Annalee Thurston Scholarship Established at

The Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon

Family and friends of Annalee Thurston have established the Annalee Thurston Scholarship at the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon to honor the sports marketing veteran who passed away May 11 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.  The first scholarship from the endowment is expected to be awarded in 2008.  In addition to the monetary award, the scholarship recipient also will receive an internship at World TeamTennis.

The Annalee Thurston Scholarship is the first scholarship at the Warsaw Center attributed to a woman in the sports industry.  It will represent the commitment and dedication of Thurston in her years of service in sports and professional tennis and her tireless efforts to working behind the scenes for countless corporate executives and high profile athletes.  As the first university graduate sports marketing program in the country, the Warsaw Center at the Charles H. Lundquist School of Business, has graduated over 275 women and men and placed them into the sports marketing arena since its inception in 1993.

“For more than 35 years I worked with Annalee Thurston from the beginning of the sports marketing craze in the 1970s to the sophistication of the business when we entered the 21^st century,” said sports legend and social activist Billie Jean King.  “She made a difference both in the corporate arena and in her business and personal relationships.  It is a true tribute that the first scholarship at the renowned Warsaw Sports Marketing Center to honor a woman is named after Annalee because she did so much for so many of us.”

Thurston was born in 1951 in Long Beach, Calif.  She attended Long Beach Wilson High and Cal State Long Beach.  She moved to San Francisco in 1971 and was employed by King Enterprises where she promoted and marketed Virginia Slims tennis tournaments in Oakland and San Francisco and worked on the World TeamTennis Pro League.  She also was part of the marketing and promotion team for the historic 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.  

In 1984 Thurston joined Philip Morris USA where she was a senior consultant to the groundbreaking Virginia Slims Tour.  At Philip Morris she was involved with Virginia Slims event management programs at Wimbledon, the US Open, French Open, Australian Open and the International Tennis Hall of Fame and worked on the Marlboro Auto Racing event program.

Thurston moved to the Coachella Valley in Southern California in 2000, to work with the City of Indio as Special Events Coordinator and later followed as General Manager of the City of Indio Chamber of Commerce.

The University of Oregon Foundation will administer the Annalee Thurston Scholarship.  Checks should be made payable to the University of Oregon Foundation and can be mailed to:

          Annalee Thurston Scholarship

University of Oregon

Shauna Whidden, Director of Development

Lundquist College of Business

1208 University of Oregon

Eugene, Oregon 97403-1208