlightening television analysts.

Biography (source http://www.golfchannel.com/about/bio/david-feherty/)
David Feherty was born in the seaside town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. He grew up with aspirations to become an opera singer, until he discovered he had the knack for hitting a golf ball. He jokes about his career change, “I was always interested in music from a very early age. But when I turned pro at age 17, I haven’t sung a note since. Now, I only sing to punish my children.”

Feherty enjoyed a successful professional career, with 10 victories worldwide and more than $3 million in prize money. He was a regular on the European Tour, with victories including the ICL International, Italian Open, Scottish Open, South Africa PGA, BMW Open, Cannes Open, and Madrid Open. He captained the winning Irish team in the 1990 Alfred Dunhill Cup and played on the European Ryder Cup Team in 1991, an experience that rejuvenated his fervor for golf.

In 1997, Feherty retired from professional golf when offered a position as a golf commentator for CBS Sports. “I always enjoyed talking more than playing, and now CBS is paying me for what I like to do most.” Thanks to his sharp wit and colorful personality, David has become golf’s most irrepressible personality and a viewer favorite.

Feherty’s success extends beyond broadcasting. He has authored six books, with several making the New York Times “Best Sellers List.” Each is “chocked full with belly-busting humor,” including his latest The Power of Positive Idiocy. His popular monthly column on the back page of GOLF Magazine should be “read twice to exact every available laugh.”

But for Feherty, his most fulfilling activities are on behalf of badly injured U.S. troops. In 2005, he was part of a Thanksgiving goodwill tour to Iraq and returned with a new mission, determined to do something to better the lives of those he calls “American heroes.” Subsequently, he founded the “Troops First Foundation,” which among other good deeds works with wounded soldiers who come home without limbs or have been severely disfigured. That first trip to the Middle East and subsequent others have inspired him to become an American citizen, a goal he obtained in 2010.

“Losing a limb, or the ability to use a limb, is one thing,” Feherty says. “But the dignity they lose with it is perhaps even more important. And to be able to give them some of that dignity back is my mission these days. It’s not a charity. It’s just us trying to pay back a very small part of the check that we owe them.”

What works for Feherty as a rehabilitative tool is humor – wicked humor. Having battled depression, Feherty knows the healing value of laughter. “The only thing that kept me alive was my sense of humor. I really believe that’s a human’s last line of defense. If I can’t make them laugh, I want to make them smile.”