Former Gators coach Dan Mullen named speaker for 35th annual Winged Foot Scholarship Banquet
Former Florida coach and current ESPN college football analyst Dan Mullen will address some of the top high school athletes in Collier County as the keynote speaker for the 35th annual Winged Foot Scholarship Banquet.
The banquet will be on Friday, May 10 at the Naples Grande Resort with 15 athletes from Collier County high schools being honored and a Winged Foot winner announced.
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“Dan will be a great speaker for the event and should deliver a great message to all of the recipients for our 35th annual banquet,” Winged Foot chairman Buddy Hornbeck said in a release.
From 2017-2020, Mullen led the Florida Gators to three straight New Year’s Six Bowl Games. He previously celebrated two BCS National Championships with the Gators as the offensive coordinator from 2005-2008. In 2017, Mullen returned to Gainesville after nine seasons as the head coach at Mississippi State and led the preseason unranked Gators to one of their largest turnarounds in school history with a 10-win season in 2018. Mullen was 34-15 in four seasons with the Gators, which included an SEC East title in 2020.
Between his two stints at Florida, Mullen became the youngest FBS coach in history when hired by Mississippi State at 36. He led the 2014 Bulldogs to No. 1 in the college football polls for the first time in school history. Mullen went on to shatter more than 100 school records in his nine seasons with the Bulldogs and led the program to a school record eight consecutive bowl games.
Mullen was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2014 and also won the George Munger National Coach of the Year Award.
Seacrest volleyball standout Carole Ann Hussey was selected as the 2023 Winged Foot recipient. In April, a candidate from each of the county's 15 high schools will meet with the Winged Foot Selection Committee for informal interviews. The committee will then select the 2024 recipient who will be announced at the banquet.
Tickets for the banquet are $500 for individuals, $4,000 for a corporate table sponsorship which includes 8 tickets and recognition in the banquet program, and $8,000 for an event sponsorship which includes 16 tickets, recognition in the banquet program, backdrop logo’s, and vocal recognition. There are also other sponsorship opportunities available. Reach out to the chairman Buddy Hornbeck at 239-280-3241 or buddy_hornbeck@ajg.com with questions.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: ESPN analyst, Former Gators coach Dan Mullen named Winged Foot Scholarship Banquet speaker
