Every Monday from January through early March, the Club meets at the Harbert Center at 2019 4th Avenue North and begins with a buffet lunch. The buffet line opens at 11:40 a.m., with the program beginning at noon. Each week we recognize a high school player of the week, watch video highlights of the prior week’s college action, and hear from our headline speaker. Membership is open to anyone who enjoys the game of basketball.
After a great December meeting with Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl, we're taking a break for the holidays before our regular season opens January 5. Lock in your renewal or new membership by clicking on the "Join Today!" button, where you can print an application form and mail it in with your check, or pay on-line through PayPal. See you in January!
Monday, January 5. We open our regularly scheduled Monday meetings for 2009, with a celebration of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Featured speaker will be Tony Ronzone, Director of Basketball Operations for the Detroit Pistons and Director of International Player Personnel for the USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team. Ronzone worked through the 2008 Olympics with the USA coaching staff on the scouting of international teams and the evaluation of players. Possibly our most popular speaker from the 2007-2008 Tip-Off Club season, Ronzone guaranteed us a gold medal for the US team, and his prediction came true!
Several prominent Olympians from Alabama will join Ronzone on the 5th for special recognition ... you won't want to miss it!
Monday, January 12. Now in his first season as head coach at LSU, Trent Johnson spent 5 years as head coach at Nevada and 4 as head coach at Stanford. Both his 2004 Nevada team and his 2008 Stanford team reached the NCAA Sweet 16, and Johnson has been named Coach of the Year in both the Western Athletic Conference and the Pac-10. He was the only head coach in Stanford history to guide the Cardinals to the postseason in each of his first four seasons, going to the NCAAs three times and the NIT in 2006. LSU plays Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Sunday January 11, and Coach Johnson has kindly agreed to speak to us the following day, so be sure to give him a warm Tip-Off Club welcome!
Monday, January 19. One of basketball's officiating greats, Wally Rooney played on the varsity team at St. John's Prep in Brooklyn with Al McGuire, graduating in 1945. After a two-year stint in the army, he entered Niagara University, where he played varsity basketball and baseball and was later inducted into the school's basketball hall of fame. Rooney spent 40 years as a referee in high school, college, and the pros, serving 6 years in the ABA and the final 17 years in the NBA, the last 8 as a supervisor (over Tim Donaghy among many others). A legendary raconteur, Rooney will share his perspective on issues affecting college and NBA basketball today.
Monday, January 26. SPONSORED BY BRIGHT HOUSE NETWORKS. Ernie Johnson, Jr., is entering his 19th year as the studio host for Turner Sports’ NBA telecasts. He hosts TNT's Emmy Award-winning Inside the NBA with regular analysts Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. In 2002, E.J. was co-winner with Bob Costas of the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality, Studio Host, and in 2006 he won the award again, this time on his own.
Monday, February 2. SPONSORED BY VIVA HEALTH. Now entering his third season as head coach at UAB, Mike Davis, a native of Fayette, Alabama, played for four years at Alabama under C. M. Newton and Wimp Sanderson, and was an assistant for two years under David Hobbs. In six years as head coach at the University of Indiana, Mike took the Hoosiers to the NCAA tournament four times, including a run to the national championship game in 2002.
Monday, February 9. Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried, now in his eleventh year as head coach at the University of Alabama. took the Tide to the NCAA Tournament in five consecutive seasons, from 2002 to 2006, and was the first coach in Alabama's history to take Alabama to the Elite Eight, in 2004. He played for Alabama as a sophomore transfer from Oral Roberts, starting in 98 consecutive games and helping the Tide advance to the Sweet 16 in each of his three seasons. His coaching career has included 8 seasons as an assistant at UCLA, where the Bruins won the NCAA Championship in his final season in 1995, and 3 seasons as head coach at Murray State, whom he took to the NIT in 1996 and to the NCAA Tournament in 1997 and 1998. He serves on the board of governors for the John R. Wooden Award and is a national council member for Coaches vs. Cancer.
Monday, February 16. A special program is in the works!
Monday, February 23. Arkansas native Charlie Spoonhour began his career as a Division I Head Coach at Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State) in 1983, leading the Bears to 5 NCAA tournament appearances before leaving for St. Louis University in 1992. In his second season at St. Louis, Spoonhour led the Billikens to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 37 years, earning him National Coach of the Year honors. He took St. Louis to the tournament two more times before leaving in 1999 to spend two years as a basketball analyst. He returned to coaching once again in 2001 at UNLV, where he coached for almost three seasons before his retirement; the Rebels won an NIT bid in each of his three years with the program.
Monday, March 2. Join us for our NCAA Tournament Preview featuring Birmingham Southern Athletic Director Joe Dean, Jr., and Samford University Head Coach Jimmy Tillette.
December 4, 2008. On the day after his 400th win as a head coach, Tennessee's Bruce Pearl was headline speaker at our first meeting of the 2008-2009 season! Now in his fourth year at UT, Coach Pearl has led the Volunteers to an average of 25.6 wins per year, two SEC Eastern Division titles, an overall SEC championship, the school's first No. 1 national ranking, a school record 31 winds, and back-to-back appearances in the Sweet 16. He has been named SEC Coach of the Year twice, in 2006 and 2008, and no SEC school has a winning record against the Vols since Coach Pearl's arrival. Before coming to UT, Pearl coached four seasons at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, taking UWM to the Sweet 16 in 2005 with wins over Alabama (ouch!) and Boston College. Even the most ardent Bama fans among us were delighted to welcome Coach Pearl to the Birmingham Tip-Off Club.
Coach Pearl speaking at The Club on December 4.
Coach Pearl signing autographs following his speech to the Tip-Off Club.
We always have great speakers at the Birmingham Tip-Off Club! Here are some highlights from previous seasons:
We opened the 2007-2008 Tip-Off Club season with a very special luncheon and receptionsponsored by RED MOUNTAIN BANK. Our speaker was ESPN's Jimmy Dykes, who came to Birmingham with the SEC/Big East Invitational, as the University of Alabama took on last year's Final Four contender and current #5 Georgetown, and Auburn challenged NIT champion West Virginia. We followed the luncheon with a private reception at the BJCC's Arena Club before and during the games.
SPONSORED BY FI-PLAN PARTNERS. Our first Monday luncheon of 2008 took place on January 7, featuring Jeff Lebo, then in his fourth season as head coach at Auburn. An all-ACC point guard and four-year starter at the University of North Carolina from 1986 to 1989, Lebo played briefly for the San Antonio Spurs before becoming an assistant, first at East Tennessee State, and then at Vanderbilt and South Carolina. He became head coach of Tennessee Tech in 1998, winning two OVC championships in four years, and then coached at UT-Chattanooga before joining Auburn in April of 2004. It was a pleasure to welcome him back to our club.
SPONSORED BY BRIGHT HOUSE NETWORKS. On January 14, 2008, our speaker was Tony Ronzone, director of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons (speaking to our club again on January 5, 2009). Time Magazine has called Ronzone "the world's best international scout." He directs all of Detroit's international scouting activities and assists with college scouting and evaluating NBA personnel. A college basketball player at the University of Nevada and Long Beach State, he played pro ball overseas and became the youngest coach in New Zealand's history. He coached the Chinese national team in the East Asian Games, coaching Yao Ming and Wang Zhi Zhi, with a first-place finish in 2001 (go figure!). He is a member of the Olympic committee of F.I.B.A., the governing body of international basketball ... and has gone one-on-one with the king of Bhutan, in a story that left the club howling in laughter!
On February 4, 2008, our speaker was Sean Tuohy. Tuohy was a standout point guard at Ole Miss, named All-SEC in each of his four seasons from 1979 through 1982, and the only basketball player in the history of the SEC to lead a statistical category for four years, as he did with assists. His 830 assists still stand as the league career record. He was named to the All-Century SEC team and is only the fourth basketball player ever chosen to the Ole Miss Sports Hall of Fame. He is now the radio color commentator for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Chuck Daly joined us on February 18, 2008. Daly coached the Detroit Pistons for nine years, making the playoffs each season and winning consecutive NBA championships in 1989 and 1990. The Pistons have retired the number 2 in honor of his two championships. He led the U.S. "Dream Team" to a gold medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics. He spent two seasons with the New Jersey Nets and was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame in 1994. He then worked as a television analyst for three years before joining the Orlando Magic in 1997 for two seasons. Before coaching in the NBA, Daly was a high school coach for seven years, then became an assistant at Duke University. He spent two years as head coach at Boston College before going to the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, where he guided Penn to four Ivy League championships and two second-place finishes in six years.
Billy Tubbs joined us on February 25, 2008, in a special meeting in conjunction with the high school basketball tournament. Tubbs spent 31 seasons as a head basketball coach and was the ninth coach in NCAA history to record 100 wins at three different schools (Oklahoma 333, TCU 156, and Lamar 121.) While at Oklahoma, he took the Sooners to 9 NCAA Tournaments and 4 NITs, including a streak of six straight "Sweet 16" appearances from 1985 to 90. He was named Big Eight coach of the year four times in the 1980's. He is now Director of Athletics at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, his alma mater.
Jay Bilas of ESPN spoke to the club in December 2006 in a meeting sponsored by RED MOUNTAIN BANK. Jay Bilas started at center for 4 years at Duke, helping lead the Blue Devils to the Final Four and national championship game in 1986. Now at ESPN, he provides expert color commentary from courtside on college basketball games, and serves as a studio analyst and as the co-host of ESPN's popular studio shows College Gameday and College Gamenight. He also writes for ESPN.com, and contributes numerous reports for SportsCenter. He serves as an analyst for CBS's coverage of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, and since 2003 has provided in-depth player scouting and analysis for ESPN's coverage of the NBA Draft.
David Thompson, or "Skywalker," was Michael Jordan's childhood hero and inventor of the alley-oop, Thompson led NC State to an NCAA Championship in 1974, besting UCLA (and at only 6-foot-4, blocking Bill Walton's shots!). The #1 draft pick for both the NBA and the ABA in 1975, Thompson signed with the ABA's Denver Nuggets and in his professional career became the highest-paid player at that time in the history of professional sports. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1996.
Charles Martin "C.M." Newton has devoted over 50 years to the game of basketball. As a player, Newton was a member of the 1951 University of Kentucky team that compiled a 32-2 record and won the NCAA championship. From 1956 to 1989, Newton coached at Transylvania College, the University of Alabama and Vanderbilt University. Newton led Alabama to three SEC championships and to appearances in four NIT and two NCAA Tournaments, and he was named SEC Coach of the Year in 1972, 1978 and 1979. Newton became athletic director at Kentucky in 1989. He was President of USA Basketball from 1992 to 1996, when the U.S. Olympic Team went from college to professional players, and was instrumental in the selection of the original Dream Team in 1992.
Charles Barkley returned to the Tip-Off Club for our final meeting of the 2006-2007 basketball season, sponsored by BRIGHT HOUSE NETWORKS. Sir Charles is a native of Leeds who started at center for three years at Auburn before leaving for the NBA where he played for the Sixers, the Suns, and the Rockets and was named an NBA All-Star eleven times before his retirement in 1999. He now works as a studio analyst on "Inside the NBA" for TNT.
