University’s Frank Jobe gala to showcase sports celebs Tommy John, Roy Firestone

The Frank Jobe Memorial Gala will be held Tues., April 25 at the Riverside Convention Center and will feature baseball legend Tommy John as guest speaker and Emmy award-winning sports commentator and journalist Roy Firestone as the evening’s emcee.

The black-tie, red carpet gala seeks to raise money for athletics scholarships at La Sierra University, enabling student athletes to pursue their educational and athletics goals.

Jobe, a celebrated sports orthopaedic surgeon and long-time Los Angeles Dodgers team physician, is credited with performing the first ever ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery in 1974 on the left elbow of John, a Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher. The procedure became known as ‘Tommy John’ surgery. Jobe performed the crucial operation on more than 1,000 pitchers of varying ability over the years. He is credited with prolonging or saving the careers of 150 professional baseball players.

Jobe graduated from La Sierra University in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He studied medicine at Loma Linda's College of Medical Evangelists, now Loma Linda University School of Medicine. In 1965, along with sports medicine physician Robert Kerlan, he founded the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic. He was honored as La Sierra University’s Alumnus of the Year in April 2013, and in July of that year received a special recognition from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. during its Hall of Fame Weekend. Jobe passed away on March 6, 2014, at age 88.

John is a former pitcher and four-time All Star in Major League Baseball. He is noted for his cumulative 288 career victories, including 164 scored after his unexpected return in 1976 with a left elbow restored by Jobe’s groundbreaking surgery.

Firestone, a longtime sports commentator and journalist, is a seven-time Emmy Award winner who began his career at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles before moving to ESPN. As the original host for ESPN’s “Up Close,” “Up Close Classic,” and “Up Close Primetime,” he interviewed more than 5,000 athletes, musicians, actors and political figures. He currently hosts HDNet’s “Face to Face with Roy Firestone” and AOL’s “Time Out With Roy Firestone.” Firestone has pursued avocations as a vocalist and an actor, with numerous high-profile credits including appearances with Josh Groban and Reba McIntire, and on episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “Married with Children.”

The fundraising gala results from the efforts of a La Sierra University Foundation Board subcommittee chaired by James Fuson, senior general manager of the Galleria at Tyler. “Our goal was to raise awareness of La Sierra University and its athletics department,” Fuson said. “The benefits from creating the gala became special for us all when we understood that athletic scholarships at times are the single gateway for a student to obtain a higher education. To know that an event can make a difference in an individual’s life is very rewarding.”   

Stan Morrison, retired college basketball coach and former University of California athletics director, currently chairs La Sierra University’s Athletics Advisory Board and is helping organize the gala. “The single most important tool for a coach is scholarship funding. With it, the coach is in a position to be able to compete more effectively as a recruiter,” said Morrison. “The funds can be used for partial tuition assistance, books, housing, and meals. Given the time input by athletes in their conditioning, weight training and sports-specific workouts with their teams, there is very little time left to work a job to support themselves while maintaining a strong commitment to academia including studying two hours for every hour in the classroom.”

La Sierra University’s Golden Eagles varsity athletics program, which operates as part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, offers men’s and women’s basketball, soccer and cross country, men’s baseball, women’s softball and women’s volleyball. The university currently budgets for one athletics scholarship per sport.

“The La Sierra University Athletics Department is happy to be able to connect with the community through this event and develop relationships that will raise our competitive standards,” said La Sierra Athletics Director Javier Krumm.

The Frank Jobe Memorial Gala will be held from 6 – 9 p.m. The event will include a silent auction of sports memorabilia including boxing gloves signed by Muhammad Ali, jerseys signed by NFL greats Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, and a 2016 World Series jersey signed by the World Championship Chicago Cubs.

Individual tickets are $150 with table sponsorships ranging from $1,500 to $15,000. Additional information and ticket reservations are available by calling the La Sierra University Office of Advancement at 951-785-2500.