LITTLE ROCK — Jane Yocum may have been chic in black pantsuit and heels, but she still looked right at home holding a Michael Jordan autographed basketball in the paint at the Jack Stephens Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Yocum knows her roundball.
And while a few members of the men’s team practiced three-pointers at the other end, Yocum was explaining how the basketball court will be transformed Thursday into SpectacUALR 2012, an evening of fun and fellowship to benefit all Trojan athletics, not just basketball.
That’s when UALR assistant basketball coach Joe Kleine spotted his friend.
A playful grin on his face, the towering, 7-foot Kleine sauntered over, bent down and gave the 5-foot-3 Yocum a hug. About half of her disappeared.
Yocum took it in stride. She has been around athletes - and loved sports - all her life, starting when she was growing up in Pennsylvania and playing basketball herself.
“I was my father’s son,” she said with a chuckle. “I grew up watching sports with my dad. We watched every single Baltimore Orioles baseball game. And I finally can be proud of being a Baltimore Orioles fan again.”
How did a little girl from way back east wind up in Little Rock?
“After high school in Pennsylvania, I went to college at Vanderbilt and it was there that I met my husband John [Dr. John Yocum of OrthoArkansas], who was from El Dorado. He went to medical school at UAMS and did his residency in Louisville [Kentucky], and that’s where I went to law school.”
All that schooling out of the way, the couple moved back to Little Rock. They have two sons, John and Hunter.
“It’s been a great city to live in and raise a family,” Jane Yocum says.
Yocum, who is senior counsel with the Little Rock firm of Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone, P.A., continued her love of sports in her new adopted town. And she got involved.
“When my sons were small, we went to UALR basketball games back when they played at Barton Coliseum, and I’ve always known someone who had some connection with the athletic program - one of the coaches or someone.”
Already in place for a number of years was a pre-season auction to benefit the basketball team. It was a good idea that could be even better.
As the athletic department and the school’s fame grew, Yocum said, “the athletic department decided to take this fabulous idea and build upon it and asked me to be one of the co-chairs. I was honored.”
She laughed and added, “I didn’t realize at the time that apparently it was a tenured position that I’ve been told I can’t retire from.”
And that’s how Yocum became involved in SpectacUALR - A Benefit for Trojan Athletics, hosted by the Trojan Athletic Foundation.
Thursday night’s event will be the fourth annual, and this year Yocum is co-chairman, along with Andrea Peel and Christina Clark.
The first three events raised an impressive $520,000 for the support of UALR student athletes. Yocum’s passion for these young people and the department is evident when she speaks about them.
“The UALR student-athletes are dynamic young men and women. They are exemplary,” she said. “And they don’t have a huge budget. The staff in the athletic department are all fantastic people. Each one does the work of three. They graduate 93 percent of their student-athletes who exhaust their eligibility here. And their GPAs are over a 3.0. You’d be hard-pressed to find another Division I school who can boast that.”
About SpectacUALR 2012, Yocum says, “You know you’re [affecting] these kids. When someone spends 50 bucks for a ticket, it’s going to the student-athletes. It’s not going fora table decoration. It’s not going for food and fluff.
“We’ll have about 30 of our students at the event, and for me that’s the biggest treat. You meet a couple of these young men and women and you’re hooked.”
SpectacUALR 2012 kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Stephens Center at 2801 S. University Ave. Dress is business casual. First up will be cocktails, heavy hors d’oeuvres and a silent auction.
“It’s a shopping event in and of itself,” Yocum says. “It’s the largest silent auction I’ve ever seen. It has something for everyone.”
Next will be a SpectacUALR tradition - a short program honoring a longtime UALR supporter of Trojan athletics. This year it’s Jack Kinnaman, founder of Kinco Constructors and a 2004 inductee into the UALR Athletics Hall of Fame.
Finally, a spirited live auction at 8 p.m. will feature a trio of Trojan broadcasters. Ray Tucker will be master of ceremonies, and Pat Bradley and Phil Elson will duel it out as auctioneers to see who can generate more money.
The auction items are unique and too numerous to mention, but they do include that Michael Jordan autographed basketball and a catered dinner at the home of Joe and Dana Kleine. Maybe the lucky bidder will also get a 7-foot bear hug from the former Razorback and NBA star.
Tickets are $50 and can be bought through the UALR Ticket Office at (501) 565-8257 or online through the link at ualrtrojans.com. For questions about the event, contact Andrea Angel at (501) 569-3393 or by e-mail at alangel@ualr.edu.
High Profile, Pages 39 on 10/07/2012