Bellarmine College Preparatory will recognize four distinguished alumni at its Hall of Fame ceremony the evening of August 28, 2021.
The individuals to be honored, and their respective categories, are: Jeb Ivey, Class of 1999 (Athletics); Tomás Durán, Class of 1992 (Business); Jim Beall, Class of 1970 (Public Service); and Dr. Andrew Schechtman, Class of 1985 (Science & Medicine).
Jeb Ivey ’99 was one of the most outstanding basketball players to come through Bellarmine, and his persistence and passion for the sport led him to enjoy an extremely successful 16-year professional career in Europe. Jeb earned WCAL Most Valuable Player honors as a senior and guided the Bells to the CCS title. He then played two seasons at Portland State, capturing All-Big Sky Conference honors both years. In 2002-03, he was the Vikings' leading scorer and ranked among the top free throw shooters in the nation. He still holds the school record for career free throw percentage (.937). After college, Jeb traveled overseas, where he won Icelandic league championships with Njarovik in 2006 and Snaefell in 2010 and captured a pair of Finnish League titles with Nilan Bisons Loimaa in 2012 and 2013. He was named Korisliiga Finals MVP both times, and he was also voted Korisliiga Foreign Player of the Year in 2012 after averaging 17.8 points per game. Jeb owns a Guinness World Record for tallying at least one three-point field goal in 177 consecutive professional games from September 2010 to December 2013. He retired from basketball in 2019, having played more than 500 career games, scored over 6,000 points, and dished out more than 1,500 assists. Jeb’s longevity is a testament to his humility, resiliency, and openness to growth, and it led him to develop an obligation to give back. As a result, Jeb has spent more than a decade as a coach, passing along his knowledge and experience to players ranging in age from elementary school all the way up to the professional ranks, both domestically and abroad.
Tomás Durán ’92 has devoted his career to creating opportunities and space for people from low- income communities to grow wealth for themselves and their families. He currently works for Community Health Councils, Inc. in their Social Change Institute, partnering with community leaders to build equitable systems. Tomás is also a partner at Concerned Capital, a social benefit corporation dedicated to helping private companies create and save jobs in Southern California. He and his team at CC developed the Transfer of Ownership Program, which recycles manufacturing companies by transferring ownership from retiring owners to long term employees. Over 200 jobs have been saved through the program. Tomás is a Social Entrepreneur in Residence with Common Future, a 2018 ASPEN Institute Job Quality Fellow, and a 2016 Business Alliance for Local Living Economies fellow. Guided by his faith to work for justice, he has made a career of developing creative solutions that produce jobs, redress inequity, and increase access to goods and services for working class families and communities.
Longtime public servant Jim Beall ’70 has used his status in California politics to advocate for underrepresented members of society, starting when he became the youngest person ever elected to San Jose City Council. As a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, he launched the county's Children's Health Initiative, aiming to achieve affordable and comprehensive health coverage for 154,000 low-income children while reducing public medical costs. As a California Assemblyman, Jim worked tirelessly to make programs more efficient and effective. He partnered with food banks to pry forgotten funds from an overlooked state emergency account and buy thousands of pounds of food to feed the hungry. He worked to establish jobs and transitional housing for emancipated foster care youth and made it easier for financially beleaguered foster care parents to keep their homes open. Jim secured millions in funding over the past two decades for day care centers, parks, hospitals, and to preserve open space. In the State Senate, Jim worked to improve regional transportation, increase educational funding, and support foster youth. As chair of the Senate Transportation committee, Jim spearheaded a bipartisan initiative to address the $59 billion backlog in deferred maintenance for roads. He worked on dozens of pieces of legislation, authoring bills to allow youth in foster care to stay with their families through their college years, improve California’s air quality, protect farm workers, improve access to mental health treatment, and provide long-term funding for the Cap & Trade program, among many others.
A beloved family medicine physician, Dr. Andrew Schechtman ’85 serves as Associate Director of the Stanford Health Care - O’Connor Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program. He currently spends his days treating patients ranging in age from newborns to 90-year-olds, as well as teaching and training the next generation of physicians. But it is his devotion to serving people in need all over the world that truly makes him a man for and with others. After studying Tropical Medicine and Traveler’s Health at Tulane University, Dr. Schechtman worked with Project USA in North and South Dakota on American Indian reservations in 1997 and 1998, before traveling abroad to assist with Hurricane Mitch Relief Effort in Guatemala. He then earned a certification in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Traveler’s Health before spending two years working with Doctors Without Borders treating families in war-torn regions of Uganda and Liberia in 2002 and 2003. Most recently, he took a year-long clinical sabbatical with his family to the Amazonian jungles of Peru in 2017 to serve the local population.
The Hall of Fame inductions will occur on the Bellarmine campus, with the awards ceremony taking place at 5 p.m. in the Main Stage Theatre of the Sobrato Center for Humanities and the Arts, followed by a dinner in the Samuel A. Liccardo Center. Tickets are available online at: https://www.bcp.org/bhof