The Banks family of New Berlin is honoring their late son, Owen Robert “Bubba” Banks with the 16th annual Bubba Bowl, Saturday, Aug. 25 at the Oneonta Country Club.
The 18-hole golf tournament and dinner will feature celebrity guest, New York Giants player and Super Bowl champion, Plaxico Burress. The dinner portion of the fundraiser includes a meet-and-greet with Burress, celebrity photo-op and an interview of Burress by local sports broadcaster Eric Malinowski.
Kelly Banks said she and husband, Brian, began the tournament informally as a way to memorialize their son.
“In 2008, we lost our son,” she said. “He was 15 months old and we were huge Giants fans and our daughter was 2. It actually started in Walton, where we both grew up, but we started the foundation to keep his memory alive for her. We said, ‘She’s 2,’ and our thought process was, we want a way for her to remember him and not only in pictures. So, we said, ‘Let’s have a flag football tournament with a bunch of our friends,’ and everybody just came down and we did that for 10 years and everybody looked forward to it.
“After 10 years of doing that and raising money and giving money to local people in need — and we do scholarships in Walton and UV, because that’s where our kids go to school — my husband basically said, ‘We can’t play football anymore, we’re getting old,’” Banks continued. “We’re also golfers, so he said, ‘What about a golf tournament?’ And it was, ‘Let’s not just do a golf tournament, but let’s bring a player up from (the Giants).’ So, you can play 18 holes of golf, then you come in and have dinner at the Oneonta Country Club and you meet the guy, get an autograph and get a picture with him and then we have an interview. This year we have Plaxico Burress and he’s a pretty big deal; we’re pretty excited about it.”
Previous guests have included David Tyree, Stephen Baker, Ahmad Bradshaw and others.
Banks said attendees can come to the dinner portion of the event only, and it is open to the public. While tickets can be reserved, Banks said, she also welcomes day-of attendees. For golf and dinner, the cost is $175 per person; the dinner package alone is $125.
“We usually have between 60 and 75 people … and we’ve met new people every single year,” she said. “We’ve had people from New Hampshire and, because of where we’re located, we have (attendees from) Walton, Binghamton, Utica and Oneonta. And, because we have the Giants connections, we have friends in New Jersey and New York City that come up, so it’s a spread and it’s great.”
Banks said the entirety of funds raised, excepting what’s paid out to the celebrity guest, benefit local recipients.
“We used to dedicate the money to a single person … and we’ve done that a few times,” she said. “But, we’ve kind of learned that people just need money throughout the year, so for our upcoming (event), there’s no recipient. As much as it is nice to dedicate it to one person, it’s also nice to spread it out.
“I do (holiday) stockings for parents who hit me up and say they’re having a tough time,” Banks continued. “And I do things around Easter. We understand that people fall on hard times or lose a parent or anything like that, so there’s no stipulation of who gets the money and, even the scholarships, a lot of times we end up giving them to people who have helped us in some way in the last 16 years, but we also know who needs it and, often times, it’s the only scholarship they’re getting.”
Banks credited area business and individual sponsors with keeping the tournament strong. Planning, she said, begins about two months beforehand, though donations can be made to the Owen Banks Memorial Fund any time.
“It doesn’t have to be just at Bubba Bowl, but this is our big event and the one we raise the most at,” she said, noting that the family also does sports-themed auctions and raffles throughout the year. “We’ve probably given away, in 16 years, over $30,000, if not more than that, but we don’t really have a (benchmark) number; we just try to give away as much as we can.”
For more information on this year’s Bubba Bowl, or to register or donate, find “Owen Banks Memorial Fund” on Facebook. Also, contact Kelly Banks at 607-372-5267.