$130,000 raised for Big Brothers/Sisters and a second place finish!
‘little’ and I are fairly involved with the the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, outside of being matched together of course. We try to attend many group activities together and meet other matches, have a good time, and support the organization! Because of our close involvement we get a lot of ‘extra’s’ from them. One of these particular extra’s happened to be the other day. A wonderful group of people called the Arby’s Foundation, the charitable branch of Arby’s restaurants, puts on a wonderful charitable golfing event that supports Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities. This was their 19th annual event and it was held at Tartan Park golf course out in Lake Elmo, MN. It turned out the week before the event there were a few tickets that had been allocated to the BBBS group. It just so happened that these tickets floated down through the ranks and made it to me. There was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity to take a Monday off of work and hit the links for a good cause! My game certainly wasn’t in any shape to brag about it, but that certainly wasn’t the point. I wasn’t disappointed that I jumped all over this opportunity. Plus what a great opportunity to get plugged into more people that are off the same mind as I am, in wanting to make a difference in our community.
Right when I arrived before I even got out of my car, there was a golf cart there to pick up my clubs for me, and bring them to the cart I’d be using. I went down to sign up and got a dozen golf balls, a nice Adidas Golf shirt, and a complimentary breakfast with delicious coffee. I asked my old college roommate to join me so when he arrived we met up and hit the green for a putting competition. Apparently I wasn’t warmed up yet, because I wasn’t even close to the cup!! After the competition I ran into some of the BBBS folks that I’m pretty close with, and they told me I was in for a great surprise. When I headed to my cart to get ready for the shot gun start with my old buddy, in the cart next to us was Matt Blair, an ex-Minnesota Viking. Turned out that we were slated to hit balls with Matt Blair, and Joey Browner (also an ex-Viking) all day. Joey ended up not being able to make it so it was just a three some. Matt couldn’t have been a more gracious fun golf partner, not to mention a super skilled player as well. Just watching him swing the golf club elevated my own game way more than I could imagine. As we carted out to our tee, literally through the morning mist which couldn’t have made for a more picturesque setting, the day only kept getting better.
The format for the tourament was each group took the best shot off of the tee then played our own ball for the rest of the hole. Obviously because Matt was on our team we had a substantial safety net, and could take some pretty solid swings at the ball. I was so happy that 3 of mine, and 3 of my buddies drives were the best out of 18 holes, and the rest were Matt’s. I couldn’t believe it because this has never happened before, but my game was on!! Of course I had a few duffs here and there, but my fairway woods felt great, my short pitch game was accurate but most fun of all, my putting was spot on. Oh it was so exciting. I made at least 5 one putts that were 10 feet plus from the hole. I was dropping em out of no where. The coolest part of it was that I had a 6 time pro bowler, super bowl participant, football phenom overjoyed for my putts going in. Matt was so elated whenever I dropped a long ball! It was, as was the whole day, such a surreal experience. Funny after thought, I think I felt like ‘little’ when I Matt was congratulating me. Here’s is this far superior athlete, entrepreneur, philathropist giving me a a little snip it of his attention! He made me feel like a million bucks. It just became apparent to me that there is no one who couldn’t use a little mentoring in their lives! hmmm
The tournament was so well run also. Every third hole there were three coolers of soda, Gatorade, juice, water and beer. There was a longest drive, closest to the pin, and longest putt competition. We could purchase a couple mulligans at the beginning of the round for $25 which I thought was hilarious as well as useful!! FOUR!!! We had Arby’s delicious sandwiches and pasta salad placed in our carts before we even started. I was super impressed. Everything came together for this special day too! The weather couldn’t have been warmer or cooler, just perfect. There was a gentle breeze that was nothing but soothing and I had two of the best golfing partners a guy could ask for!
My phone was ringing off the hook from work, apparently something was going down. It was just to bad that I accidently pushed the power button and had to enjoy silence for the rest of the day!! Shhhhhh…..
At the end of the round we headed into the clubhouse for the 19th hole reception where we had some dinner and and sat in for the award ceremony I couldn’t contain my surprise when our team was awarded the overall second place prize! I really had felt like I played the game of my life but to even be in contention would have been great! We got some hardware to take home with us, a nice picture with Matt Blair, the Arby’s folks, and Gloria the Big Brothers Big Sisters CEO. Pretty good company if I do say so myself. I had to continue to remind myself to keep my chin off of the floor because of my surprise for our placement.
Me and Matt Blair
Really the coolest part about the whole night was that Arby’s ended up raising $113,00 for BBBS. That means that 1,000 matches will be funded for 1 whole year. That means that 1,000 bigs will have the opportunity to make a difference in a kids life in their community. That means that 1,000 kids will be much better prepaired for college, or the work force, self confident in themselves and their abilities, and hopefully will one day come back to give back to their community! Even though, I skipped out on work on Monday, and had a pile of papers waiting for me on my return, I felt so accomplished and fulfiled about my experience. Life is about helping other people out when you can, and getting through this together, and if that means I have to spend more Monday’s out in nature, then heck, I’ll take one for the team!
The point of this blog isn’t to raise funds for the orgnaization, it’s to let you know about my experience, and through that know that there are people like the good folks at BBBS, that are making a difference, and setting up opportunities for guys like me to participate in helping others out. I hope that someone reading this will get it in their head that they too can make a difference by volunteering, and have a blast doing it by the way, but I know that we are all busy in our own particular efforts and often can’t find the time for another activity. Of course if you don’t have the time but would like to help out events like this where we raise awareness, or would like to support a match with any amount of donation, I know everyone affected would appreciate it. Here’s the link to donate to a worthy cause!!
http://bit.ly/9Lzm5
Thanks anyone reading this, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities, Arby’s Foundation, Matt Blair, Tartan Park managment and Staff, Cargil, 3M, and any other donors to this great cause!