58 items on the silent auction. if you are a golfer, there are some great possibilites (Olympic club); wine-o's will find a ton of choices (Del Doto's cave, Satui's Castle). If you like memorabilia, there's several items with Aggie connections.

As a friend of Jeff Fontanella and long-time wine club member, you won't be disappointed with that item. He'll be pouring wine tomorrow night, too.

played in golf tournament with Jeff one year and he hosted my wife and I for a barrel tasting through mutual friend (teammate/winemaker). Good guy, good wine

Any interesting info shared at the event? Money #'s raised?

It was a great turnout. Nothing new really on info. They didn’t tell us the total raised, but there were some good bidding wars. Lunch with Tim is Wednesday so i think we’ll hear more then. But what really impressed me was all the new faces. People you never see at games or events.

That's great. Thank you for sharing

it was good to see a lot of new faces, especially younger guys. I thought they said at one point that silent brought in $40k. Live was around $15k. And the spontaneous donations added probably close to $15k. Not sure how much net from tickets vs cost of venue, but a successful night from that angle. Getting the message out to a new group of folks was important.

Having it in the city worked well - opened it to different folks. Can’t keep heading the same folks.

It was a really great event last night. In my opinion, it could be twice the size. I feel like what was missing was any sort of support from the school for auction items. Maybe tickets to something at the Mondavi center. It seems like after its first year, there is a lot of opportunity for growth.

Hard not to call it a success.

Re: what was said there, it felt like there was a lot of concise messaging about many things that have been said here or there or hinted at re: where we are funding wise, where the money goes, how much more we need from donors, etc. Plough had sort of a football financing crash course with the breakout of the combos of size and number of donors we hope for, and more detailed descriptions than I’ve ever heard about what program funds and scholarships do and don’t cover.

I think the message that he got out was our NIL pays for summer rent, food and parking - not sports cars! Not sure folks understand what a full scholarship covers and what the financial hardships msny of our kids face to deal with those gaps.

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Just to be clear, our football players get full scholarship as well as NIL that covers summer rent, food, and parking?

before this year, there was no departmental NIL ( I think of it as revenue sharing). That’s the pot of money they are trying to grow; that along with setting up a NIL partnership with an apartment group to help with summer housing.

One message he made: since 2018 (someone who was there correct this if Ive got the wrong year) the average D1 program has lost 200 players to the portal - we’ve lost 18. That says something about culture.

Thats what i recall as well.

Regarding the program information provided, Tim has given this presentation several times so that’s what i meant by the message wasn’t new. But most of the attendees don’t attend the lunches or other events such as the signing party so they likely have never heard the details of what he presented. But its good that he keeps at it to keep the ball rolling. I find his presentations to be inspirational. We’re lucky we have him.

before this year, there was no departmental NIL ( I think of it as revenue sharing). That’s the pot of money they are trying to grow; that slon

Alright who ever out bid me for the Giants expereience!!!!!! Grrrrrrrr lol Great night. Very well done!

Regarding the messaging, the summer piece is HUGE. If there is a way to feed the kids and cover their summer housing alone, that goes a long way towards a successful season. Give them time to work part time jobs during the summer and pocket that money, cover their room and board and we are well ahead of most of the Big Sky in my estimate. Back in the old days when I played, our football boosters actually arranged an ID card of sorts with a small handful of local restaurants that would provide us one meal per week. We were capped at $10 per meal (or a pizza or combo or something specific) so it wasn't abused, and there were plenty of burger, pizza, and burrito joints to spread the economic impact. It was nice, and we didn't use them all the time. That was not an NCAA program and it was back in the 1980s, but in today's NIL world, it seems like there are enough restaurants close to campus where we could provide something similar to our scholarship players (65+/-, maybe a little more with partials) with summer meals (even 10 per week would be amazing) and solve that piece pretty easily. Start it after spring quarter through the start of training camp when the program feeds them. Give the participating restaurants signage in the stadium and PA recognition and you're rolling. Just a thought from the recesses of my mind.

Email says they made over $100k

Just saw the email. That’s tremendous!

After expenses?

email said $100+ K raised. Others there can back me that they raised at least $75-80k from the two auctions and the on the spot donations. There were 2-3 sponsors for the event that must have covered a good portion of the location costs.

How many people do you recognize in this photo? Dr. Mike and i can be found, as well as Dr. Mike’s wife and a partial of my wife. Really fun evening.

I see Bob Biggs (who never ages) and Tony Franks.

Tim Plough

Wait, we aren't doing the fundraiser every Saturday evening?

My wife won this in the wine ring toss. Pretty cool bottle.

Love it!

Really cool bottle, way to go Mrs. Dr. Mike!