Chapman Joins List of Banquet Boycotters

Chapman College added its name Friday to a growing list of Orange County colleges and universities that are boycotting a Sportsman of the Year banquet in Santa Ana next week because it excludes women.

Officials for the private college in Orange had purchased 10 tickets to the $100-a-plate affair. But on Friday, Chapman President James Doti said he had decided to seek a refund.

“This event is objectionable and exclusionary,” Doti said.

The banquet, sponsored by the Orange County Sports Celebrities Foundation, is still scheduled despite the pullout by Chapman, Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine, Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa and Golden West College in Huntington Beach. About 400 seats are reserved for the event Tuesday at a Santa Ana hotel.

Annual Fund-Raiser

Sport Celebrities, founded in 1971 by Newport Beach businessman and former professional football player Paul Salata, stages an annual fund-raising banquet that regularly draws hundreds of prominent businessmen and sports figures. A portion of the profits are then distributed to nine local universities and community colleges. The organization, which has awarded college grants of $1,250 to $2,000 per school in recent years, has sold about $45,000 in tickets for the upcoming dinner.

The Times reported Tuesday that the organization has not filed financial disclosure statements since 1980 and, as a result, was stripped of its tax-exempt status by state and federal officials in 1984.

Salata, who could not be reached for comment Friday, had said on Thursday that despite the withdrawal of several colleges, he will not open Tuesday’s dinner or future banquets to women. In an interview last week, he described the dinner as “a boys’ night out” and said that such men-only fund-raisers draw more people--and therefore bring in more cash--than unrestricted events.

Reserved Table of 10

Chapman College had reserved a table for 10, paying $1,000 out of its athletic foundation, according to Walt Bowman, director of athletics for the 2,200-student private school in Orange. Bowman said the tickets were for himself and nine guests from his college’s athletic foundation support group.

But Doti said that after disclosures this week about the men-only banquets, he decided to boycott the affair.

“We believe the organization has made a mistake in this particular event, and we simply do not want to be a part of this,” said Doti, who otherwise heaped praise on Sports Celebrities. “We would applaud the organization’s basic mission to raise funds for both men’s and women’s athletics (and) we are grateful for their time and willingness to support college athletics.”

Sports Celebrities donates $2,000 a year to Chapman College’s athletic budget.

Bowman said he had attended the sports banquet the past “5 or 6” years and had not previously found the male-only proceedings objectionable. He said he does now, however, after questions were raised about the practice of excluding women.

“When somebody raises a question, then it becomes a problem,” Bowman said. “A question has come up this year which caused a lot of us to reconsider what we have been doing.”