Campbell Trophy Summit Resumes After Two Year Asbence For Covid

April 5, 2022 by Staff

IRVING, Texas (April 5, 2022) – After a two-year hiatus because of COVID-19, The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced today the Campbell Trophy® Summit will return Aug. 4-6 for its fourth edition. The event is sponsored by Intuit, the global technology platform that makes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp, and is being held at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Click here for a video of the 2019 event.

Organized as a tribute to the late Bill Campbell, the award’s namesake and the former CEO and Chairman of Intuit, the event serves as a vehicle for the many leaders impacted by Campbell to pass on his insights about success, leadership and personal growth. The 2022 event will again provide all past Campbell Trophy® nominees a unique chance to interact and learn from many of the nation’s top entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley CEOs. The event will also include a career expo with more than a dozen companies on site recruiting the attendees. Try your luck on the best au online casino.

“Bill Campbell was a one-of-a-kind leader and coach,” said Sasan Goodarzi, Intuit's chief executive officer. “He had an incredible impact on so many of us, inspiring us to be the best version of ourselves. Intuit is honored to support this event that celebrates Bill’s legacy.”

“We have received amazing feedback from the first three Summits with most participants blocking off the dates as a must-attend event,” said NFF Chairman Archie Manning. “It has been a thrill to watch the life-long relationships being forged, and the event taking shape as its own vibrant community with academic achievement, community leadership and college football at its core. We are extremely excited about its return and grateful to Intuit for making it happen.”

Campbell, who played and coached football at Columbia before a switch to the business world, became one of the most influential individuals in Silicon Valley as the leader of Intuit and as a board member of Apple and Google. He developed a unique reputation, earning the moniker as the “Coach of Silcom Valley” for using the lessons of the gridiron as he mentored Steve Jobs of Apple, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Sundar Pichai and Eric Schmidt of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, John Doerr of Kleiner-Perkins, Dick Costolo of Twitter, Diane Greene of VMWare, Scott Cook and Brad Smith of Intuit, and countless others. His contributions have been captured in a book titled "The Trillion Dollar Coach."

“Bill was absolutely passionate about football, and he believed deeply in what one learned from playing the game,” said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. “He never, never took his foot off the accelerator in talking about the benefits of the game. So, we are really thankful for Intuit’s leadership and support of the Summit as a crucible for perpetuating Bill’s legacy of mentoring.”

Past events have attracted attendees from Canada, England, Finland, Japan, Tanzania, 44 states, and the District of Columbia, representing more than 140 colleges and universities from all divisions of play. Their career backgrounds range from doctors, engineers, lawyers, physicists, and business and civic leaders. The 2019 event brought together 270 participants, and organizers anticipate more than 400 people this year. MWF Advisors CEO Mark Flynn, a former linebacker at Saint John’s (MN) and a private equity investor who was a volunteer coach for an eighth-grade boys-and-girls’ flag-football team with Campbell, has played the lead role in organizing the event since its inception in 2017.

“Bill inspired a number of us, and all he ever asked was that we passed on, from one generation to the next, his values,” said Flynn. “He had us commit to mentoring this next generation. We decided to gather really bright, talented people who have been part of this Campbell Trophy®, saying let’s gather for three days to develop tomorrow’s leaders. It was unbelievable how people would make time and change their schedule to be part of Bill’s legacy… We are here to create a living legacy to Bill Campbell, and all of the scholar-athletes are in the Campbell Trophy® fraternity for life.”

A three-day event, the 2022 Summit will include leadership workshops, a career expo, team building activities, a flag football game dubbed the “Campbell Championship Series,” and several other activities designed to build relationships. The panels will cover a wide range of topics designed to foster leadership, personal growth and the career development of the attendees. All accommodations and meals are provided at no charge for the attendees, and first-time attendees who need assistance receive a $400 travel stipend.

The captain of Columbia’s 1961 Ivy League championship team, Bill Campbell found his true calling after an unlikely career change at age 39 from football coach to advertising executive. His ability to recruit, develop and manage talented executives – all lessons learned on the gridiron – proved to be a critical component of his ability to inspire his business teams to the highest levels of success.

Campbell joined the NFF Board in 1978 while he was still a coach at Columbia, and he continued to serve with distinction until his passing in 2016. In 2004, the NFF recognized Campbell’s contributions and accomplishments by presenting him with the NFF Gold Medal, the organization’s highest honor. In 2009, the NFF renamed college football’s premier scholar-athlete award as The William V. Campbell Trophy® in his honor.

Presented for the 32nd time in 2021, the trophy identifies one individual as the absolute best in the nation for his combined academic success, football performance and exemplary community leadership, and it has become one of college football’s most sought after and competitive awards. Made of 25-pounds of bronze and 24-inches in height, the trophy is currently displayed at its official home inside the New York Athletic Club. The trophy is accompanied by a $25,000 postgraduate scholarship.

The centerpiece to the NFF National Scholar-Athlete Awards Presented by Fidelity Investments, the Campbell Trophy® was first presented in 1990 and adds to the prestige of the program, which was launched in 1959 as the first initiative in history to award postgraduate scholarships based on a player’s combined academic, athletic and community accomplishments. Using the recipients of the NFF National Scholar-Athlete Awards as the pool of finalists, the NFF selects one member of the class as the winner of the Campbell Trophy®. The program has awarded $12.1 million to 891 top athletes since its inception, and it currently distributes around $300,000 each year. Coupled with the money distributed by its local chapters, the NFF has distributed more than $37.1 million.

Jim Hansen, who won the 1992 Campbell Trophy® and earned a Rhodes Scholarship, said he has spent the past 30 years of his life trying to recreate the meaningful relationships he experienced with his teammates as an offensive tackle at the University of Colorado.

“I think the closest that I have come outside of my immediate family are these Campbell Trophy® Summits,” said Hansen, who has attended all three summits and currently serves as the Naval Research Laboratory Marine Meteorology Division Superintendent. “These are my people, and I love being able to spend time with them… A common theme that we learned is the importance and value of relationships. Bill Campbell has given us a great gift in the ability to bring together all these great people to build and maintain relationships and have an impact on our communities.