UPCOMING EVENTS

The U Deserve a Chance Foundation (UDACF) would like to invite you to our 5th Annual Home Plate Gala. UDACF raises money to provide upward mobility, educational opportunity, health and wellness, life lessons and skills all through the game we love, baseball. Please join us for a night of cocktails, silent auction, a plated dinner, lots of laughs and good will baseball comradery on November 8th at the Ballantyne Hotel and Spa.

We will be honoring Hall of Fame college baseball coach, manager of the USA Baseball 18U National Team, and former Head Clemson Baseball Coach Jack Leggett with the annual “Spirit of the Game” award. Coach Leggett is will be the recipient of this award not because of his impressive on field coaching accolades but, for the people he has touched, influenced and the lives he has changed.

2019 marked Coach Leggett's second consecutive year as the 18U National Team manager after he led the 2018 18U National Team to a gold medal at the COPABE U-18 Pan-American Championships in Panama. 2019 year also marks the third straight year for Leggett as a USA Baseball coach after working as a coach for the 17U National Team Development Program (NTDP) in 2017 and 2018.

Leggett was the head baseball coach at Clemson University from 1994-2015, where he led the Tigers to 955 victories, 21 NCAA Tournament appearances and six College World Series berths. Every single one of his teams compiled winning overall records in his 22 seasons at Clemson and 34 of his players were All-Americans, 31 were First-Team All-ACC players and 11 were selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.

Leggett guided the Tigers to their second and third No. 1 ranking in school history and Clemson was the seventh-winningest program in the nation during his time as head coach. He was a three-time ACC Coach of the Year recipient and was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame in 2014. Leggett also served as a head coach for 14 years at Vermont and Western Carolina before moving to Clemson. In total, he has 1,332 career wins and following the conclusion of the 2015 season, he was the fifth-winningest active Division 1 head coach in the country.

Put aside the on field accomplishments and look a the coaching tree Coach Leggett has cultivated. To name a few Tim Corbin (Vanderbilt) 2014 D1 College Coach of the Year, Erik Bakich (Michigan) 2019 D1 College Coach of the Year, Kevin O’Sullivan (Florida) 2017 National Champion. Nearly 40 college coaches honed their craft under the tutelage of Coach Leggett.  

A special award titled the “1st Lady of Baseball” will be presented to Frances Crockett Ringley. Frances is a professional baseball pioneer as one of the first female GM’s in Professional Baseball, Charlotte O’s of the Southern League. Frances took over the GM seat in 1977 winning two Southern League Championships in 1980 and 1984. The franchise was sold in 1987.

Special Guest and Speaker is my former University of Maryland teammate, Former MLB pitcher with the Milwaukee Brewers (1987) and current Hollywood executive movie producer (Miracle on Ice, The Rookie, Invincible, Secretariat, McFarland USA, Million Dollar Arm, Chappaquiddick, etc) Mark Ciardi.

U Deserve A Chance Foundation started the Home Plate Gala in 2015 to raise money to help those less fortunate and honor those who have used their status in the game of baseball to pay it forward. UDACF created the “Spirit of the Game” award that would be presented to those baseball people who touched and changed lives.

The Home Plate Gala is about recognition, appreciation and fund raising through awards and silent auction. It is a celebration of the heart. The monies raised from past Galas have assisted many underserved families in more ways than we ever anticipated. Past award recipients are Wake Forest Head Coach Tom Walter, Chris Singleton, son of Charleston Church Pastor Sharonda-Coleman Singleton (Love is Stronger than Hate), North Greenville Head Coach Landon Powell and his wife Alyson, St. Louis Cardinals Manager Mike Shildt.

Please join us on November 8th and be a part of making a difference.

Sincerely,

Jeff Schaefer