Luginbill, Nutt to speak at QB club

Published 9:26 pm Saturday, August 6, 2016

Former Ole Miss head football coach Houston Nutt and ESPN recruiting analyst Tom Luginbill highlight the Selma Quarterback Club’s 2016 lineup.

The club, which was organized in 1941, is the second oldest quarterback club in Alabama and manages to bring in highly regarded speakers each year.

“I have always said I think the quarterback club is the best deal in the town, when you take eight meetings, you are going to have a $20-$25 meal almost every meeting and then you have a speaker that is coming,” said W. Forrest Hatfield, who serves on the quarterback club’s program committee. “I think it’s really a bargain for $175.”

Email newsletter signup

The club will kick off its season at Julius Talton’s River House on Plantation Drive on Aug. 29 with guest speakers Kirk McNair, the owner and editor of Bama Magazine, and Mark Murphy, the editor of the Inside the Auburn Tigers. Murphy served as sports editor of the Selma Times-Journal in the 1970s. All other meetings will be held at the Selma Convention Center.

On Sept. 12, former Troy football coach Larry Blakeney will be the guest speaker. Blakeney retired in 2014 after serving as Troy’s football coach for 24 years.

On Sept. 19, Nutt will speak at the club. He spent 14 years as a SEC head coach at Ole Miss and Arkansas, but now works as a college football analyst for CBS Sports.He’s been named SEC Coach of the Year three times.

On Oct. 10, former University of Alabama quarterback Andrew Zow will speak. Zow led Alabama to a SEC Championship in 1999 and is currently the head football coach at Calera High School.

Two weeks later, on Oct. 24, the club will hold a special family night. Mike Lutzenkirchen, the executive director of the Lutzie 43 Foundation, will serve as the speaker.  The Lutzie 43 Foundation was founded in the memory of Mike’s son and former Auburn University football player Philip Lutzenkirchen.

Guest tickets are generally $35 each and are payable at the club’s registration table, or earlier. However, advance tickets on family night will be $25 for adults and $15 for students. Guest tickets bought at the door on family night will be $35 for adults and $15 for students.

Auburn University softball coach Clint Myers will speak Nov. 7.  He’s taken Auburn’s softball team to the Women’s College World Series two times and in 2016, the Tigers finished as the national runner-up.

On Nov. 21, Mike “Captain Crunch” Kolen, a two-time SEC linebacker at Auburn, will speak on scholarship and father/son-daughter night. He was a starting linebacker on the 1972 Miami Dolphins team that finished the year 17-0, which is still the only undefeated season in NFL history.

The final meeting of the year will be held on Dec. 12 when Luginbill speaks.

He serves as a ESPN analyst and national recruiting director.

The club will also hold its big ticket drawing that evening.

The quarterback club gives out $20,000 worth of scholarships to area students.

“Any money that we don’t spend for speakers or food, we put into our scholarship fund and that along with the efforts and various fund drives we do, we’ve been able to increase our scholarship [money],” Hatfield said.

Quarterback club meetings begin at 6 p.m. Dinner begins at 6:30 p.m., followed by a program and speaker.

For more information on becoming a member, contact Hatfield at wfh63@bellsouth.net.