This past Sunday at the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, California, three legendary coaches joined together to raise money for many good causes.  HerLoyalSons was on hand for the action, and in a several-part series will recap the evening’s highlights, stars and most importantly the message:  “Care about others, and help them in any way you can.  The world needs it.”

This was a one-of-a-kind event, folks, and I count my lucky lucky lucky stars to have been there.  I’ll give an overview of the event in this post, and then give a few highlights from the coach’s speeches in a few subsequent posts.   Let me just say it here there:

THIS WAS AWESOME.

I walked in, and Charlie Weis was standing there, chatting up Tommy Lasorda.  Seriously.  Just chatting him up right there, talking sports. 

 

I walked along a little further, past Joe Montana and Aaron Taylor chatting it up. 

 

A bit further along, I caught Lou Holtz’s eye and we ended up chatting for about 20 minutes. 

 

Ara was down on the floor talking to Brady Quinn.  Seriously.  That.  Cool.

I mingled and chatted the guys up.  Joe was engrossed with Aaron, so I didn’t interrupt much.   Charlie was busy with EVERYONE, so I got a handshake and an autograph.  But hey, that was cool with me.  Lou wanted to talk forever, and Ara was gracious.  Brady actually hung out and BS-ed for a few, even after he learned that I’m a Pittsburgh fan.  Great guy.  He and Aaron are the same size.  Brady is HUGE.

The night featured a cocktail hour (open bar, suh-weet….) and a silent auction. Our gracious host was the legendary “voice” Tony Roberts, who did a great job and SERIOUSLY deserves to be back on the airwaves. And soon.  WE LOVE YOU TONY! The cheapest item on the docket  in the silent auction was $350.  I was priced out immediately and felt bad about my lowly career as a part-time blog poster.  Ah, balls.  From there we had a great dinner (filet and crab cakes BIZ-NATCHES.  we was eatin’ good in the neighborhood) accompanied with some sick Jazz Band renditions of ND classic tunes.  From there, each of the coaches spoke:  Ara, Lou, then Charlie.  Great speeches for great causes. 

While ND football was obviously a hot topic, it was not at the expense of the charities for which we were there to raise money.  Everyone, fans, coaches and legendary players alike, focused on the task at hand - raising money for these important causes.  The end of the evening featured a live auction hosted by the one-and-only Billy Baldwin, which raised something around $400,000 in about 20 minutes.

 

The generosity, the people, were impressive.  Who says LA is callous and self-centered?  As C-dub said: 

“This was a Notre Dame love-fest.”

With that, I give you a brief run-down of the three organizations, the causes to which this amazing group of people donated time, money and effort…

The Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation

Ara’s family has been battling a devastating disease called Niemann-Pick Type C that claimed the lives of three of Ara’s grandchildren.  It’s a fairly rare genetic disease and the foundation raises money to fund research and treatments.  The family has battled the disease through the lives and deaths of three of their four children/grandchildren, and they have made some great progress.  Please visit their site to see how you can help.

Holtz Charitable Foundation ((407) 857-6811 - Lou’s charity needs a web site, any volunteers?)

Lou’s charity targets people like him - people from small towns that just need a break.  Lou’s charity does a variety of work, helping the homeless, supporting other charities, and focusing on scholarships for kids to go to Trade and Technical schools.  To give them a chance at a better life, in small towns like the one Lou came from in Ohio.  Give them a call to learn more.

Hannah & Friends

By now I think we’re all familiar with Charlie and Maura Weis’ charity, named after their daughter Hannah, who is afflicted with Global Development Delay Disorder.  But the foundation isn’t just about their daughter - the family is committed to raising awareness and education about all children, and adults, with Special Needs.  They give grants to individual families to help their special needs children, they fund awareness and education campaigns and they are in the process of building their first adult group home in the South Bend area. 

Another great cause, and I urge all of our readers to check them out.

In fact, I was inspired to help in any way I could yesterday.  I don’t have the financial means to give much, so I wanted to help by publishing this information, and asking each of our readers to consider donating to one of these causes.  I know this is a relatively sober post for HLS (screw you Michigan!  better?), but it’s more important than a lot of the things we post about.  And it’s part of what ND means to all of us.

It was a surreal night, and one I will never forget.  Talking ND football and his last game with Lou, shaking Ara’s hand and snapping his picture.  Giving Charlie a pat on the back and a “We love you Coach!” was just awesome.  But so was the message, and the generosity shown in the room that raised almost $1Million (my guess, don’t quote me on that) for these three charities. 

I urge each of you, all of us, to consider giving.  Today, and more each day.

Next post I will run down a synopsis of the more memorable moments, and each of the speeches by our triumvirate of coaching legends.

Go Irish.

Share This

Somewhat related posts...

• A missive from the enclave: pimp cane edition
• We Can’t All Be Special: ND’s Kickoff Team Performance
• You Don’t Know Chuck