One day in December 1998, a young attorney in Oakland named John Protopappas got a phone call from his friend Jack McAboy, who said, “I just want you to know that you’ve been nominated and voted into a very special club, the 100 Club.”
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“That’s great,” said Protopappas. “But what’s the 100 Club?”
“It’s a group of dedicated community leaders who excel in their respective fields and careers but also give to the community,” McAboy told him.
“I’m honored,” said Protopappas. “What do I do now?”
“Get out your checkbook, write a check for $500, and show up on the first Monday in February. And wear a tuxedo. We only meet once a year at a formal dinner, and we donate all the proceeds to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Oakland.”
The 100 Club was the brainchild of Bill Linn, a prominent Oakland businessman who met with some of his friends in June 1945 and founded a club that would be limited to 100 men — hence its name — and dedicated to giving back to the community, especially its young people.
The annual dues would be $100. Multiply that by 100, and it comes to $10,000, which was serious money in those days. The dues have been raised many times since then — the current levy is $700 — but many members give much more than that.
“Our target these days is $50,000 per year to give to the Boys and Girls Clubs,” says Mark Epstein, the group’s current president.
The first dinner was held Dec. 3, 1945, at downtown Oakland’s Leamington Hotel on Franklin Street. The chef who was recruited for the occasion had formerly worked for Italy’s Queen Marguerite, and the menu was the same as it is today: steak (usually something fancy like filet mignon or ribeye) and potatoes with salad and other veggies on the side, washed down with fine wines.
Linn and his family were killed in a private plane crash the following year, though, and the dinner was canceled. However, it returned the next year and has been held on February’s first Monday every year since but one — 2021, when it was canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic measures.
“But we still raised the money for the kids anyway (that year),” says Epstein.
It’s a movable feast, held at a different site each year, including the Bohemian Club, the Mark Hopkins and Fairmont hotels in San Francisco, the Claremont Country Club, the Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley’s Morrison Library, the University Club at Cal’s Memorial Stadium and at two Julia Morgan masterpieces: the Berkeley City Club and Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes.
I think the dinner everyone remembers most was the one in 2018, though, when it was held at the Oakland Zoo, courtesy of the zoo’s president and chief executive officer for almost four decades, Dr. Joel Parrott, who now sits on the 100 Club’s board of directors.
“The room where we held the cocktail party before the dinner is right next to the grizzly bear exhibit, and the two are separated by a large glass window,” recalls McAboy. “The bears came right up to the glass, stood up straight and stared at us, and we stared at them, and it was hard to tell who was more interested.
“Let me tell you, when you’re looking at a 9-foot-tall bear that’s looking back at you only 18 inches away, it’s quite a sight.”
However, the most historic dinner was the one in 2015, when the club finally admitted its first women members: Carla Betts and Betsy Biern, who are now on the club’s board of directors. The door opened even wider the following year, when 16 new members were inducted and 12 of them were women, including C.J. Hirschfield, the former executive director at Children’s Fairyland.
“I was so excited, I went out and bought a brand-new, beautiful red dress for the occasion,” Hirschfield recalls. “When the band came out to play, the singer was wearing the exact same dress. I was getting texts all night from other people in the room.”
“Letting women in was one of the best things that ever happened to the 100 Club,” says Parrott. “They brought so much energy and so much talent — it’s been great!”
P.S.: The Oakland Boys and Girls Clubs — there are three of them: one on High Street, one on 24th Street and one on International Boulevard — have a rich history of their own, producing such luminaries as Bill Russell, Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, Dave Stewart, Vada Pinson and Marshawn Lynch plus a lot of people who aren’t as famous but went on to become real pillars of the community in their own right.
Martin Snapp can be reached at catman442@comcast.net.