The words “life-changing” and “it would mean the world to me” are never in short supply at selection committee meetings for the Evans Scholarship.
People who have received the full tuition and housing scholarship for caddies regularly note how the event changed the course of their lives. And candidates being interviewed in the final stage of the selection process have a difficult time verbalizing how much an Evans Scholarship would mean to them.
That’s one of the reasons — perhaps the main one — why the annual selection committee meetings are such compelling days for anyone who has even a small connection to the Evans program, one of the largest privately-funded scholarships in the U.S.
One president of a Colorado country club, attending his first selection meeting last week, called it “an amazing experience.”
Last Thursday at Lakewood Country Club, the most recent selection committee meeting was held for the Eisenhower-Evans Scholarship, which sends qualified caddies to the University of Colorado. The CGA and CWGA co-sponsor the Eisenhower-Evans Scholarship — along with the Illinois-based Western Golf Association — and consider it one of their flagship programs.
Colorado donors, through Par Club contributions, CGA and CWGA bag-tag sales and Par Club Tournament proceeds, provide virtually all of the year-to-year scholarship costs at CU, which run about a half-million dollars annually.
For an in-state student at the university, the scholarship is estimated to be worth more than $50,000 if renewed for four years.
That’s a significant amount for just about anyone, but when you consider that candidates and their families must demonstrate financial need to qualify for the scholarship, that money could indeed be life-changing.
The scholarship finalists were interviewed by a 100-person selection committee last Thursday. The finalists’ background, family history and personal essays — many of which include heart-wrenching stories of overcoming adversity — were shared privately with committee members, who then had a chance to question understandably-nervous candidates one-by-one. Based in part on the impression they made on selection committee members, finalists will learn within the next week if they’ll be among the fortunate ones to receive the scholarship.
Selection committee members at Lakewood included a who’s-who of Colorado golf — everyone from leaders of state associations and golf clubs to Evans Scholars alums from universities across the nation. There was even a former member of the powerful and influential USGA Executive Committee, Denver’s Jim Bunch, now vice chairman of the WGA.
Suffice it to say that many power brokers consider the event worth their time.
“There’s nothing I do from a philanthropy standpoint that’s more important than the Evans Scholarship,” said George Solich, an Evans Scholar alum who graduated from CU in 1983 and currently is president and CEO of Cordillera Energy Partners III.
Solich, who’s also a director with the WGA, believes enough in the life-changing opportunities the Evans Scholarship provides that he personally funds a full-time Eisenhower-Evans Scholarship Recruiter position, with Erin Bessey holding that job at the CGA.
CGA executive director Ed Mate, another former Eisenhower-Evans Scholar, is a longtime participant in the Colorado selection committee meetings.
“It’s my favorite day of the year, work-wise,” he said. “It’s such a gratifying thing. I tear up multiple times hearing the stories (of the scholarship finalists). It’s a very poignant thing, and it makes you appreciate it even more because you were a part of (the scholarship). “¦ That’s why I do what I do.”
Some of the candidates are particularly outstanding, with straight-A grade-point averages, near-perfect ACT scores and long lists of extracurricular activities. And often, finalists have accomplished much despite very trying personal circumstances. Besides financial need and strong academics, candidates must have excellent caddie records and outstanding character and integrity.
Nationwide, 90 percent of all incoming Evans Scholars graduate, and the average GPA for all 14 E.S. houses — including CU — is above 3.0.
“As each year goes by, the character and the quality of the candidates continues to increase,” said Bob Webster, another CU E.E. alum and now a member of the Board of Governors for the WGA and Evans Scholars Foundation. “This was a very impressive group of kids.”
Webster, along with fellow E.E. alum John Krueger, also help out at the CU scholarship house when needed. The CU house, located across Broadway from the university, currently includes more than 40 Scholars — the most since 2002 — of which about a quarter are women. There are about 390 alums of the CU Eisenhower-Evans Scholars program, dating back to the 1960s when the CGA-created Eisenhower Scholarship for junior golfers was merged with the Evans Scholars program. The Evans Scholarship dates back to 1930, when Chick Evans, a former caddie who won a U.S. Open and two U.S. Amateurs, founded it.
Nowadays, there are 14 Evans Scholars houses nationwide, with most located in the Midwest. And a 15th may be on the way, in the state of Washington or Oregon. Universities where there are multiple Evans Scholars but no E.S. house are Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State and Penn State.
As it is, the WGA conducts 15 selection committee meetings each school year, including one each in Oregon and Washington. One of the WGA officials who goes to virtually all of them — and has for the 21-plus years he’s spent with the WGA — is Jeff Harrison, the vice president of education for the WGA/Evans Scholars Foundation. In fact, he conducts each of the meetings.
“They’re still as special as they were the first year,” he said late last week. “Every meeting, something comes out from an applicant or the discussion that sticks out.”
Harrison, a 1986 Evans Scholar alum from Michigan State, was the first former Scholar to hold a prominent position at the WGA. He said typically 80-120 people attend the selection meetings. The number who come to the one in Colorado has increased substantially in the last couple of decades.
“The selection meeting is such an important day that we want to see that more people are experiencing it,” Harrison said.
While the number of finalists for the scholarship in Colorado was down this year, Webster is confident that given all the people who participated in the selection meeting, this year likely will be an anomaly.
“What I was thrilled about (last week) was to see all the different leaders in the room, whether they’re alums or whether they’re with affiliated organizations,” Webster said. “It gave me great confidence that even though we’re down in the number of caddies this year, it’s a bit of a wake-up call and we have the right people in the room to be able to help us build caddie programs and increase the number of potential Evans Scholars.”
According to Bessey, 20 Colorado courses/clubs currently have caddie programs. Most are in the greater Denver metro area, but there are also ones in Basalt (Roaring Fork), Holyoke (Ballyneal), Colorado Springs (the Broadmoor and Flying Horse) and Evergreen (Hiwan).
Harrison said the Evans Scholars program typically has more than 800 Scholars in school at any given time nationwide, and awards more than 200 new scholarships each year. Typically, one of three applicants will receive an Evans Scholarship.
But the WGA and its partners have certainly felt the financial pressure as their tuition bills have increased by more than 10 percent per year, and 80 percent of E.S. program costs go to tuition. The result was that, in 2009, the Evans Scholars had its first operating deficit in 30 years. In 2010, thanks largely to donations increasing more than expected, the operating deficit was “very small,” Harrison said.
In that regard, getting a substantial number of people involved in selection committees is helpful.
“It’s the best P.R. day we can have,” Mate said. “You get to see the fruits of labor. The financial challenges are steeper these days, so we need to put our best foot forward. People’s time is valuable, but once they’re there, the come back (in subsequent years).”
