Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

8/24/2010 at 2:28pm

Image by DeWaine Duncan

Touchdown Club president David Bazzel presents Lunsford Bridges, president and CEO of club sponsor Metropolitan Bank, with two of the golf-style shirts the club will be selling to members in 2010.

If Little Rock Touchdown Club founder David Bazzel ever placed a want-ad for his Monday speakers in football season, one requirement for at least a third of them might be: Must be controversial.

Mike Leach's photo would surely be the one next to "controversial football coach" in newest dictionaries.

"I look for speakers who are controversial, because our membership demands it," Bazzel said. "I'd describe our lineup this year as a bowl of gumbo. There are a lot of different things in there, a lot of different spices. Controversial coaches, legendary coaches ..."

So, Bazzel and the Little Rock Touchdown Club will kickoff the 2010 slate of speakers with Leach, the former Texas Tech coach who took the Red Raiders to great heights with a wide-open offense and who was booted in weird fashion last December, just before his team was to play in a bowl game.

Leach currently resides in South Florida and has joined the CBS network as a college football analyst.

Jim Leavitt, who after last season also was unceremoniously booted from his position as the only coach South Florida had as a D-I program, is also on the Touchdown Club roster for 2010.

Only the Leach date was officially announced on Tuesday, when Bazzel and Lunsford Bridges, president of Metropolitan Bank, which is the chief sponsor of the club, met with friends and the media in the lobby of the Metropolitan Tower.

Bobby Johnson wouldn't be termed controversial, but his departure this summer from Vanderbilt was big news nonetheless. He'll speak in September at the club, which holds its Monday luncheons at the Embassy Suites Hotel.

Some Arkansans may sense some controversy in the scheduled appearance of Gus Malzahn, now the offensive coordinator at Auburn and who spent one drama-filled season as the coordinator at Arkansas under Houston Nutt, in 2006. Malzahn, the former high school coach at Springdale, Shiloh Christian and Hughes, built a solid reputation as one of the nation's best coordinators in two seasons at Tulsa, then helped Auburn turn around its fortunes last year under first-year head coach Gene Chizik. Malzahn helped recruit Michael Dyer away from the state after last season as well.

Malzahn's visit is set for Auburn's open-date week before the Tigers finish the regular season with Alabama.

Others on the lineup, with dates to be announced shortly: Vince Dooley (Bazzel indicated Dooley would likely appear the Monday following the Arkansas-Georgia game), with introduction by former UA athletic director Frank Broyles; former Dallas Cowboys special teams player extraordinaire Bill Bates, whose son plays at Arkansas Tech; and former Arkansas defensive greats Billy Ray Smith Jr. and Wayne Martin, who also both went on to stellar NFL careers. Also, Ronnie Caveness, another Hog defensive standout who is being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame this year,  will have his day with the club.

Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long will make an appearance as well.

Bazzel said he was holding out on announcing two other speakers until everything was set with them, "but they will take the lineup to another level." He also said he holds off on filling the entire 14-week lineup this early, just in case some dates must be switched on the announced speakers. A couple of dates will go to Arkansas area college coaches.

Membership to the club is $50, and members pay $15 per lunch. Guests pay $25. "It's about $40,000 to $50,000 in costs for all our speakers, for their travel and other costs," Bazzel said, noting that Little Rock's club is on the fringe of "SEC territory" while he emphasized how important it is to grow the membership and collect dues. The club began with 17 founders and 45 attendees to the first luncheon seven years ago. Metropolitan Bank signed on as the main sponsor six years ago.

"Did I know [the club] would become this great and this large? Probably not," Bazzel said. But in recent years luncheons have drawn upward 400 attendees to hear the likes of Phil Fulmer, Tommy Tuberville, Butch Davis, Bill Curry and Alabama sports personality Paul Finebaum.

Since then, Chesapeake Energy and the LIttle Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau also stepped up as a sponsor so the club can defray costs of speakers and the luncheons. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has helped the club hold its annual banquet to honor individual high school and college stars at season's end.

Bazzel said the Little Rock club will also work to help the fledgling Northwest Arkansas Touchdown Club with its start-up plans. The NWA club will hold meetings on Wednesdays, and the club plans to announce its lineup on Thursday, Aug. 26.

Leach built Texas Tech into a 10-win program in 2008, but as last season drew to a close, news reports surfaced of alleged unusual discipline tactics used on injured Tech walk-on Adam James, son of former SMU and NFL player Craig James, now a TV analyst. Leach denied the allegations, did not agree with his school president that he should apologize, and was fired just before a bonus in his contract was to kick in at the end of 2009.

Tagged: Lunsford Bridges, David Bazzel, Little Rock Touchdown Club, Vince Dooley, Mike Leach