Golf: Irrelevant volunteer? Hardly

Richard Dunn

Kicking off this year’s bigger and better Toshiba Senior Classic,

quite literally, will be none other than Newport Beach’s favorite son,

role model, philanthropist and all-time public hero with a zany, madcap

twist.

That’s right, Irrelevant Week founder Paul Salata will be this year’s

most famous volunteer, serving in the tailor-made role of “main greeter”

for the Monday Celebrity Pro-Am, along with NFL Hall of Famers Deacon

Jones and Hugh McElhenny.

“I’m one of Bill Pierpoint’s soldiers,” Salata said, referring to the

pro-am co-chairman. “Originally, my assignments were greeting and bag

carrying, but luckily I got off that duty.”

Salata, a former San Francisco 49er receiver, and Jones, a member of

the Rams’ Fearsome Foursome, will welcome pros and amateurs from 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m. on opening day of Toshiba week (Feb. 28).

Coincidentally, Salata and Jones will both be honored in April at the

NFL Alumni’s annual convention and Super Bowl of Golf.

Jones and former Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson will be

inducted into the NFL Alumni’s Order of the Leather Helmet, while Salata

was voted as the recipient of the Career Achievement Award, presented to

former players “whose accomplishments on and off the field reflect the

higher values promoted by the organization.”

Past winners of the Career Achievement Award include Jack Kemp and

Frank Gifford, along with many other NFL Hall of Famers, according to the

NFL Alumni Legends magazine.

“When I saw that Deacon Jones was one of the (NFL Alumni) recipients,

I thought it was unique that two out of the three guys being nationally

accounted for (in April) are part of the Toshiba,” Salata said. “It’s

like a postscript.”

The Deacon Jones Foundation provided the Monday Celebrity Pro-Am with

a strong NFL flavor in launching the 1999 Toshiba Classic. But this

year’s opening day, with Salata shaking hands and kissing babies, will

make what is perhaps the most fan-friendly event of all the pro-ams

during tournament week even friendlier.

In the year 70-year-old legend Arnold Palmer makes his Toshiba debut,

it’s befitting that the man who celebrates the last football player

picked in the NFL Draft will be around for kickoff.

Salata has emceed or been the guest of honor, the roaster or the

roasteree, of an endless parade of events and has received countless

honors and memberships, including induction into the Orange County Sports

Hall of Fame with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

But he’d prefer to stay away from the microphone during Toshiba week,

in fear, perhaps, of taking away from someone else’s thunder.

Salata started Irrelevant Week, which will celebrate its 25th year in

June and has become a fixture of the annual NFL Draft selection process,

with the sentiment of wanting “to do something nice for someone for no

reason,” an apt summary of his personal motivation in life.

“When I played, I was sort of a champion of the guy who never gets

recognized,” Salata said in a 1978 Sports Illustrated story that never

appeared in the magazine. “I always said if I ever could afford it, I was

going to do something for the guy you never heard of.”

Each year, the Irrelevant Week honoree is, among other things,

showered with gifts at the Arrival Party, wined and dined and saluted and

rooted. The player is also roasted at the Lowsman Trophy All-Star Banquet

and heckled at a golf tournament.

“No one else could think about doing something like that,” veteran

Baltimore sports editor and columnist John Steadman, who covered Salata

in 1950 when he caught 50 passes for the Colts, once said.

European Senior Tour player Ray Carrasco, an Irvine resident who once

operated the Birdie Vision golf school at the Back Bay Golf Course in

Newport Beach, will receive a sponsor’s exemption to play in this year’s

Toshiba Senior Classic, tournament director Jeff Purser said.

Carrasco has played in the last two Toshiba events. He played in the

first round last year with eventual winner Gary McCord.

The inaugural Mazda Open Celebrity Golf Tournament will be held March

20 at Mesa Verde Country Club to raise funds to construct a new Arts

Pavilion at Orange Coast College.

Celebrity golfers are expected to include former NFL stars Dick Butkus

and Eric Dickerson, former Laker Kurt Rambis and Chris Myers of Fox

Sports News. Details: (949) 727-6304.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.