Northwest Wayne News

DETROIT -- Three former Wayne State football standouts—Nick Thomas (2008-2012), Tren Brodbeck (2012-2016), and Drake Reid (2019-2023)—attended last week's National Football Foundation Campbell Trophy Summit in Palo Alto, California.

The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced the attendees and speakers for the Seventh Annual Campbell Trophy® Summit, held July 25-27 at Stanford University. The event is sponsored by Intuit, known for its financial technology products such as TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp.

"The Campbell Trophy® Summit has become a powerful platform for the NFF to showcase the impact of college football in forging great leaders," said NFF Chairman Archie Manning. "We are very grateful to Intuit for their support since the Summit's inception in 2017 and to Mark Flynn for making this incredible event happen each year."

Headline speakers at the 2024 event included Sam Acho (ESPN Analyst, NFL player, and 2010 Campbell Trophy® recipient from Texas); Nikesh Arora (Palo Alto Networks CEO); Greg Johnson (Intuit executive vice president and former Air Force two-time all-conference halfback); Joe Moglia (former TD Ameritrade chairman & CEO and Coastal Carolina head coach); Brad D. Smith (Marshall University president and former Intuit Chairman & CEO); and Jeremy Utley (Stanford University Graduate School of Business professor, venture investor, and author).

Organized as a tribute to Bill Campbell, the award's namesake and former CEO of Intuit, the event serves as a platform for leaders impacted by Campbell to share insights on success, leadership, and personal growth. The 2024 event provided past Campbell Trophy® nominees with opportunities to interact with top entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley CEOs.

"Bill was absolutely passionate about football," said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. "He never took his foot off the accelerator in talking about the benefits of the game. We are thankful for Intuit's leadership in perpetuating Bill's legacy of mentoring."

Campbell played and coached football at Columbia before transitioning to business where he became an influential figure in Silicon Valley. Known as the "Coach of Silicon Valley," he mentored industry leaders including Steve Jobs of Apple; Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Sundar Pichai, Eric Schmidt of Google; Jeff Bezos of Amazon; Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins; Dick Costolo of Twitter; Diane Greene of VMware; Scott Cook and Brad D. Smith of Intuit.

MWF Advisors CEO Mark Flynn has organized the event since its inception in 2017. Flynn described Campbell’s influence: "Bill inspired us... He had us commit to mentoring this next generation."

The Summit is open to all former nominees for both the Campbell Trophy®, presented since 1990, and the NFF National Scholar-Athlete Awards since 1959. This year's 176 attendees represented 133 colleges from various divisions with careers ranging from doctors to engineers. They carried an average GPA in college of 3.68 with many holding advanced degrees.

A three-day event featuring leadership workshops, team-building activities including a flag football game, aimed at fostering leadership skills among attendees was part of this year's summit program.

Three past winners—Sam Acho (Texas), Thomas Burns (Virginia), Jim Hansen (Colorado)—and one College Football Hall-of-Famer Johnnie Johnson attended this year’s summit.

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