Posted by Livy on 10/29/2009, 5:44 pm, in reply to "Re: Mark O'Meara mentions Long Beach State on sports radio"
71.118.201.106
First screw up (I have not confirmed this with Mark, but heard it, and it sounds about right).
When Mark was a Sr, he qualified for NCAA as an individual and his coach was sick, so his dad went with him. When his dad came back with the receipts he did not get re-imbursed.
Mark got over that and about 7-8 years later won some events and gave $10k for three trips to Hawaii as a recuriting tool. The Dept said "golf normally gets 6% of the department budget, so here is $600". Mark learned of this and was done.
I ran into him at the Golf Show in Orlando in Jan of 98, my third year. He was excited about what we were doing and agreed to do an event for us in teh future. "Unfortunately" he won two majors that year and his free days were all of a sudden worth $100,000 plus. His caddy had either Lou Gherigs disease or MS or something so that became the charity he supported, although he did donate some auction items to us.
He has donated a few auction items to UCI since Shaun enrolled, but I have been told the perception is he felt they weren't going for high enough bids, so has not yet done anything for their event next week.
The CLASSIC was when the College of Business Administration named Mark the Outstanding CBA Graduate about 7-8 years ago over my and Shumard's and the Alumni Associations STRONG OBJECTIONS. When he learned about it, he laughed and said something to the effect "if I am the best, that degree must not be worth much". That flagrant action may equal the Legendary Speilberg Ask!
--Previous Message--
:
: Thanks Hank....I enjoyed the interview. I
: wonder whether Mark has supported our golf
: program over the years. Maybe Livy would
: be willing to comment.
:
