Speaker announced for 2008 Blue Chip Award

Love Three-time NBA All- Star Bob Love will appear as the keynote speaker for the 2008 Southwest Florida Blue Chip Community Business Award. Love will help honor this year's winner Thursday, Nov. 6, at a luncheon at Harborside Event Center in Fort Myers.

Coordinated and sponsored by Oswald Trippe and Company, the annual Blue Chip Award program recognizes small businesses that have overcome adversity to achieve success.

Love's life is a textbook case of such success.

He and his 13 siblings grew up in near poverty in a small Louisiana town. Throughout his youth, Love dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player, practicing daily with a coat hanger hoop nailed to the side of his grandmother's door.

His work paid off, landing him a spot on the basketball team at Southern University in Louisiana, where he was named to the All- America Team by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The 6-foot, 8-inch athlete went on to the pros, playing for the Cincinnati Royals, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Chicago Bulls and the Seattle Supersonics.

From 1969 through 1976, Love led the Chicago Bulls in team scoring. He is third in team history in points scored, behind only Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. He was a threetime NBA All-Star and was named three times to the second NBA all-defensive squad, scoring 12,623 points in his impressive career.

Despite his accomplishments, he never landed an endorsement deal and was rarely interviewed after games because of a lifelong stuttering problem. Still, he yearned to be able to address large audiences like his hero, Martin Luther King Jr.

When a back injury ended his basketball career, Love was unemployed and remained so for seven years until he found a job at a Seattle Nordstrom café as a dishwasher earning $4.45 an hour. As customers and former players recognized him clearing tables, he would hear people whisper, "Hey, that's Bob Love….he was a great basketball player…what a shame."

At age 45, with help from the Nordstrom company, he was finally able to work with a speech therapist and overcome his stutter.

In 1992, the Chicago Bulls heard Love's story and hired him as Director of Community Relations, a job in which he spoke to groups on behalf of the Bulls and shared his life story. On Jan. 14, 1994, Love's Chicago Bulls jersey was retired.

He has earned numerous awards and honors. His life is the subject of a documentary film that's in production and he was recently honored at the Sundance Film Festival.

This year's Blue Chip Award program will truly be regional, with the inclusion of Charlotte County. In a move that recognizes that Charlotte, Collier and Lee counties as a unified business region, there will be a single comprehensive event.

Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties forprofit businesses that have been in operation for at least three years and employ five to 400 people are eligible for the award. Applications, which must be received by Monday, Sept. 15, can be requested by calling Stacey Trippe at 239-985-7614. Independent judges will select the winning entry.

Founded in 1982, Oswald Trippe and Company is the largest, privately owned insurance agency in Southwest Florida. Oswald Trippe provides comprehensive insurance and riskmanagement services to families and businesses throughout Florida and North Carolina. The agency's 200-plus employee-owners offer protection from the nation's leading insurance companies. Oswald Trippe has offices in Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Cape Coral, Coral Springs, Holmes Beach, Lakewood Ranch, Miami, Naples, Ocala, Port Charlotte, Sarasota and Weston, Fla., as well as Cornelius, Denver, Hickory and Wilmington, N.C. For more information, visit www.otc1.com.