The setting for Sports Law Society's annual conference was perfect - the End Zone VIP Club at Qualcomm Stadium, where large action-photos of Chargers All-Pros watched over the Sunday morning event from every wall.

First up, Ky Snyder, the Athletic Director at University of San Diego,

Ky Snyder

who's on a roll. His Toreros Men's Basketball team had just pulled off a major upset in the NCAA Tournament by defeating UConn, before losing a hard-fought game to Western Kentucky. And one of his crowning career achievements was heading the Super Bowl XXXVII Host Committee in San Diego. To say the least, Snyder has a successful track record in managing sports events.

"If I can't instill anything else in this talk, I think you should "know your numbers, know your numbers, know your numbers," Snyder told the audience.

Snyder is not just a sports executive, but a master event-planner as well. He thinks creativity is also important - especially to "position your own strengths to play against their weaknesses."

He told the story of San Diego's presentation to the NFL owners when the city was trying to woo them to play the game here instead of New Orleans.

His creative inspiration was to turn the meeting room into a San Diego beach, complete with palm trees to show that it could be played "outdoors, under the sun, on grass - the way the game was meant to be played."

Game. Set. Match. San Diego won out.

"We're all here because we have a passion for sports," said Tracy Lamb, the director of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, who was up next. His passion began as a kid growing up Lake Placid, New York, where his father Vernon was on the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee

Tracy Lamb

Lamb is also the former coach of the U.S. Olympic Biathlon team, a sport he describes as "cross-country skiing carrying a rifle on your back. - something great enough to learn and dumb enough to do."

He is a champion of amateur athletics - especially the amateur athlete's right to compete. And he thinks that the law students in the audience can be part of the movement.

"It's a changing world for amateur athletes," Lamb said. "It needs good people. It needs brilliant young people to help them (amateur athletes) get stronger. It needs people who have a vision...so please take a look at this movement.""

Robert Colosia is also a Thomas Jefferson graduate, and a sports agent to professional soccer players. He opened a lot of eyes with his presentation - and gave some wonderful advice to other would be sports agents: "Don't allow your athlete to pay your fee after he gets his pay."

Robert Colosia

Colosia spoke of the rough and tumble world of scavengers and scam-artists that he has to fend off in doing his job in an ethical manner. His message: Client control is all- important, and the best way to do that is to "get them under contract."

Colosia told the audience that it's not as easy as it sounds, with so many non-registered agents fighting to represent soccer players internationally.

After he told a few real-life horror stories from his own experiences, Colosia said "this is the real world."

"There's no such thing as sports law," said Randy Grossman, who was next up. "It's really sports and the law," defining his area of practice.

Grossman (TJSL ‘94) is a well known sports agent and adjunct professor at Thomas Jefferson. He talked about how he broke into the

Randy Grossman

profession - first working at the Garvey Marketing Group, founded by former Padre and Dodger, Steve Garvey. His advice: "Get a player! Find a client - someone on a team's 40-man roster."

Batting fifth was keynote speaker Tim Purpura (TJSL ‘91), the CEO of Minor League Baseball who said that in his days as a Thomas Jefferson student, there were only four students in his contract law class - which meant he had to "brief every fourth case," which got a huge laugh out of the students in the audience.

Some of the best career advice Purpura says he got was from one of his mentors, former Baltimore Orioles General Manager Roland Hemond gave him: "Go to law school - someday lawyers are going to run the game. And he was right."

"A law degree will serve you well" in the sports world, said Purpura. "The analytical reasoning you learn in law school is a huge part of what

Tim Purpura

helped me progress as a professional."

His goal was to be a major league general manager - a goal he finally realized when he became the GM of the Houston Astros. Purpura, who was fired after the 2007 as the Astros GM jokes about it now. He says three of his friends who were also GM's sent him a copy of the book "I Got Fired and It's the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me." Of course, Purpura says: "It was too soon if you ask me."

One of the most important parts of an MLB general manager's job is negotiating contracts, and Purpura dispensed some advice on how to be an effective negotiator if you are representing a player: "Know your player's performance inside and out. Be prepared. Know your opponent. Understand where the leverage is in the situation. Know your deal points. There's not much to negotiating contracts because they are standard.  It's negotiating numbers that is the real art."

Top-notch advice from a top-notch line-up of speakers.