Nick Saban to headline Boys & Girls Clubs fundraiser

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Springfield will bring a four-time college football championship coach to town for the 17th annual Steak & Steak Dinner and Charity auction April 2.

University of Alabama coach Nick Saban has agreed as the featured speaker for the annual fundraiser, and Boys & Girls Clubs Director of Resource Development Chris Whitehead said he hopes to raise at least $250,000 though the event. 

“Our goal is always forward,” he said, adding last year’s event with former St. Louis Cardinals General Manager Tony LaRussa raised more than $240,000.

A four-time National Coach of the Year, Saban has lead the Crimson Tide to the school’s 13th and 14th national championships, winning the 2013 Discover BCS National Championship Game and the school’s 23rd SEC Championship, a league record.

According to the Boys & Girls Clubs news release, Saban has compiled a 153-55-1 record as a college head coach and has gone 60-7 in the past five seasons in Tuscaloosa. In 2012, the Crimson Tide reached the 10-win milestone for the fifth consecutive season under Saban.
Whitehead said, historically, the speakers have been chosen at significant times in their careers.

“We have a bit of a trend going having had Roy Williams after he won the NCAA Championship, Drew Brees after he won the Super Bowl and Tony LaRussa after (the Cardinals) won the World Series – Saban fits right in having just won the BCS,” he said. “Even if he hadn’t won, he is still a top-notch guy, a great character and someone these kids can look up to.”

Whitehead declnded to disclose the cost to Boys & Girls Clubs to bring Saban to town.
Helping bridge the gap between the $25 fee club members pay each semester and the $550 it costs to provide them with programs, the dinner will help support the more than 3,000 registered members the club serves each year.

Since the first Steak & Burger Dinner in 1997, guest speakers have included Bob Gibson, Bob Knight, Tony Gonzales, Dick Vitale, Bill Russell, Mike Ditka, Dick Vermeil, Archie and Peyton Manning, Johnny Bench, Jackie Joyner Kersee and Lance Armstrong, who recently confessed to Oprah he's used performance enhancing drugs while competing. Winner of seven Tour de France medals and a 2000 Olympic bronze, Armstrong was disqualified from all race results since August 1998 and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has banned Armstrong from professional cycling for life.

The 2012 Steak & Steak Dinner is scheduled for 7 p.m. April 2 at the University Plaza Convention Center, 333 S. John Q. Hammons Parkway. Dinner tickets, which are $200 apiece, will go on sale March 1.

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