June 29, 2010
Today’s Program
Children’s Dream Fund
Today’s Speaker
Cynthia Lake
Cynthia Lake was born in Columbus, Ohio and moved to St. Petersburg in 1960. She attended Pinellas County public schools and graduated from St. Petersburg High School. She attended Denison University and graduated from the University of Florida with a B.A. in Spanish.
After teaching school, she “retired” to be married and subsequently had three children, John, Courtney and Katharine. In 1985, she was offered the opportunity to work for the Children’s Dream Fund on a part-time basis. The Children’s Dream Fund was formed in 1981 as a non-profit organization whose mission is to make dreams come true for seriously ill children on the West Coast of Florida. In the ensuing years, Ms. Lake has become the Executive Director of the organization, and the Children’s Dream Fund has made dreams come true for over 2,000 children.
The Children’s Dream Fund is celebrating 30 years of making dreams come true for seriously ill children in West Central Florida.
Ms. Lake is a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and has served as a member of the board of directors of the Suncoast Chapter of the Association of Fund Raising Professionals. She is a graduate of Leadership Tampa Bay, and has served as President of the St. Petersburg Downtown Rotary Club and of the Association of Wish Granting Organizations.
In 2005, Ms. Lake spent a 3-month sabbatical working with children orphaned due to the AIDS virus in Uganda, East Africa through the Rafiki Foundation, and returned again in the spring of 2007.
What’s Happening
Congratulations
Dick Koch, forever young, celebrated fifty-two (52) years of wedded bliss last week; and donated $1.00 for each year to the Club, and for you Georgia grads, that is $52.00.
Reasons to Join Kiwanis
Bob Byelick emphasized the value of Kiwanis membership (with apologies to David Letterman) with a top ten list prepared by Al Karnavicius and read by Bob.
Currently we present 158 Doorways Scholarships to local middle and high school students – the largest number ever in the program. Special guest Mayor Bill Foster echoed how valuable the scholarships are along with the mentoring program that increases graduation rates.
Grant Presented to PARC
The Boys and Girls Committee invited Kelly Caputo of PARC to receive a $1,000.00 check presented by Worth Blackwell. Kelly promised us the money is earmarked for the purchase of linens for the cots the over 700 daily students use. Way to go Kiwanians!
Guest of Hunter Booth, Todd Boulanger, Director of the Children’s Home, thanked us for a recent gift of $1,000.00. Founded in 1892, the Children’s Home serves over 8,000 kids in the Tampa Bay area.
Last Week at Kiwanis
Before our largest attended meeting this year, Kiwanian of the Day, Charles Stuart, introduced the new “Sheriff” in town, Skip Holtz, head football coach at USF. Coach Holtz regaled us with stories of his youth and college days as well as what it is like to live on the edge of the rich and famous. His father, Lou, legendary football coach, is a featured college football host on ESPN.
Skip made special mention to Mayor Foster his appreciation for the City of St. Petersburg’s support of the Bulls and the fine campus located at BayBoro Harbor.
Born in Connecticut, Skip and his family moved several times as his father changed zip codes to advance his career. Landing in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Skip played quarterback for his high school and later graduated at Notre Dame where he played in a limited role for his father.
After graduation, Skip’s ambition never wavered – coaching was in his blood, and he accepted an offer for a graduate assistant’s position from Bobby Bowden at FSU, and later moved to Colorado State with the same position. At twenty-nine years old, Skip accepted the challenge to coach at Division 1 AA UCONN. Asked why by his father, Skip replied, “If a dog is going to bite you, he will do it as a pup.”
At UCONN, he had much success on the field and laid the foundation to UCONN’s later admission as a Division One school into the Big East Conference, the conference USF joined in 2005.
However, the close family ties enjoyed by the Holtz family led to his next career move. Skip’s mom, Beth, developed throat cancer while husband Lou was head coach at South Carolina. Skip felt it was in his best interest to help his Dad at South Carolina so he could be with his mom during her recovery.
As the assistant head coach at South Carolina, he was named one of the winners of the Assistant Coach-of-the-Year by the American Football Foundation. East Carolina noticed his pedigree and coaching record, leading to his hire as head football coach on December 4, 2004.
At East Carolina, the trend of winning continued as the Pirates enjoyed four bowl games during Skip’s tenure and back-to-back Conference USA Championships.
A peculiar set of circumstances shaped Skip’s next move up the coaching ladder. On December 14, 2009, USF dismissed their long standing and popular coach, Jim Leavitt. The USF administration fulfilled their fans ambitions with the hiring of Coach Skip Holtz on January 14, 2010.
Long ago, Skip met the legendary Bear Bryant at the Orange Bowl prior to his father’s team, Arkansas, playing Bear Bryant’s team, Alabama. The grizzled Bryant dropped this advice on the eighth grader, “Be at the right place at the right time.” It seemed sort of goofy words from the old man to the kid, but those words came to fruition as Skip seized the USF opportunity. He told us it was “like a dream come true” as for him to leave East Carolina, it would have to be a special situation. His wife, seeing the rumors of Skips hiring roll across the ESPN ticker told him, “You better make the phone call.”
And why did Skip feel that USF was such a “special situation”? Well, let’s count the ways:
- The ninth largest university in the United States
- The twelfth largest media market
- Membership in a BCS conference, The Big East
- Home games at Raymond James Stadium, a world class facility and hosts of four Super Bowls
- A wealth of talented local recruits
- A beautiful campus with academic excellence
- A talented group of returning players
All wonderful things for Coach Holtz to work with, but the singular most important key to winning is attitude as Skip said, “Talent will put the team in a position to win, but motivation is what makes winning teams winners.”
Skip preaches the following keys of success:
- Overcome adversity (“Do not let yourself be torn apart.”)
- Set lofty goals (“If you aim at nothing, nothing will happen every time.”)
- Positive self-image (“Players need to believe they are talented and good things will happen.”)
Finally, it is important to Skip to “surround yourself with people who care” thus making for a stronger, closer team.
Skip’s goals for USF are lofty, but achievable as he has set the bar to graduate all seniors, secure a BCS bowl bid, and win the national championship.
Skip is excited about the summer football camp USF is hosting for 800 area high school football players. He looks forward to espousing his wisdom he shared with us with the young men. Ultimately, Skip and his staff hope the camp aids in their recruiting efforts.
Asked about this year’s team, Skip feels B.J. Daniels is a special player and that the running backs need a bigger role for better production. He wants USF to compete and win, but the real yardstick on the national basis is their performances against state schools like FSU, Miami, and Florida. Last year USF beat FSU. This year USF travels to Gainesville and Coral Gables. This year’s staff is molding the team to showcase their strengths and hide their weaknesses.
Upon Biff Baker presenting a Florida Gator pen to Skip, Skip broke the pen in half. Is this an omen for a victory over the Gators or will this curse the Bulls forevermore against the Gators? We will find out on September 11th in the Swamp.
Coach Skip Holtz thanks for a motivational and entertaining presentation and good luck to you and the USF Bulls.
Attendance Last Week
We had 63 members and 56 guests.
This Week’s Quiz
- Where will the College World Series (CWS) be played next year?
- Which NCAA school has been to the CWS twenty times, but never won?
- Which team with the CWS is the only school to be in a BCS Bowl, NCAA Basketball tournament, and the CWS for 2009-2010 school years?
- When was the “Fourth of July” designated a national holiday?
- What was the name of Babe Ruth’s bat?
Last Week’s Quiz
- USF first joined Conference USA in 2003, they were independent until then.
- Born Louis Leo Holt, Jr., the Senior Holtz never wanted his son called Jr.; therefore by the time he arrived from the hospital they were already calling him Skip.
- The approximate expected enrollment for all campuses at USF this fall will be 50,000 students
- USF become an accredited university in 1960.
- During the Spanish-American War the Battleship Maine was sunk in the Havana harbor. Two hundred and seventy-four lives were lost. This resulted in the battle cry of “Remember the Maine!”
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