For UP alums: Coach Reve and the Etzels speaking this Wed.

University of Portland head men’s basketball coach Eric Reveno and alumni Jim Etzel '85, Susan Etzel Gonzalez '90, and Tom Etzel '96 will be the featured speakers at an entrepreneurial forum focusing on athletics. The event, part of the University’s UP HIVE program, will be from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 2 at SportsOne (9640 SW Sunshine Court, #400 in Beaverton, Ore.). A $5 donation for food and drinks is requested. For more information and to RSVP, please email ecenter@up.edu or call (503) 943-7769.

The UP HIVE program is a forum for UP alumni, E-scholar alumni and current University of Portland MBA students interested in entrepreneurial activity within the UP community. It organizes and creates networking and educational events, along with the UP HIVE’s resource pool of committed UP alumni and mentors, to assist in business creation. The events are aimed at connecting and assisting UP alumni and supporters in finding new business partners, clients, investors and mentors.

SportsOne is the host for the event. Founded by Jim Etzel in 1995, SportsOne is a nationally respected sports and entertainment marketing firm that recently completed the wildly successful week-long Bud Light Fiesta, an interactive fan experience and entertainment hot spot at the BCS national championship game in Scottsdale, Ariz. Among the many events SportsOne promotes are the Safeway Invitational celebrity golf tournament, the Oregon Sports Awards, the Special Olympics Oregon Street Jam, and the Oregon Track Club and Track Town USA’s Olympic trials and national championship events.

Coach Reveno will be sharing from a talk he recently gave at Stanford business school, where he earned his undergraduate degree and MBA, on building an effective team. He will also as discuss the Pilots’ current season, where the team is 16-6, a perfect 12-0 at home in the Chiles Center, ranked among the top 60 nationally in RPI, and are coming off a 85-70 blowout victory over #24 St. Mary’s on Saturday.

Reveno is in his fifth season as head coach of the Pilots after serving nine successful seasons as an assistant at Stanford. Last year, Reveno led the Pilots to a 21-11 record and second consecutive postseason appearance. The 21 wins matched a school record at the Division I level as the Pilots earned a Top 25 ranking in the Associated Press Poll for the first time in 50 years after marquee early season wins over UCLA and Minnesota. Portland also went 10-4 in the WCC to match the best league record in program history.

Prior to founding SportsOne, Jim Etzel served as Director, Western Region for Regency Productions by Hyatt, a sports and entertainment marketing subsidiary of Hyatt Corporation. Major events handled by Regency included the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup, NFL Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Weekend and the NCAA Final Four.

Tom Etzel joined SportsOne in 1997 after getting his start in sports marketing and management with Peter Jacobsen productions. He spent 10 summers working on the Fred Meyer Challenge operations team and USA Television's 1993 ProStakes.

Prior to joining SportsOne in 2003, Susan Etzel Gonzalez spent nine years at Levi Strauss & Company in San Francisco, CA where she worked in sales, strategic development, sales operations and event management. Prior to Levi, Susan was the assistant tournament director for the GTE Northwest Classic (Champions Tour) in Seattle, Wash.

All three are the children of long-time University of Portland athletic director Joe Etzel, who at the time of his retirement in 2004 was the longest-tenured NCAA Division I athletic director in the country.