Williams College Gaudino Dialogue To Feature Former Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent
WILLIAMSTOWN - "Failing to Succeed" is the first of four Gaudino Dialogues, unscripted interviews featuring successful, well-known Williams College alumni. Each will discuss failure, creativity, and triumph.The first speaker is Fay Vincent '60. The event is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 15, at 8 p.m. in the MainStage of the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance on the Williams campus. The event is free, but tickets are required. Reservations at 413-597-2425, Tuesday-Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. Tickets also available at the theatre one hour before the event.
Following Vincent's graduation from Williams College in 1960 and Yale Law School in 1963, he joined the Washington, D.C. law firm Caplin and Drysdale, where he specialized in corporate, banking and securities matters from 1968 to 1978. He also served in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as an associate director of the Division of Corporate Finance.
In 1978, Vincent became the chairman of Columbia Pictures and in 1982 the vice-chairman of Coca-Cola. He was promoted to executive vice president of Coca-Cola before becoming the 8th commissioner of Major League Baseball in 1989 and serving until 1992. He joined Major League Baseball as deputy commissioner under A. Bartlett Giamatti. After stepping down from the commissioner's office, Vincent became president of the New England Collegiate Baseball League and served from 1998 to 2003.
Vincent's tenure as commissioner of baseball saw a number of events and controversies. He presided over the 1989 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, which was interrupted by the Loma Prieta Earthquake in San Francisco. During the 1990 lockout, caused by controversy over salary caps, Vincent was able to broker an agreement ending the 32-game lockout. He also banned fellow Williams alumnus George Steinbrenner from baseball for life, but Steinbrenner was eventually reinstated.
The event is made available with the support of The Robert L. Gaudino Memorial Fund, whose programs complement the primary objectives of the college's educational mission: promoting active learning, combating fragmentation of knowledge, and assembling an open community of learning characterized by integrity, mutual respect, and rigorous intellectual endeavor.
This fall, Professor of Mathematics Edward B. Burger, as the college's Gaudino Scholar, is offering the first interdisciplinary Gaudino course on the process of creating. In addition, he has developed this series of dialogues of life stories.
"My hope is that these wonderful alumni will inspire all of us to take more risks and actively try to be more creative in our everyday lives," Burger said in announcing the series. The next event is scheduled for October 21.
