Marines rub elbows with celebs

[thedrifter]

Marines rub elbows with celebs
May 18,2006
CHRIS MAZZOLINI
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Sgt. Jack Durgala has never played golf before, and says he’s not very good. When stepping up to the tee, he implores his fellow golfers to seek cover, or at least don a helmet or Kevlar vest.

It doesn’t really matter, anyway. He’s just happy he can walk the course.

Durgala, a 31-year-old Marine, was wounded in Iraq in October. A roadside bomb tore into his body, wounding his legs, his stomach and his head.

Since then, Durgala has been recuperating in the “Wounded Warriors barracks” aboard Camp Lejeune, a place where wounded Marines can live together and support each other during their time of need.

Durgala is one of a number of Marines who got an opportunity Wednesday to play golf with a number of celebrities in town for the beginning of today’s Marine Corps Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament at Paradise Point Golf Course at Lejeune. Play starts today and continues Friday with a pro-am. Celebrities from sports, entertainment and politics compete Saturday and Sunday.

Wednesday, however, was set aside for what organizers call a “military scramble,” Marines team up with celebrities then hit the links. Durgala was paired with former New York Jets linebacker John Ebersole.

“It’s a good thing,” he said. “It feels really good that these guys were able to take some time out of their busy schedules and hang out with us like we’re old friends.”

While Durgala’s golf experience ends at the Putt-Putt course, he says he’s been getting pointers from Ebersole — and some good-natured ribbing.

“I’m getting tips from John,” he said. “Mostly about how bad I golf.”

Ebersole jokingly calls him “uncoachable,” but beneath the jokes is a deep respect in the sacrifice that Marines like Durgala are making for their country.

“It’s my privilege and my honor to play with these guys,” Ebersole said. “I have the utmost respect for them and for what they do for this country. I believe in what they are doing.”

Lee Moore, a spokesman for the Celebrity Players Tour, said the event was a great way to get the celebrities and the Marines together so they can bond.

“They are meeting their sports heroes, and the sports heroes are meeting their heroes,” he said.

The celebrity roster includes mostly athletes such as baseball Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench and Super Bowl-winning quarterback and ESPN analyst Joe Theismann, who will be at Lejeune today only. But there are also performers such as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” actor Alfonso Ribeiro and the Gatlin Brothers. Former Vice President Dan Quayle is also golfing in the tournament, but he is not scheduled to arrive until late today.

This tournament is about more than golf, Moore said. It’s also about spending time with the military personnel off the course and learning about military life. The celebs get chances to go to base firing ranges and visit wounded Marines and sailors in the Wounded Warriors barracks aboard Lejeune.

And they get the living experience as well: The celebrities live with Marines in the base officers’ quarters during the tournament.

“As much interaction as they can get, that’s what they want,” he said. “When not playing golf they are interacting with the service personnel. That’s what they want.”

The event is free and open to the public. Even civilians that have no connection with the base can get aboard and watch the golf. In addition, there’s a number of non-golf events such as sports clinics taught by the celebrities in sports such as skateboarding and bowling.

On Saturday, the event will climax with “Family Night with the Stars,” an event at Lejeune’s W.T.P. Hill Field featuring a chance to mingle with the celebrities. It also includes live music, fireworks and free food. The event is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

It’s an event that people won’t want to miss, said Moore. It’s an opportunity to support the Marines while meeting celebrities. Proceeds from the event go to three military-themed charities, including Disabled Sports USA, Project CARE and the USO.

For more information, log on to www.mccigolf.com.

Contact staff writer Chris Mazzolini at cmazzolini@freedomenc.com or 353-1171, ext. 229.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Golf helps heal war wounds

May 19,2006
CHRIS MAZZOLINI
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Joey Bozik stands out. It's impossible for him not to.

When other golfers in the Marine Corps Celebrity Invitational Pro-Am lean on their clubs, ankles crossed, he sits a few feet away in his green motorized cart. When others tee off, they leisurely stroll over, plug their tee into the ground and swing, maybe toss the club a bit as they watch their ball in flight.

Bozik has to drive his cart up, swing his seat around as his wife, Jayme, places the ball on the tee for him.

When his club makes contact, Bozik, who lost his legs and right arm in Iraq, stands out again.

Because his ball flies just as far and just as straight as everyone else's.

'Why can't I?'

An anti-tank mine did it.

An Army sergeant with the 118th Military Police Company in Iraq, Bozik was riding in a humvee October 2004 when it struck the mine. He was severely wounded, losing his right arm, his left leg below the knee and his right leg above the knee. He shipped through Landstuhl, Germany, like most wounded troops, then arrived at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Since then, it's been surgeries and therapy. Therapy has been physically and mentally strenuous, and the 28-year-old Wilmington resident has only been out of the hospital since April.

But he's persevered, he said, because he takes one day at a time, and he's coming to terms with the radical change in his life.

"You go through that stage where you don't know what you are going to be doing," he said. "It's not the same as it was before. You just have to deal with it."

What's helped him deal with it? His family, of course.

And golf.

"I had the bug really bad," he said. "When my friends would be out partying on Friday night, I was going to bed at 9 because I had a tee time the next morning."

Bozik played golf for 10 years before he went to Iraq, and it was his goal to play as much as possible when he got home. The injury did not derail that plan. It simply postponed it.

"The first thing I wanted to do was get back to golf," he said. "Once you come back from an injury, you want to get back and normalize your life as quick as possible."

One of the things that helped was a donation from a couple in California who develop golf equipment for the disabled. They had a client who owned a motorized cart but no longer used it because he was suffering from Parkinson's disease. They arranged to have the cart donated to Bozik.

The cart, aptly named "Model Tee," allows Bozik to drive up to his ball. Its seat swivels in a complete circle. He can plant his prosthetic feet on the ground and lean against the seat. An adaptive piece on his prosthetic arm wraps around his club handle so he can hit the ball.

Despite all the extra equipment, Bozik said he's out there to do the same thing as every other golfer: make contact, play well and win.

"I'm just as fast as they are, and I can hit it as far as they do," he said. "It's all about ball contact. If an 80-year-old senior can play, then why can't I?"

'Different challenges'

Bozik is on the green at Paradise Point Golf Course, playing in the pro-am round of the Marine Corps Celebrity Invitational at Camp Lejeune. He was invited by Disabled Sports USA, a group that helps those with disabilities regain an active lifestyle through sports.

He's golfing with none other than Joe Theismann, Super Bowl-winning quarterback for the Washington Redskins in the 1980s who had his own brush with disability when linebacker Lawrence Taylor snapped Theismann's leg in a nationally televised game.

Today, Theismann is a popular pro football analyst with ESPN. But the former quarterback knows he's no hero, not like Bozik.

"I'm humbled in his presence," Theismann said. "I have a tremendous amount of respect for these men and women, the things that they do, the things they've seen. It's a real honor to be in their presence.

"(Professional athletes are) not heroes. We're just blessed and lucky to have athletic ability."

Bozik also deflects the praise of being called an inspiration.

"Everyone has different challenges in life," he said. "I've overcome my disabilities and my challenges in my life. I'm not any more important than anyone else."

And Bozik acts like it on the green. He doesn't expect sympathy from his fellow golfers, nor does he ask for help. After he swings, he jerks his arms sideways to spin his chair straight. And when he doesn't like his shot, he scowls and shakes his head with the rest of them.

But that doesn't really matter, and he knows it.

"A bad day on the golf course is a good day anywhere else," he said.

Adaptation

Bozik, Theismann and other golfers are teeing up at Paradise Point's 12th hole, which butts up against the New River. It's a par-3, about 170 yards, and the wind is blowing fast. Hit the ball too far, it's in the trees. Hit it too far right, it's in the river.

Bozik tees off first. Everyone stops to watch. There's a number of cameras. The Golf Channel is there to film a documentary.

But Bozik is used to the spotlight.

Since his injury, he's been on all the news programs, done multiple interviews. His wife has a blog, www.joeysrecovery.com, that charted his recovery progress and collects comments like "I am so proud of the Boziks, you all just make me want to be a better person."

Bozik does not seem bothered by the attention - at least not based on his performance.

Because Bozik ripped a shot straight out into the blue sky. It hit and rolled onto the green, only few feet from the hole.

"I think you adapt to the environment around you," he said of playing golf with help from prosthetics, but applicable to his entire frame of mind. "If I didn't have the prosthetics, I would find some other way."

[thedrifter]

Celebrity Golf Tournament participants are...

Baseball Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Rollie fingers, Mike Schmidt and George Brett; former football greats Dan Marino and John Elway; hockey greats Mario Lemieux and Brett Hull; basketball greats Michael Jordan and Jason Kidd; Olympic Champion Dan Jansen and even former Vice President of the United States all compete on the celebrated Celebrity Player Tour (CPT).

The CPT provides one of the best values in golf and corporate entertainment while becoming a significant financial engine for local economics and charities. In just its ninth year, the CPT has raised millions of dollars for local charities.

And now, for the third year, the CPT will visit Camp Lejeune and Jacksonville , North Carolina - one of only twelve tour stops in 2006, nationally and internationally.

You can not only watch these stars, your can play with them in the most accessible format you and your friends ever imagined… see below to find your favorite celeb!

Baseball

Johnny Bench - MLB Hall of Fame Catcher

Vince Coleman - MLB All-Star Outfielder

Doug Flynn - MLB Second Baseman

Gregg Olson - MLB All-Star Pitcher

Shane Rawley - MLB All-Star Pitcher

Ken Reitz - MLB All-Star Third Baseman

Scott Sanderson - MLB All-Star Pitcher

Ralph Terry - MLB All-Star Pitcher, 1962 World Series MVP

Gorman Thomas - MLB All-Star Outfielder

Willie Wilson - MLB All-Star Outfielder

Basketball

Charlie Criss - NBA Guard

Jack Marin - NBA All-Star Forward

Truck Robinson - NBA All-Star Forward

Bowling

Marshall Holman - PBA Hall of Fame Bowler

Pete Weber - PBA Hall of Fame Bowler

Walter Ray Williams Jr. - PBA Hall of Fame Bowler

Entertainment

John Ashton - Actor

Tom Dreesen - Comedian

The Gatlin Brothers - Grammy Award-Winning Musicians

Alfonso Ribeiro - Actor

Football

Bobby Anderson - NFL Running Back

Donny Anderson - NFL Pro Bowl Running Back

Dick Anderson - NFL Pro Bowl Defensive Back

John Ebersole - NFL Linebacker

Jay Feely - NFL Kicker

Jim Hart - NFL Pro Bowl Quarterback

Efren Herrera - NFL Pro Bowl Kicker

Skip Holtz - East Carolina University Football Head Coach

Rickey Jackson - NFL Pro Bowl Linebacker

Seth Joyner - NFL Pro Bowl Linebacker

Paul Krause - Pro Football Hall of Fame Defensive Back

Shane Matthews - NFL Quarterback

Jim McMahon - NFL Pro Bowl Quarterback

Mike Siani - NFL Wide Receiver

Howard Stevens - NFL Running Back

Joe Thiesmann - NFL Pro Bowl Quarterback

Jim Thorton - NFL Tight End

Hockey

Don Edwards - NHL All-Star Goalie

Stan Mikita - NHL Hall of Fame Center

Greg Stefan - NHL All-Star Goalie

Darren Veitch - NHL Defenseman

Ed Westfall - NHL All-Star Right Wing

Skate/Snowboard
Bert LaMar - World Champion Skate/Snowboarder

Tennis

Cliff Richey - Tennis Champion and Davis Cup MVP

Sherwood Stewart - Wimbledon Champion

Track and Field

Al Joyner - Olympic Gold Medalist

Special Guest

Dan Quayle - 44th Vice President of the United States

Buddy Shelton - Golf Trick Shot Artist

[thedrifter]

Former veep Quayle back at base tourney
May 20,2006
CHRIS MAZZOLINI
DAILY NEWS STAFF

It’s easy to spot Dan Quayle on the greens at Camp Lejeune’ s Paradise Point Golf Course. He’s the guy strolling along while others drive carts, puffing on a cigar while squinting down range at the flag.

Nearly 14 years have passed since Quayle, of Indiana, served as vice president under then President George H.W. Bush. But the boyish face is still recognizable and he is arguably the biggest celebrity to attend this weekend’s Marine Corps Celebrity Invitational golf tournament.

Quayle is a veteran of the inaugural tournament, appearing at Lejeune in 2004. He missed last year — and you can hear the disappointment in his voice — because of an irreconcilable scheduling conflict.

On Friday morning, despite flying in from London during the wee hours of the night, Quayle was smiling and chipper, glad to be on the Gold Course and with the Corps.

“I’m on (London) time, so it’s not too bad,” he said. “I’m here to show my support to the military. Everything in this world is so partisan now, but there’s no divide about supporting the troops.”

Camp Lejeune is looking good, said Quayle, who will compete today in the MCCI against a slew of other celebrities — most from the worlds of professional baseball and football.

“I think the base is in really good shape and spirits are high,” he said. “I’m here for the troops and the families that we have to take care of and support.”

Quayle plans to visit Lejeune’s Wounded Warriors barracks during his stay in the area. He expects that visit to be “very emotional,” reminiscent of the hospital visits he used to make as a politician and lauded the base for the measure.

Despite hailing from a wealthy newspaper family, and his long career on politics, Quayle is relatively unassuming. He doesn’t have a security detail or anything like that. He does have a caddie/assistant who drives the cart for him while on the course.

That’s fine, because Quayle prefers to walk.

“I enjoy walking, particularly a course like this,” he said. “It’s a kind of exercise. And as long as I don’t hold up play, I prefer to walk.”

Quayle left the public spotlight in 2000, when he ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination. In his business life, Quayle is the chairman of Cerberus Global Investments, a multi-billion-dollar global investment company.

But based on his smile when asked about it, Quayle evidently misses political life.

“I had a wonderful 16 years and I stay in touch as much as I can,” he said. “Not as much as when I first got out. I still stay in touch, but you still miss it.

“But there is a life after politics,” he added.

Even so, he was still willing to wax philosophic on the state of the world and the political landscape. He believes Republicans have a reason to be concerned with the upcoming midterm elections — though not as much as Democratic pollsters and the “national media” would have people believe.

“The Republicans have a real tall mountain to climb,” he said. “It will be a challenge. It’s time to get back to the agenda: national security, family values and fiscal responsibility.”

Controversy about the legitimacy of the Iraq war is a moot point, Quayle said.

“We can argue all day based on what was the right thing to do,” he said. “The fact of the matter is we are there now. It’s an opportunity to establish liberty and freedom in a part of the world that hasn’t experienced it before. We’ve got to see it through and hope for the very best.”

Contact staff writer Chris Mazzolini at cmazzolini@freedomenc.com or 353-1171, ext. 229.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Full circle for Theismann
May 19,2006
CHRIS MILLER
DAILY NEWS STAFF

It’s funny how things have worked out for Joe Theismann. The stage in which one career ended will now be the same environment for his latest one.

The former Washington Redskins quarterback, whose playing career ended with a horrific broken right leg on a Monday Night Football game in 1985, now looks forward to being apart of MNF. This time, however, in his current occupation as a National Football League broadcaster.

Theismann had been an analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Football since 1988. This season he will be one of the network’s game analysts for Monday Night Football as it moves to ESPN after 35 years on ABC.

“Next week Tony Kornheiser, Mike Tirico and I, the three of us that are doing Monday Night Football, we are doing our first practice game next Tuesday,” Theismann said prior to teeing off late Thursday morning in a pro-am session of the third annual Marine Corps Celebrity Invitational golf tournament aboard Camp Lejeune. “We’ll find out just how this thing is going to work and what it’s going to look like.

“I’m just as excited as anybody; it’s very unique and will be a different experience and it’s going to be fun.”

As if the job of a NFL broadcaster wasn’t time consuming enough, Theismann will essentially be active all day on Mondays on the air. With MNF on ESPN the cable network will begin its broadcast before many viewers return home from the office.

“One thing that we are going to do at ESPN that’s very unique and that (non cable) networks can’t do is that we can make it a full day’s experience,” Theismann explained. “You really can’t call it Monday Night, it’s going to be Monday Football on ESPN.

“You’re going to have an entire day of coverage from the city or our broadcast.”

At first glance, Theismann’s move from Sunday to Monday might make the 1983 NFL Most Valuable Player feel a little uncomfortable. It is, of course, the setting where he played his final game.

With the Redskins battling the New York Giants on a Monday night in November of ’85, Theismann received a pitch from running back John Riggins on a flea flicker play. After getting the ball back, the quarterback was sacked by Giants All-Pro linebacker Lawrence Taylor, with the play resulting in Theismann fracturing his tibia and fibula.

“That injury is part of my life, it’s the injury that ended my career,” said Theismann. “It’s like anything else, it’s like when somebody says ‘Joe,’ that’s my name.”

Regardless of his career highlights such as being a Super Bowl winning quarterback in the 1982-83 season, Theismann is at ease with the fact that injury is the biggest thing many fans associate him with.

“I won a world championship and I was an MVP of the league, but the fact that I broke my leg in a very visible way is the one thing people remember,” said Theismann. “It’s the way I’m identified.”

Though the injury ended his playing career, it has not stopped Theismann from taking part in golf and the Celebrity Players Tour. He has been part of the tour since its inception nearly 20 years ago.

“I have been playing pretty well, if I could putt I could play better,” Theismann said. “It’s always the little stuff that gets you.

“I’m driving alright and I have made a few changes in my swing and this is my first chance I get to come out and find out if it works.”

However, Thursday was the lone day Theismann was to take part in all of the MCCI festivities. He hoped to complete a busy schedule in the short visit, including playing golf with some of the Wounded Warriors and participating in Warrior Night.

“The reason I wanted to come down was that I wanted to say thank you to all of the men and women that came back from overseas that really put themselves in harms way to protect us,” Theismann said. “I’ve always had affinity and affection toward the military; I grew up in a household where it was ‘yes sir, no sir’ and that’s one thing I’ve always appreciated as I got older is the respect that people have for one another.”

The two-time Pro Bowl signal caller also rebuffed what some people thought of as a hero.

“People look at football players, baseball players and basketball players and say ‘man those guys are heroes’ and that’s not true,” Theismann said, noting he was honored and humbled to associated with members of the Armed Forces. “The heroes are our parents and those men and women that go and fight for our freedom.

“We are just blessed (and) lucky with athletic ability that’s all.”

E-mail: cmiller@freedomenc.com

Phone: 353-1171, ext. 225

Blog: cmiller.enctoday.com

Ellie