Bob Hope Highlighted in The Women's Sports Experience

HBI President Bob Hope, a new trustee of the Women's Sports Foundation and a 10-year member of that group, was spotlighted in the Winter edition of their magazine. The full text of the spotlight, which appeared along with his photograph, follows. Robert (Bob) Hope A new trustee and 10-year member of the Women's Sports Foundation, Hope is the president of Hope-Beckham Inc., an Atlanta-based public relations and event marketing company. Hope is a former vice president of both the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks and longtime member of the Braves board of directors. He founded the Colorado Silver Bullets women's professional baseball team in 1993. Hope also serves on the board of directors of the Naismith Awards, selecting college and high school basketball male and female players of the year. What do you consider to be your most significant accomplishment? I am hoping my most significant accomplishment in business or towards saving the world is ahead of me. Personally, my most significant accomplishment was the graduations of both of my daughters from college. For whatever reason, it was my overriding goal as a dad to make sure my daughters could go to whatever college they chose. Betsy went to Emory University and Clair to Tulane. I looked around me at Clair's graduation and realized I was the only person in the audience crying. It was her big day, but it was my big day too, the day of my most important accomplishment. How did you become involved with the Foundation? I got involved in 1993 when I started the Colorado Silver Bullets professional baseball team for women. I met with Donna Lopiano, and what was a curiosity became a real team. Donna saw baseball as a symbolic barrier to be broken, a sport where women had been banned from opportunity by tradition alone. She sold me on the mission of the Women's Sports Foundation, and I have been involved since.