socal college coaches luncheon

What:	Los Angeles Athletic Club SoCal Coaches Preview Luncheon
When:	Thursday, October 5, 2000
Where:	Los Angeles Athletic Club
	431 W. 7th Street., LA, CA
Who:	11 Division-I NCAA Coaches
Time:	11:30 p.m. -2:00 p.m.
Cost:	$25.00

It's that time of year again. . . . time to sit down and break some bread with a few old faces (Steve Lavin, Steve Fisher, Bob Williams, Bobby Braswell, Wayne Morgan, etc) and some new ones (Donny Daniels, and maybe even Henry Bibby, if he doesn't send an assistant this time :^) ), along with newspaper and traditional media, athletic directors and some of the "new" media internet guys in the very pleasant surroundings of the upstairs dining room at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. The occasion? The Annual Southern California Division I Coaches Tip-Off/Preview Luncheon.

Last year's event was very enjoyable, a couple of hours during which the assembled head coaches from all of the local D-I schools (with the exception of USC, which sent first year assistant Paul Mokeski instead) gave their own candid assessments of each teams' strengths, weaknesses, what they thought about the rest of the teams in their respective conferences, their prospects for the coming season, and more. We were actually surprised to find that many of the coaches who we thought were really pretty serious guys were among the funniest. In all, this is usually a great event, and we think this year will be too, and we're looking forward to attending.

Although we've received some phone calls from the folks organizing the luncheon, we haven't been able to connect up with them during the past week, and thus we don't know exactly who is coming, but we do know that the event is intended to include every Division I NCAA program from San Luis Obispo in the north, all the way down to San Diego in the south. And while John Masi wasn't invited last year (an oversight?), with the bona fide rise of UC Riverside to the Division I level this past season, and a schedule this year which has them playing Stanford, Oregon State and six Big West Conference schools (in anticipation of the Highlander Grizzlies joining the Big West as a full-fledged member following the 2000-01 season) we would expect to see them there this year, making it an even dozen D-I coaches in attendance this year:

Cal Poly SLO	Jeff Schneider
UCSB	Bob Williams
CSUN	Bobby Braswell
UCLA	Steve Lavin
USC	Henry Bibby
Cal State Fullerton	Donny Daniels
Long Beach State	Wayne Morgan
UC Irvine	Pat Douglass
UC Riverside	John Masi
San Diego State	Steve Fisher
University of San Diego	Brad Holland
Loyola Marymount	Steve Aggers

Tickets are $25.00 and are available by telephone reservation (payable either in advance or at the door), but reservations are advisable, because the event will sell out early. For further information, contact the LA Athletic Club at 213-630-5255.