This past weekend, I travelled with incoming Tisdale Freshman of the Year Advisory Board Chairman David Gillikin, to Dick Vitale’s V Foundation for Cancer Research Gala in Sarasota, FL. The event is attended by dozens of college basketball coaches, media types, and other sports and business celebrities. Dick’s personal goal was to raise in excess of $1 million to help fund research into the prevention and treatment of pediatric cancer.

This turned out to be a momentous weekend for both the V Foundation Gala and for our award as our David Gillikin donated $500,000 to the V Foundation in the name of the Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year Award, bringing the total raised for the weekend to $2.1 million. I have known David for many years and he has been and continues to be a very successful businessman but more so, a compassionate and giving individual. He has done so much already for our efforts in providing his private plane and paying for the other private planes to get our participants back and forth to the award. David certainly does not want any public credit for this new gift but having been in Sarasota and seeing the excitement created by the gesture, I thought it important that you know what David did in the name of our effort. It was a special night in many ways. It literally brought Dick to tears and it put our effort front and center on a national stage Friday night.

On a related note, we are well on our way to selling out the sponsorships around our new gala format in Oklahoma City and we hope to have announcements about that in the next couple of weeks, including our expanded and growing partnerships with two of our best corporate friends and supporters in Devon and Integris.

Thanks for your continued support of Access Sports and our mission and awards. With our new format for 2013, we are headed into a very exciting year.

Bill Webb
Vice Chairman
Access Sports