Sam Jankovich
President Linda Martin opened the October 8, 2018 meeting of the Gulf Coast Athletic Club. She thanked her “Auburn Friends” for her Mississippi State victory over the Tigers. Guests were introduced and then Membership Chairman Andrew Hart announced we have 100 members!
David Lee said he went into hiding after such a poor week of prognosticating in the weekly Football Pool since he had been bragging about leading the Stats. Debbie Bower, the “Pink Cadillac Diva”, is currently winning the season-long race. President Martin noted that she was second last week.
Coach Matt Blake gave another sterling accounting of Gulf Shores High School athletics. Football will be at home 3 of the last 4 games and that will help. The Swim Team qualified for the State Meet and all other sports are doing really good. Bowling and Basketball will start soon.
With Team Reports and Crying Towel Guru Dec McClelland back in his home country of Ireland, Andrew Hart jumped in and did Dec’s duty for Team Reports. In a surprise move applauded by all, former Crying Towel Master Kevin Corcoran took the stage, thanked all for the “lukewarm reception”, and gave another wonderful performance like he’s been giving for the past 15 years. Honorable Mention went to John Boller and his Auburn Tigers, but the Crying Towel went to LSU for the loss to Florida. Mimicing Coach O’s gruff voice, he declared “Tight End Tops Tigers” and “with their schedule, he might get a whole set.” Always great to have Kevin with us!
David DeMeyer then introduced an amazing guest speaker, former Athletic Director at Washington State and the University of Miami and former CEO/General Manager of the New England Patriots, Sam Jankovich. Hailing from Montana, Sam gave the Club an amazing view of his career with wonderful insights into his experiences at each stop. The crowd was impressed with his recall of such detail at age 84! He note with pride that Miami won three National Championships (83-87-91) under his leadership.
“God’s been good to me”, he said after remarking how much he appreciated former SEC Commissioners Roy Kramer and Mile Slive. He also said Kramer tried to get Miami to join the SEC. Sam said he said ‘no’ since Vanderbilt was the only private school in the SEC and “we can’t win in the SEC”.
He remarked he had been blessed to work with and for some wonderful people, starting in the small mining community of Butte, Montana where he was born to two God serving parents who immigrated from Yugoslavia. He was rather uncomplimentary about the NFL, full of cronies, sorry reputations, and always being a money war. He said college coaches don’t last in the NFL since they can’t have total control.
The 50/50 drawing was held with the pot donated back to the Club. Adjournment was at 8:14pm.
