The Zontek Award

There are, I am told, a few of you who read this magazine backwards. You claim to start with the back page and read whatever ramblings I’ve offered in “Parting Shots” and then you leaf through in the exact opposite manner in which we have intended.

Stop doing that. It disrupts the whole feng shui of GCI.

Anyway, those of you who read backasswards already know that I wrote my column about the advice I’d give to young people considering a career as a superintendent these days. The very short version is: you damned well better be passionate about this business or you’ll never make it.

When I wrote that, I heard a little voice in the back of my head saying ‘Right on.’

It was Stan Zontek’s voice.

In the months since Stan passed, I’ve heard dozens of awesome, funny, outrageous Stan stories. All of them were in different contexts – speeches, course visits, trips overseas, etc. – but they had one common theme: his passion and enthusiasm for turf, turfheads and the game of golf.

What, I’ve been wondering, could we do to continue to foster that passion even though Stan’s not around in person to do it for us?

To that end, I’m pleased to announce that we have created the Stan Zontek Memorial Scholarship Award to be presented to an outstanding turf student who demonstrates the passion and commitment to the spirit that Stan embodied. The award, an unrestricted grant of $2,500, will be given to one student based on academic performance, advisor/superintendent recommendations and an essay about why they’re passionate about a career as a superintendent.
 

I’ll do the judging for this one myself. Maybe Stanley will whisper into my ear a little and help. He’ll probably be saying, “Jonesy, pick the Penn State kid.” In my imagination, even Stan’s ghost bleeds Nittany blue.

For the love of God, download the new GCI app. By now, we’ve probably pounded you to death with emails and website articles and notes tied to carrier pigeons and skywriting over the San Diego Convention Center telling you to please download the new app. It’s just that good.

Big props go to our entire technical team for creating this thing, but it truly does take a village to do something like this. We’re a modestly sized company with just about 100 employees who work on about 20 different magazines in about a dozen different markets. The core group of people who thought up, developed, designed and wrote this app was probably about a dozen folks. There are huge media companies that haven’t done anything nearly this innovative. Seriously. I’m very proud and very humbled to get to be a part of it.

Mostly, I hope you like it and you find it useful. It’s fun as hell, that’s for sure, but the idea is to create a full multimedia experience – right there on your iPad or phone – that enhances your ability to learn and get better at your job. Frankly, we’re just beginning to harness the power that this platform gives us. In short, it’s pretty damned good but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I hope you’re enjoying GCI and all the strange places we go. Come along for the ride with us. I promise it’ll never be boring!