Teeing Off in the Fight for Sight

It’s as much a part of the Cavaliers calendar as Training Camp tipping off in October or – recently – the Wine and Gold making a run at the Ring in spring.

For the past 23 years, the Marymount-Cavaliers Youth Fund Golf Classic has been one of the cornerstones of the organization’s work in the community, and this amazing annual event teed off once again on July 28, at the scenic Westfield Group Country Club.

The weather was perfect and the Westfield links, immaculate, as the groups took the course on Monday morning. As always, the celebrities ranged in size – from big Jim Chones to Little John Rinaldi – and sport – from Greg Pruitt to Otto Orf. But one thing all of the participants had in common was their support of the Cavaliers Youth Fund, a fund of the McCormick Foundation – which has granted millions of dollars to those in the community who need it most.

Overall, the celebrities were abundant. Among the basketball bigs in attendance, there was John Bagley, Phil Hubbard, Campy Russell, Elmore Smith, Mike Mitchell, John Lambert, Brad Sellers, Bingo Smith, Johnny Davis, Dwight Davis, Craig Ehlo, Luke Witte, Randy Smith, Dick Snyder, Sedrick Toney and Foots Walker. From the gridiron, Cleo Miller, Doug Dieken, Ernie Kellerman, Robert Jackson, Judson Flint and Ricky Feacher were on hand. Even the soccer world was represented by Kai Haaskivi, Otto Orf and Zoran Karic.

The event’s goal was to raise $275,000 – with the McCormick Group matching fifty cents on the dollar – to assist non-profit organizations providing education, recreation, employment and life skills programs for at-risk youth as well as individuals with specific health-related diseases.

Since 1993, more than $19 million has been granted through the Cavaliers Youth Fund to these worthwhile charities.

Along with the money raised and donated on the greens and fairways, there were both live and silent auctions, with incredible prizes going to the boldest bidders. The live auction featured – among other things – a road trip on the Cavaliers team plane, a Holiday party with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and a suite for a Cavaliers and Monsters game.

Items up for grabs in the silent auction included LeBron James’ Nikes, Archie Griffin’s football helmet and Mohammed Ali’s boxing gloves – all autographed. For music lovers, there were guitars signed by the likes of Les Paul and George Strait and drumhead signed by Matchbox Twenty.

The list of luminaries also included both the current and former owners of the Cavaliers. Dan Gilbert took the podium and delivered a Cavaliers State of the Union speech that flowed from funny to pragmatic and back – citing the Wine and Gold’s “laser-focused” goal of bringing a Championship to Cleveland and openly fielding questions from the audience.

Gordon Gund took the podium to speak about the main beneficiary of the Golf Classic – the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

The FFB is a national eye research organization that has funded thousands of research studies at hundreds of prominent institutions and has funded cutting-edge research in areas like genetics, gene therapy, and retinal cell transplantation. Since its inception in 1971, the FFB has raised over $225 million and consistently invests over 71 percent of its revenues into research and related programs.

Mr. Gund, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa and lost his sight nearly four decades ago, thanked the participants and volunteers and shared a story – featured this past April on “Good Morning America” – of a recent breakthrough called gene therapy treatment, which restored partial vision to three young people who were blind from birth.

Not one to overstate things, Gund called the process “the greatest achievement FFB has ever been involved with.”

On another beautiful day at Westfield Country Club, those words carried a tremendous weight – coming from a man who might have lost his sight, but has never lost his vision.

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