Fighting Kids Cancer with “Charlotte’s Play Yellow and Children’s Miracle Network Celebrity Invitational”

Julius Winfield Erving II (born February 22, 1950), commonly known by the nickname Dr. J, is an American former professional basketball player. Erving helped legitimize the American Basketball Association (ABA), and he was the best-known player in that league when it merged into the National Basketball Association (NBA) after the 1975–1976 season.

Erving won three championships, four Most Valuable Player awards, and three scoring titles with the ABA’s Virginia Squires and New York Nets (now the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets) and the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. During his 16 seasons as a player, none of his teams ever missed the postseason. He is the eighth-highest scorer in ABA/NBA history with 30,026 points (NBA and ABA combined). He was well known for slam dunking from the free-throw line in Slam Dunk Contests and was the only player voted Most Valuable Player in both the ABA and the NBA. The basketball slang of being posterized was first coined to describe his moves. In 1993, Erving was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1994, Erving was named by Sports Illustrated as one of the 40 most important athletes of all time. In 1996, Erving was honored as one of the league’s greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 50th Anniversary Team. In 2004, he was inducted into the Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Erving was again honored as one of the league’s greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.

Many consider him one of the most talented players in the history of the NBA.

Clyde Austin Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player and the commissioner of the Big3 3-on-3 basketball league. Nicknamed “Clyde the Glide”, he played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), spending a majority of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers before finishing with the Houston Rockets. He was a ten-time NBA All-Star and named to the NBA’s 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Drexler won an NBA championship with Houston in 1995, and earned a gold medal on the 1992 United States Olympic team known as “The Dream Team”. He was inducted twice into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2004 for his individual career and in 2010 as a member of the “Dream Team”. Drexler is widely considered one of the greatest basketball players and greatest shooting guards of all time

Joseph Robert Theismann (born September 9, 1949) is an American former professional football player, sports commentator, corporate speaker and restaurateur. He rose to fame playing quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) and Canadian Football League (CFL). Theismann spent 12 seasons with the Washington Redskins, where he was a two-time Pro Bowler and helped the team to consecutive Super Bowl appearances, winning Super Bowl XVII over the Miami Dolphins and losing Super Bowl XVIII. He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.

Billy Wagner is a professional baseball pitcher who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball. The Marion, VA native pitched for the Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, and Atlanta Braves. Wagner is one of only six major league relief pitchers to accumulate at least 400 career saves.

Charlie Rymer joined the Nike Tour in 1994. He won the 1994 Nike South Carolina Classic and then recorded a runner-up finish the following week at the Nike Central Georgia Open. He earned his PGA Tour card for 1995 through qualifying school. He recorded his career best finish on the PGA Tour in 1995 at the Shell Houston Open, third place, and his career best money list finish at 103rd. In 1996, he finished 145th on the money list, good enough for partial status on Tour the following year. He split time between the PGA Tour and the Nike Tour in 1997. He played on the Nike Tour in 1998, his last year on Tour.
Rymer started working as a commentator for ESPN in 1998. He began working for the Golf Channel in 2009.

In December 2018, Rymer entered into a multimedia partnership with Golf Tourism Solutions, a destination marketing agency managing PlayGolfMyrtleBeach.com, to become the voice of the Myrtle Beach golf scene.

Michael Dwayne Vick (born June 26, 1980) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons. Regarded as having transformed the quarterback position with his rushing abilities, he is the NFL leader in quarterback rushing yards and was the league’s first quarterback to rush for 1,000 yards in a season. Vick played college football at Virginia Tech, where he received first-team All-American honors, and was selected first overall by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2001 NFL Draft. During his six years with the Falcons, he was named to three Pro Bowls while leading the team on two playoff runs, one division title, and an NFC Championship Game appearance.

After serving his sentence, Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles for the 2009 season. As a member of the Eagles for five years, he enjoyed his greatest statistical season in 2010, earning him Comeback Player of the Year and a fourth Pro Bowl selection. In his final two seasons, Vick played one year each for the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers, primarily as a backup. He officially retired in 2017 after spending the entirety of the 2016 season as a free agent.

You won’t find many better coaches in the country than the one that resides in Blacksburg and spearheads the operation of Virginia Tech men’s basketball than the ol’ ball coach of the Hokies in Mike Young.

From his uncanny ability to connect with players, fans and so many types of people, to his prowess of having one of the ‘great minds’ in college basketball, Young has been able to take Tech to great heights and doesn’t plan on halting that momentum any time soon as he enters his fifth season in Blacksburg. Young and wife Margaret have a daughter, Cooper, a student at the University of the South, and a son, Davis, who is attending Blacksburg High School.

Pro Golf Long Driver Jacob Golliday a.k.a. Jesus of Golf has found the edge with cannabis, rejuvenating his career after incorporating the plant into his routine. Jacob Golliday played college baseball before making the transition to long drive golf and started to use cannabis to help manage an injury.

Today, he is an outspoken advocate pushing the cannabis golf movement forward. Outside of training all year for pro long drive tournaments, he’s spreading education about the profound effects CBD/Cannabis can play for recovery, relief and training.

William Roger Clemens (born August 4, 1962), nicknamed “Rocket”, is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily with the Boston Red Sox. He was one of the most dominant pitchers in major league history, tallying 354 wins, a 3.12 earned run average (ERA), and 4,672 strikeouts, the third-most all time. An 11-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion, Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards during his career, more than any other pitcher in history. Clemens was known for his fierce competitive nature and hard-throwing pitching style, which he used to intimidate batters.

Clemens debuted in MLB in 1984 with the Red Sox, whose pitching staff he anchored for 12 years. In 1986, he won the American League (AL) Cy Young Award, the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award, and the All-Star Game MVP Award, and he struck out an MLB-record 20 batters in a single game. After the 1996 season, in which he achieved his second 20-strikeout performance, Clemens left Boston via free agency and joined the Toronto Blue Jays. In each of his two seasons with Toronto, Clemens won a Cy Young Award, as well as the pitching triple crown by leading the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts. Prior to the 1999 season, Clemens was traded to the Yankees where he won his two World Series titles. In 2001, Clemens became the first pitcher in major league history to start a season with a win–loss record of 20–1. In 2003, he reached his 300th win and 4,000th strikeout in the same game. Clemens left for the Houston Astros in 2004, where he spent three seasons and won his seventh Cy Young Award. He rejoined the Yankees in 2007 for one last season before retiring. He is the only pitcher in Major League history to record over 350 wins and strike out over 4,500 batters.

Brent Pry was officially named Virginia Tech head coach on November 30, 2021. He joined the Hokies after serving the past eight seasons as defensive coordinator/linebackers coach at Penn State. Pry returned to Blacksburg after working as a defensive graduate assistant for the Hokies from 1995-97 under head coach Frank Beamer and defensive coordinator Bud Foster. A 30-year coaching veteran, Pry has coached teams that have qualified for 15 bowl appearances and have finished in the FBS top 25 in total defense eight times. Pry and his wife, Amy, are the parents of a son, Colby and two daughters: Madeline and Catherine.

Shep Rose is one of the original cast members of Bravo’s hit reality-TV series Southern Charm, which follows the lives of young, affluent Charlestonians, and in 2018 he got his own spinoff dating show called RelationShep. He also has a line of coastal wear called Shep Gear.

Troy Daniels is an American professional basketball player who last played for Olimpia Milano of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A and the EuroLeague. Daniels attended William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Virginia.

Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, Andrews played college golf at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and won the North and South Women’s Amateur at Pinehurst in 1988. Andrews’ rookie season on the LPGA Tour was 1990; she won six titles between 1993 and 1998, including a major championship, the 1994 Nabisco Dinah Shore, won with a birdie on the final hole. Her best finish on the money list was third in 1998, and she also made the top ten in 1993 (9th) and 1994 (5th). Andrews represented the United States in the Solheim Cup in 1994 and 1998, and was the captain of the Junior Solheim Cup team in 2007.  After her retirement from LPGA Tour, Andrews became a golf instructor at Pine Needles Resort near Pinehurst, North Carolina and is co-owner of Andrews and James Real Estate. Andrews has two children; son Connor and daughter Sarah with husband James Tepatti.  In 2005, Andrews was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. In 2017, she became the first woman inducted into the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame. Andrews was inducted to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.