May 2000
Touching The Stars
By Kevin O'Keefe
In the locker room of the North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, Calif., Matt Damon has voluntarily changed into a Pete Sampras Classic golf shirt and carefully affixed a gold Tim & Tom Gullikson Foundation lapel pin.
"I'd wear the [Pete Sampras Classic] hat, too, but I don't want to look like Pete stalker," he jokes.
Damon, one of the celebrity player captains for March's Pete Sampras Classic golf event benefiting the Tim & Tom Gullikson Foundation, is about to meet up with Sampras and face one of those red-carpet media swarms of flashing bulbs, extended mikes and tape recorders.
But in a hushed locker room corner away from the scene, Damon was talking about his admiration for Pete Sampras both on and off the court and about the important role of the Gullikson Foundation, of which Sampras is a board member.
That's the reason Damon was here on this unseasonably cold Monday and the night before at the tournament party, a fund-raiser for the Foundation that was held at Damon's new Beverly Hills club.
It's the reason he was the first of about 30 Hollywood, sports and media celebrities--people such as Dennis Miller, Dennis Hopper, Andy Garcia, Wayne Gretzky, Evander Holyfield, Stone Phillips and Dan Patrick--who gave their day to Pete Sampras so that he could raise the Foundation's awareness among those who don't necessarily follow tennis.
"I'm so happy to help support Pete and what Tim and Tom established," Damon said inside the locker room. Soon after, he embraced Tim Gullikson's loving family--wife Rosemary and children Erik and Megan--and Tom Gullikson and Sampras.
Rosemary, Erik and Megan flew in from Chicago for the event, as did Tom Lembeck, a friend of Damon's whose company was the first to purchase a Pete Sampras Classic sponsorship. At that evening's event dinner and auction, Lembeck helped the proceedings with the donation of a rare magnum of 1975 wine that went for $2000. From the same table, Damon made a healthy cash donation to the event.
The generosity of Sampras, Damon, Lembeck and more than 200 others helped raise $90,000 for the Foundation, for brain-tumor patients and their families. "It's great feeling to have raised this significant sum for Foundation," said Sampras. "And it seems appropriate to have raised it through a golf event. I have fond memories both of Tim's love of golf and his sparking my interest in it."
For those new to tennis, Tim Gullikson was Sampras' coach. He died of brain cancer four years ago this month. Tom Gullikson, the head of coaching for the United States Tennis Association, is probably the nicest guy among tennis' power brokers. The identical twins--who won 10 doubles titles together on the tour--created the Foundation in 1995.
As the Gullikson have positively touched Pete Sampras and , in turn, Matt Damon and, in turn, Tom Lembeck, they continue to touch many others in and out of tennis--people whose stories unfold far beyond the North Ranch Country Club.
They touch people like the teaching pro in Arizona who was diagnosed with brain cancer and didn't know where to turn. The Tim & Tom Gullikson Foundation made sure he got the information he needed. They touch people like Sheryl Shetsky, president of the South Florida Brain Tumor Association--one of the country's oldest support groups--by providing the association with the money it needs to augment its regional programs.
They touch people like David Bailey, 34, a Virginia recording artist and brain tumor survivor who was told in 1996 that he had a year to live. Last year, Bailey received the first Tim Gullikson Spirit Award.
They touch the more than 1,000 families that utilize the resources of Duke University Medical Center's Brain Tumor Family Support Center--a Tim & Tom Gullikson Foundation Program. They touch Pete Sampras, who touched Tim Gullikson.
Just ask Rosemary Gullikson, the Foundation's president, who remembers the important support role Pete played when her husband was suffering from brain cancer. "Pete's calls from events around the world would always brighten Tim's day," she told guests at the Pete Sampras Classic. "Tim was Pete's coach and friend, but Pete was there to provide coaching and support when Tim needed it most."
The Tim & Tom Gullikson Foundation does the same for brain tumor patients and their loved ones every day.