I’ve written a lot about businesses that help build Tucson. I want to tell you a about an organization and group of Tucson leaders who are directly impacting Tucson’s leaders of tomorrow.
Steve Pearl, John Orcutt and other members at the Tucson Country Club (TCC) are working with today’s youth, helping them gain access to education and opportunities they might not otherwise realize. TCC created a Youth Caddie Program linked with the Chick Evans Scholarship Program.
Participants are local high school students from San Miguel High School, Desert Christian High School and the First Tee Program.
They learn how to caddie and earn some money. But this Youth Caddie Program is about much more than a job. Student caddies get part of their tuition at San Miguel paid for through TCC via fees paid by members. They can qualify for an Evans Scholarship. Of greatest importance, though, are the introductions to people and resources that facilitate their career journey.
Pearl, who is president at TCC and a Western Golf Association board member, Orcutt, who is treasurer at TCC, and Nancy Leslie and John Morgan, two additional Western Golf Association board members at TCC, led the effort in early 2021 for TCC to launch the Caddie Program. Already they have 25 students participating, each hoping to qualify for an Evans Scholarship.
The Evans Scholarship Program was founded in 1930. Chick Evans, who started as a caddie at 8 years old, grew into the nation’s top amateur golfer, winning the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur in 1916. Evans deposited any earnings he was entitled to from winning tournaments into an escrow fund.
Evans knew that golf provided him many opportunities. He wanted to provide college educations and opportunities to hardworking caddies with limited financial means, so he persuaded the Western Golf Association to oversee his escrow fund.
Beyond a scholarship, ask any successful person what are two of the most important contributors to success and they will tell you relationships and opportunities. That is what the caddies get access to — relationships, opportunities, and mentoring as they plan for their future.
Consider the story of a 17-year-old girl who is in the TCC program and aspires to become an FBI agent.
She joined this year while she was on the waiting list for the FBI’s summer intern program. Upon learning this, within three hours, members at Tucson Country Club connected her with a retired female FBI agent. The retired agent worked with the girl, laying out a plan for an internship and a possible career.
She is just one example of the caddie participants who could be Tucson’s leaders of tomorrow. Many of tomorrow’s leaders are just a few relationships and opportunities away.
