Blue Leadership Ball Set For Nov. 18

Sept. 8, 2005

New Haven, CT - The Yale Athletic Department has announced the 2005 recipients of the George H.W. Bush Lifetime of Leadership Award. The class of 2005 Bush Award winners include William S. Beinecke '36, Roland W. Betts '68, Edgar M. Cullman '40, Kristaps J. Keggi, '55, '59 MD, and Susan D. Wellington '81. The honorees will be recognized at the gala Blue Leadership Ball to be held at the William K. Lanman Center inside Payne Whitney Gymnasium on November 18, the night before the 122nd gridiron edition of Yale and Harvard. This is the third biennial Blue Leadership Ball.

Mr. Beinecke was a Yale football player, and is the former chairman of the board for The Sperry & Hutchinson Company. He has been an ardent advocate for business support of charitable and educational institutions, and he led his own company to set the pace for corporate charitable giving in this country. After graduating from Yale in 1968, Betts, a former Bulldog hockey player, spent nearly a decade teaching and administrating in the New York City Public School System. Mr. Betts is currently the senior fellow of the Yale Corporation and the chairman of Chelsea Piers L.P. He is also a Director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is charged with rebuilding Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site. Cullman, a track & field athlete at Yale, is the former chairman of General Cigar and a managing partner of Culbro Corporation. Mr. Cullman is responsible for the Louise B. and Edgar M. Cullman Foundation, which supports wildlife preservation, healthcare, and education. Keggi was a Yale fencer who has become one of the world's most renowned orthopedic surgeons. Dr. Keggi has been the Director of the Orthopaedic Center for Joint Reconstruction at Waterbury Hospital in Waterbury, Conn., since 1992 and created a program that trains Latvian doctors who go back to Europe to practice medicine. The Keggi Orthopedic Foundation has helped wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Wellington, a former All-American swimmer for Yale, was president of U.S. Beverage, the Quaker Oats Company division of Pepsi, from 1998 to 2002. A tireless supporter of girls' and women's athletics, she serves on the Board of Trustees of the Women's Sport Foundation. Ms. Wellington is also a founding member of Yale's WISER fund, which aims to enhance opportunity for Yale's female athletes.

"Yale's proud legacy of leadership shines through with this class of honorees," said Yale's Director of Athletics Tom Beckett.

The athletic department recognizes Yale University alumni athletes who in their lives after Yale have successfully satisfied the leadership needs of their professions and their countries. A broadly representative alumni honors committee selected five honorees who exemplify Yale's rich athletic heritage as an important component of the undergraduate educational experience.

"The development of a competitive temperament to ignite the trained intellect may explain many of the contributions this university has made to our planet's insatiable appetite for global leadership," said Jack Embersits '58, the chairman of the leadership honors selection committee and the captain of the 1957 Yale football team. "These selected recipients echo the successful and selflessly committed lifetime of leadership which George H.W. Bush -- the 41st President of the United States -- embodied."

"This year's group of honorees epitomizes leadership in business, medicine, scholarship, community service and in civic contribution. I am proud to be part of the celebration honoring these astonishingly accomplished Yale alumni," said Meghan McMahon'87, the chair of the Blue Leadership Ball and a former Yale tennis player and head coach of the Bulldogs.

Tickets for the Nov. 18 event are $150, though Yale graduates from the classes of 2000-2005 are $125. In addition, the purchaser will receive two general admission tickets for the Yale/Harvard Football Game with each dinner ticket. Call (203) 432-1434 to order tickets or get more information at www.yalebulldogs.com.

report by Steve Conn, Assistant AD/Sports Publicity Director