Citizen Walsh’s Latest Lineup: Sports, Dining and Diplomacy
SEATTLE – “Conversations with Bob Walsh and Friends,” a series exploring local and global issues, begins this month at Seattle Central Community College.
Seattle entrepreneur and humanitarian Bob Walsh has spent decades staking his career to long shots, pulling off major sporting and cultural events in hopes of furthering international understanding and cooperation.
Now, he is inviting his formidable friends – local and global experts in their fields – to take on such topics as the battle for democracy in the Middle East, Africa, China, and the Caucasus region; Seattle’s status as a sports town; and how to ease international tensions when they arise, as they did when University of Washington student Amanda Knox was jailed in Italy.
On Oct. 25, at Seattle Central Community College, the impresario will kick off a five-part series – “Conversations with Bob Walsh and Friends” – combining dinner, speakers, and question-and-answer sessions.
Walsh, whose motto is, “Ordinary people can do extraordinary things,” has long believed that sports and citizen diplomacy can improve local and international relations. Now a motivational speaker, he will moderate the events, to be held in the recently renovated One World Dining Room in the main Broadway building. The college’s award-winning Seattle Culinary Academy will prepare the dinners. Cost per event is $35. Registration is required.
The series is especially timely given the battles for democracy in North Africa and the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and to better understand how the revolutions may impact Americans and U.S. interests abroad, speakers.
“Some of these countries are going through this incredible transformation since early 2011, and this transformation carries hopes, but also fears, because revolutions are unpredictable,” said Jawed Zouari, SCCC political science instructor and one of the guest speakers. “I think experts can have a positive influence to help explain what’s going on, to make sure people understand, presenting a more complete and human picture.”
Global experts from Egypt, the Republic of Georgia, and China will participate, as will David Marriott, whose public relations efforts helped Knox, and Kristin Hayden, founder and executive director of the non-profit One World Now (OWN).
Other local panelists include Lenny Wilkens and Wally Walker of the former Seattle Sonics, and sports media figures Steve Raible and Steve Rudman.
It has been 22 years since Seattle, thanks to Walsh’s persistent efforts and negotiation skills, staged the 1990 Goodwill Games. The event was held less than a year after the Berlin Wall fell, amid lingering doubts that Soviet-U.S. relations had thawed enough to pull off the international sports-and-culture showcase. Few had forgotten the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980, followed by the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
Yet in Seattle, relations between the two countries not only thawed, but warmed as athletes competed, and others participated in business, legal, arts, and cultural exchanges.
Walsh’s latest lineup reflects his hope for a similar detente in the Caucasus region and the Middle East.
Although he is well aware of complex inter-tribal, cultural and political animosities, some of which date back centuries, he said, “I don’t have anything against anybody. You’ve got to let go of all that stuff; life’s too short.”
“A lot of people besides me are interested in bringing people together; it’s a good thing,” Walsh said. “The other thing is, it always works.”
Rudman, co-founder of Sportspress Northwest and author of the definitive Walsh biography, “Who the Hell is Bob? The Man Behind the Magic,” has likened the entrepreneur to both Don Quixote and Forest Gump because of his high-altitude causes and improbable adventures.
“I’ve never met anyone like him,” said Rudman, referring to the man who has worked in radio and television, spearheaded basketball’s “March Madness,” brokered rocket launches, facilitated an international peace climb of Mount Everest and Lynne Cox’s swim across the Bering Strait, coordinated disaster relief for earthquake victims – and accumulated powerful and loyal friends across the globe.
“An ordinary person could write down an entire legal pad of reasons why something couldn’t be done, but Bob would do it anyway,” Rudman said. “It never occurs to him that something can’t be done. He doesn’t see obstacles. He has no fear factor. He’s like the perfect athlete who, when he makes a mistake, puts it immediately behind him and keeps going, as opposed to an amateur who dwells on what went wrong.”
Walsh acknowledges some may consider him a cockeyed optimist, but says he “was brought up to care about other people.”
He adds, “It’s possible my parents went overboard.”
Contacts
Janet Grimley
Interim Director of Communications
Seattle Central Community College
206-934-5488
janet.grimley@seattlecolleges.edu
Web: seattlecolleges.edu