The Oregon State Univ. men’s basketball team and coach CRAIG ROBINSON next Wednesday will visit PRESIDENT OBAMA and the First Family at the White House and will be treated to a Thanksgiving lunch. Robinson is the brother of First Lady MICHELLE OBAMA (Portland OREGONIAN, 11/15).
AWARDS & HONORS: USOC Chief Commercial Officer PATRICK SANDUSKY, Fleishman-Hillard President & Senior Partner JJ CARTER, and NASCAR Senior Dir for Integrated Marketing Communications JON SCHWARTZ were recognized last night at PRWeek's Forty Under 40 awards in N.Y. (THE DAILY)....Copywriter JIM RISWOLD will be inducted into The One Club Creative HOF in January ’13. Riswold spent his career at Wieden + Kennedy, chiefly creating Nike campaigns, including the BO JACKSON “Bo Knows” and TIGER WOODS “Hello World” ads, as well as spots featuring MICHAEL JORDAN and SPIKE LEE as Mars Blackmon (The One Club).
CHARITY STRIPE: The PGA Tour Players Championship yesterday announced that a record $6.5M "will be donated to charity," breaking the record of $5.9M set last year and pushing the total amount of charitable giving by The Players to $52.8M since '77 (FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, 11/15)….The PGA Tour Wells Fargo Championship yesterday announced donations of $1.3M to designated Charlotte-based charities (Wells Fargo Championship)….More than 40 members of the MLS Red Bulls on Monday spent the day in a Jersey City warehouse “helping to unload pallets of donations, pack bags of supplies for victims of Hurricane Sandy and load them onto trucks” (Hudson County JERSEY JOURNAL, 11/15)….UConn men’s basketball coach KEVIN OLLIE yesterday announced that he and his wife, STEPHANIE, would donate $100,000 “toward construction of the UConn Basketball Development Center” (HARTFORD COURANT, 11/15)…. Bills LB SHAWNE MERRIMAN will hold his annual coat drive Saturday at noon before the Florida State-Maryland football game (BALTIMORESUN.com, 11/15)....Former NFLer DONOVIN DARIUS will hold his "Nothing's Out of Bounds" event Saturday at EverBank Field in Jacksonville (JACKSONVILLE.com, 11/13).
NAMES: Nets Owner MIKHAIL PROKHOROV yesterday agreed to buy Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital. Prokhorov’s Onexim Group will “buy the half of Renaissance that it does not already own” (NYTIMES.com, 11/14)….U.S. skier LINDSEY VONN was “released from a Vail, Colo., hospital after undergoing testing and treatment for intestinal pain.” Vonn is “resting comfortably” at home and is “feeling much better.” Vonn spokesperson LEWIS KAY added it is unclear when Vonn “will be able to return to the mountain” (L.A. TIMES, 11/15)….Former NFLer JERRAMY STEVENS and U.S. women’s national soccer team G HOPE SOLO “got married Tuesday, after an alleged assault and subsequent court appearance.” USWNT G JILLIAN LOYDEN tweeted, “Happy to witness such an amazing celebration of real love” (SEATTLE TIMES, 11/15).
