Our Team

Trustees

Friends of Base­ball has orga­nized a Board of Trustees to eval­u­ate and rec­om­mend grant place­ment. The founders, Keenan Long­cor, and his son, Ben Long­cor, lead the Board. The bal­ance of the Board is made up of indi­vid­u­als shar­ing a sim­i­lar pas­sion in our mis­sion. Addi­tion­ally, the Trustees will estab­lish a Board of Advi­sors to offer guid­ance, direc­tion and sup­port as we strive to assist those with the great­est need, and to reach all lev­els of the youth base­ball and soft­ball community.

Keenan Long­cor wrapped up a very brief col­lege expe­ri­ence, choos­ing instead to estab­lish his own sales and mar­ket­ing com­pany. The com­pany grew to encom­pass a five-state area in the Pacific North­west, mak­ing it one of his industry’s largest sales agen­cies in the region. His suc­cess­ful busi­ness strate­gies became a spring­board for his pub­li­ca­tion of INTERPERSONAL, A Sales And Man­age­ment Let­ter, as well as his career as a man­age­ment consultant.

“Of all my years in busi­ness, with all its many rewards, my fond­est mem­o­ries are not busi­ness related, but of being with my son on one of our base­ball road trips. We were fol­low­ing his team, fol­low­ing our favorite pro­fes­sional team, all the while chas­ing the moment… and the con­ver­sa­tions found through our shared love of the game.”

 Ben Long­cor grad­u­ated from Pacific Lutheran Uni­ver­sity in 2001 with a BA in Communications/Public Rela­tions. He is a com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist with Waggener Edstrom World­wide Inno­va­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, a com­pany with 7 offices through­out the U.S., and 8 in Europe and Asia Pacific. His com­mu­ni­ca­tions prac­tice focuses on cre­at­ing mem­o­rable and mea­sur­able expe­ri­ences to engage audi­ences from dis­cov­ery to action for inter­nal and exter­nal agency clients. His focus is on new busi­ness cul­ti­va­tion and retention.

“I have always longed to share with oth­ers the feel­ings of com­radery and pure­ness I had when I played ball through­out Lit­tle League, Babe Ruth and high school. Through Friends of Base­ball, I will be able to help kids and teams expe­ri­ence the sheer joy and purity — the feel­ing — of baseball.”

Sally Long­cor wore many hats as she enjoyed careers in the fields of pub­lic edu­ca­tion, inter­na­tional trad­ing and, most recently, as an exec­u­tive admin­is­tra­tor for a north­west Sales and Mar­ket­ing Com­pany. But there is only one hat, and one field, that has cap­tured her heart for life.

“My great-grandfather, grand­fa­ther, father, and step­fa­ther were all wildly enthu­si­as­tic about base­ball, so my ardent pas­sion for the game is gen­er­a­tions old. To those who say I’m a Base­ball Maniac, I say, “Thank you for the compliment.”

Drew Mahalic is the CEO of the Ore­gon Sports Author­ity, a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion that brings world-class sports events and sports fran­chises to Ore­gon. He is a five-year vet­eran of the National Foot­ball League with the Eagles, and was a three-year start­ing line­backer for Notre Dame. He is the first NFL vet­eran to grad­u­ate from Har­vard Law School, and has pro­duced a hand­book on sports­man­ship for youth.

“Though I played pro­fes­sional foot­ball, it was youth base­ball that was my first love, and remains so today. I con­stantly review base­ball sta­tis­tics, and am the proud owner of a mod­est base­ball card col­lec­tion. I often agree with Babe Ruth’s words in his farewell speech at Yan­kee Sta­dium when he said, “The only real game, I think in the world, is baseball.”

Dick McClain has com­mit­ted his life to youth base­ball. As a coach for over forty years, with teams that have enjoyed over 1200 wins, Dick brings sig­nif­i­cant field level expe­ri­ence to our board. His coach­ing career in High School, Col­lege and Amer­i­can Legion cul­mi­nated with the only Amer­i­can Legion National Cham­pi­onship for the State of Ore­gon. Dick is cur­rently the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the North­west Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­nity Colleges.

“My par­ents were always my great­est sup­port­ers dur­ing my play­ing and coach­ing careers. Some of my great­est base­ball mem­o­ries were with my folks, shar­ing a spe­cial moment. I am hon­ored to be a trustee on the Board of Friends of Base­ball and believe that through the foun­da­tion we can enhance fam­ily val­ues through baseball.”

Linda Wright spent 32 years in the world of bank­ing at U.S. Bank where she worked in com­mu­nity rela­tions. With a broad knowl­edge of non­profit orga­ni­za­tions, she led the bank’s efforts in invest­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in the many com­mu­ni­ties through­out Ore­gon and S.W. Wash­ing­ton. In 2007, she retired from bank­ing and moved into the busi­ness of real estate with Cold­well Banker. Grow­ing up with 4 broth­ers, all of whom played base­ball, and a father who played semi-pro ball and­coached youth base­ball­for many years, the ball­park became a home away from home on many sum­mer evenings. Linda sums it up when she states, “Friends of Base­ball is a per­fect fit for me in my efforts to sup­port the youth of our state!”

Bob Rus­sell has spent 28 years serv­ing the Clacka­mas com­mu­nity as a cer­ti­fied pub­lic accoun­tant. That, how­ever, is his job. His pas­sion is base­ball. Grow­ing up play­ing base­ball, Bob pur­sued his pas­sion in col­lege, play­ing for South­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­sity. For the past 15 years, Bob has coached youth base­ball, begin­ning when his sons were in T-ball and cul­mi­nat­ing as the assis­tant var­sity base­ball coach for Molalla High School. He cur­rently serves as the assis­tant var­sity soft­ball coach for Molalla High School, were his daugh­ter, Anna, plays.

Nova New­comer, Nova’s been a base­ball fan for as long as she can remem­ber. Her love of base­ball started with Beaver base­ball games at Civic Sta­dium with her dad, then it was Pow­ell and Parkrose Lit­tle League and even a bit of scrappy high school com­pe­ti­tion. Her first job was at the sou­venir stand work­ing for the Beavers in 1993 and to this day she still says that job earned her every sub­se­quent job she’s ever had, includ­ing her 1996 stint with the Port­land Rock­ies as an intern for their daily radio show. Nova grad­u­ated from Port­land State Uni­ver­sity in 1999 with a degree in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, where she worked in the Ath­letic Depart­ment as a media rela­tions assis­tant. Nova worked for adi­das Group for five years and has cul­ti­vated a career in strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tion. She cur­rently works for the Cen­ter for Women, Pol­i­tics & Pol­icy pro­vid­ing women and girls with life-changing lead­er­ship devel­op­ment and owns her own busi­ness work­ing as a strate­gic con­sul­tant for trans­for­ma­tional projects with regional agen­cies. Serv­ing on the Friends of Base­ball board ful­fills her per­sonal pas­sion to bring the dream of play­ing base­ball and the impor­tant con­nec­tions it cre­ates to more of our state’s youth. Nova is mar­ried and has a young son, whose first word was “ball.”

Dave Terry has been involved with youth base­ball in one form or another for most of his adult life. He has coached all three of his sons’ teams for many years, and served on many local and dis­trict JBO boards. Dave was a mem­ber of the JBO Board of Direc­tors for 12 years, serv­ing as pres­i­dent for the past three years.

“For me, being a part of an orga­ni­za­tion like Friends of is about pas­sion, both for the game itself, and for kids oppor­tu­nity to play it. Hav­ing been a part of the youth machine for these past many years has allowed me to feed how­ever that pas­sion was very focused, almost like I was through a knot­hole in the fence watch­ing a game.

Now, being involved with Friends of Base­ball, it’s like some­one invited me to sit inside the ball­park. I can now observe the entire game and see the big pic­ture, rather than peek through that knot­hole have to watch the game with just one eye.”

Marv Kuper­stein a retired Exec­u­tive Director(ED) of sev­eral non profit agen­cies. 34 years in social ser­vices, 25 as an ED. Worked many years with boards of direc­tors devel­op­ing fundraisng cam­paigns, board devel­op­ment and recruit­ment, etc. Life long lover of MLB base­ball and its value to the pos­i­tive devel­op­ment of youth. Grew up in NYC dur­ing the “golden age” of NY base­ball with the Dodgers (My team), Yan­kees and Giants.

Sean Cal­hoon grew up with a pas­sion for base­ball from a very young age. Being the mid­dle child in a fam­ily of 7, includ­ing 4 other boys who lived for base­ball, he has many great mem­o­ries of days play­ing at the school across the street from his par­ents’ house in West Linn. Rain or shine, he would start each day with a neigh­bor­hood game which would only end when it was too dark to find the ball. Long before the days of base­ball acad­e­mies, per­sonal train­ers, and expen­sive pro­grams, he played the game out of pas­sion and fun, play­ing orga­nized base­ball from Kinder­garten through his senior year at West Linn High School, where he won the state cham­pi­onship in 1982. What great mem­o­ries and strong rela­tion­ships! “Base­ball has helped me become who I am today in both my work and per­sonal life. It taught me to work hard, focus on what’s impor­tant, the power of team­work, and the impor­tance of learn­ing and grow­ing from your fail­ures. Base­ball is a game of fail­ure, it’s how you respond that defines who you are and who you will become,” said Sean.

Sean also seeks oppor­tu­ni­ties to apply his pas­sion for base­ball and his pro­fes­sional skills to give back to the com­mu­nity. Most recently, he ran the Lak­eridge Youth Base­ball pro­gram and was a mem­ber of the board for 5 years. He sums this up by say­ing, “This was a great expe­ri­ence which, more than any­thing, rein­forced my belief that base­ball is alive and well in the North­west. Through both of my kids, I’ve had the oppor­tu­nity to see the direct ben­e­fit of the arts, aca­d­e­mics and ath­let­ics. This is the foun­da­tion for grow­ing amaz­ing kids who are ready to pass their pas­sion to the next generation.”

Spon­sors

The Ore­gon Sports Author­ity Foun­da­tion has taken an essen­tial lead­er­ship role to meet and exceed the poten­tial of Friends of Base­ball. Their com­mit­ment and sup­port to our orga­ni­za­tion has been essen­tial to our suc­cess. [view]

Scott Snow, Royter Snow Design gra­ciously pro­vided the use of his oil paint­ing, “Believe in Your­self.” Though painted decades ago, his paint­ing, and the hopes and dreams it evokes, is time­less. [view]

Friends of Base­ball — Gree­ley Col­orado estab­lished their orga­ni­za­tion in sup­port of youth base­ball in their region in 1987. Their board has been both active and sup­port­ive in the devel­op­ment of our orga­ni­za­tion. Friends of Base­ball — Gree­ley is not affil­i­ated with Friends of Base­ball. Should you wish to con­tact this wor­thy orga­ni­za­tion you may send an email to:Patgary3948@aol.com

Advi­sors

Chip Owen, Avanti Press
Stan Bozich, Old Timers Base­ball Assn. [view]
Alan Mcfee, Busi­ness con­sul­tant
Kelly Ire­land, Metro Base­ball Acad­emy [view]
Tom Petke, Youth base­ball coach
Art Lar­rance, Old Timers Base­ball Assn. [view]
Jerry Gatto, N.W. Star Prod. & Acad­emy [view]
Raffi Minasian, The Col­lec­tors Foun­da­tion
Rory and Kee­ley Fryer
Greg Bethell
Adam Jacob
Dave Hick­man
Katie Bethell