At one of 13 tables in the Kittleman Room at Howard Community College, attorney Frederic Antenberg settled into his seat with a steaming chicken entree. Joining him were Circuit Court Judge candidates Louis Becker and Richard Bernhardt, deep in conversation with a diehard Redskins fan seated across the table, who came to the campus with his aunt.

They joined about 85 other Columbia Town Center Rotary and community members in HCC’s English, Languages and Business Building on August 9 to hear Terry McAulay, NFL referee and Glenwood resident, talk about his experiences on the field.

“Contrary to popular belief, they don’t just pick us up off the street to ref a game,” McAulay said during his introduction.

The lifelong football fan said he knew at nine years old that he wanted to be a NFL referee and fervently pursued his goal. His football career began in August, 30 years ago, he said, officiating high school football games in the Washington, D.C. metro area, and later college football in the Atlantic Coast Conference and Old Dominion Athletic Conference in Virginia before he was offered a position with the NFL.

“I was one of 10 applicants out of 200 referees they looked at,” he said of being scouted by, and applying for, the NFL.

McAulay has been balancing his career in the NFL with his full-time job as a global data analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense for five years. He explained that while he still loves football, he approaches the sport from a different perspective now.

“I really don’t watch a game just to watch a game anymore. It’s very rare,” he said.

After a 15-minute discussion about his career, McAulay fielded questions from the audience, addressing the new uniforms Reebok designed for NFL referees, his feelings about new Commissioner Roger Goodell, and the World Cup soccer tournament.

“That’s the last thing I’d ever do, be a World Cup referee,” McAulay said, joking. “I mean, we get some stuff right, but they always seem to be wrong.”

Pam Roberts, president of the Rotary, confirmed that the event helped to raise $10,000 for the Columbia Town Center Rotary Scholarship Endowment, which is awarded to students of HCC. The Rotary has raised a total of $25,779.45 for the endowment.

Roberts explained that when the club first began issuing scholarships, they were awarded to any student living in Howard County regardless of where he or she was attending college, but the criteria for the award has been changed, and now the recipient must attend school in Howard County.

“Ultimately we decided to keep it in the county. The purpose of our organization is to benefit Howard County; we just felt it was a good thing to keep in the community,” she said.

After the Rotary became a regular donor to the college, Erin Yun, director of board relations and special projects, became HCC’s liaison to the group.

“We have a very strong relationship. What I’m most impressed about is that this is a non-political, non-religious group – they just want to make a difference in the community,” she said. “I’m very impressed with members of the Rotary; they put in a lot of hours supporting the college.”

After inviting McAulay to speak at a club meeting, the Rotary was so impressed with him that the group decided to have him speak at its annual banquet.

A raffle followed McAulay’s speech. Attendee Bruce Matthews won $300, which he gave back to contribute to the scholarship fund.

Though the planning process was tedious, Roberts said she was very happy with the turnout.

“I thought it was great. I’m very pleased. It was a lot of hard work, and it’s one of those things you kind of sweat over till the end, but it came out really, really well,” she said.

© 2003 Zip Publishing. All Rights Reserved

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Thursday, August 17, 2006 at 8:22 am and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: College, Scholarship, Student, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.