Alotian caddies awarded Evans scholarship

Evans Scholars

Three brothers, who are caddies at The Alotian Club, have been awarded the Chick Evans Caddie Scholarship which provides full tuition and housing for more than 830 boys and girls at 14 universities across the nation.

WHO Joe Evans, 22, a senior at Northwestern University, majoring in economics; Kevin Evans, 20, a junior at Northwestern, majoring in psychology; Tim Evans, 19, a sophomore at Marquette University, majoring in business administration.

HOMETOWN Sherwood (originally from Illinois) PARENTS Richard and Mary Beth Evans NOTEWORTHY There are 13 Evans children, 8 boys and 5 girls, ranging in age from 13 to 31, with 5 of them being Evans scholars. Older sister Colleen was the first in the family to receive an Evans Scholarship and attended Marquette; older brother Paul was an Evans Scholar recipient and attended the University of Illinois; younger brother Peter is also a caddie at Alotian, is a senior at Central Arkansas Christian and will apply for the scholarship in August.

3 brothers at Alotian recipients

Vince Pellegrino has come full circle in the Evans Scholar program.

He caddied at a golf club outside Chicago in the early 1990s before becoming an Evans Scholar at Indiana University in 1995. When Pellegrino graduated in 1999, it was a fellow Evans Scholar who gave him his first job, and six years after that, he joined the Western Golf Association as its associate tournament director in 2005.

The Western Golf Association is the sponsor of the foundation that awards scholarships to deserving caddies, more than 10,000 since the program’s creation in 1930, including three from The Alotian Club in Roland, site of this week’s Western Amateur tournament.

“The Foundation has a great base of alumni who help each other out, and I was able to get a job out of school with a PR firm through that,” said Pellegrino, 35, who now serves as the WGA’s vice president of tournaments. “I really have come full circle from being a caddie, as an Evans Scholar, and then ultimately managing and overseeing the championships that gives back to the scholarship. It’s close to my heart.”

Established by Charles“Chick” Evans Jr., a top amateur in the early 1900s, the foundation currently provides full housing and tuition scholarships of more than 830 caddies at 14 universities, including brothers Joe, Kevin and Tim Evans of Sherwood.

“We have the support of The Alotian Club and Mr. [Warren] Stephens from the golf point of view with the golf course and this top-notch facility,” Pellegrino said of the foundation, which receives contributions from more than 100,000 golfers, Evans alumni and the proceeds from the Western Amateur, the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship and the Web.com Tour’s Hotel Fitness Championship. “To get the support that the membership, the community, not only with volunteering, but with ticket sales and the support for the championship to benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, that really rounds out the championship and makes it truly a great tournament, not only for the players, but ultimately the beneficiary, the Evans Scholars Foundation.”

It was in 1929 that Chick Evans Jr. asked the Western Golf Association to use the money from the fund he established years earlier to send caddies to college. A year later the association awarded scholarships to two caddies to attend Northwestern, the same institution in Evanston, Ill., where Joe Evans, an economics major, and his brother Kevin, a psychology major, currently attend.

Richard and Mary Beth Evans have 13 children - eight boys and five girls. Two of their older children, Colleen and Paul, attended college on Evans Scholarships before The Alotian Club opened in 2004. Colleen, 31, graduated from Marquette University; Paul, a few years younger than Colleen, graduated from the University of Illinois.

Nine of the schools that host Evans Scholars are in the Big Ten conference. Joe Evans, 22, is a senior at Northwestern, while Kevin, 20, is a junior there.

Younger brother Tim went a different route. He’s entering his sophomore year this fall at Marquette.

“My sister going to Marquette had something to do with my decision to go there,” said Tim, 19. “Maybe it was the basketball team that took me there.”

The family grew up in Illinois before moving to Arkansas in 2008. Tim said two of his mother’s cousins earned the scholarships, plus his father had heard about the program while caddying as a teenager, long before Colleen and Paul became Evans Scholars.

“We knew other families,friends of families that had received the scholarship,” said Tim, noting that his family is not related to the scholarship’s founder. “I think it’s a great opportunity to go to college, a great avenue to get an education. Actually now being in the program, I understand way more about what the scholarship is all about.

“To be honest, I didn’t know what living with 50 other people would be like. I come from a big family, but living with 50 strangers is something you can’t really experience until you’re part of the scholarship and living in that house.”

Kevin, who is doing an internship away from the golf course this summer, said the scholarship benefits his immediate needs for the four years he is in college, but its impact will remain with him forever.

“The scholarship has been a blessing to me and my family,” he said. “I plan on remaining involved in the Evans Scholarship organization. It is a life-long commitment.”

“I always use the Spiderman analogy - with great power comes great responsibility,” Joe Evans said, quoted in the Western Amateur program. “Everyone at the Alotian Club was very welcoming to my brothers and me despite our lack of experience compared to the professional grade caddies that work at The Alotian Club year-round.”

Don’t look for Alotian’s run of Evans Scholars to end with Tim Evans. Younger brother Peter Evans, a 17-yearold senior at Central Arkansas Christian, has carried his share of bags at the club and is already preparing to remain on the path of his siblings when he is able to apply after Aug. 1.

“It’s not a guaranteed scholarship, but I will start my application process then,” said Peter, who noted Marquette and Northwestern are his first choices of schools, but Evans Scholar institutions Missouri and Oregon might get a look if he is selected by the foundation. “Years down the road I would get my children involved. It’s just a great thing to be able to gain a world of experience from and a great opportunity to be able to participate in.”

Tim Evans said it’s a running joke in the Marquette Evans House when he and the other scholars are asked if they caddie for the school’s golf team, which he admits to having no association. He calls himself “a fan of the game” and wants to focus on earning his business degree.

“I think I can learn a lot of valuable lessons, a lot of life lessons out here on the course,” he said. “I enjoy watching the people here. That’s really fun.

“I don’t think I want to be a career caddie, though.”About the Evans Scholarship

Named for Chick Evans an early star of the Western Amateur Championship who began caddying at the age of 8.

The first two Evans Scholars enrolled at Northwestern University in 1930.

More than 200 full tuition and housing scholarships are awarded each year.

835 Evans Scholars are currently enrolled at 19 universities and $12 million is spent annually on those scholarships.

The Western Golf Association has contributed more than $160 million to the program.

14 universities have Evans Scholarship houses.

Selection is based off comprehensive criteria of academics, financial need, caddie record as well as character and leadership.

Scholars are campus leaders in academic and extracurricular activities and must carry a minimum 3.25 cumulative grade point average.

Scholars have a graduation rate of 92 percent.

There are more than 9,600 Evans Scholars alumni.

SOURCE Western Golf Association