Pub. 11 2016-2017 Issue 2

July/August 2016 27 Extraordinary Service for Extraordinary Members. basketball, and football. He played minor league baseball for the Dallas Steers in 1938 and the Youngstown Browns in 1939. That same year, Amen returned to assist Nebraska football coach Biff Jones and to serve as assistant basketball coach. Then, West Point called in 1943. Amen assistedwith coach- ing football for the United States Military Academy and also was the head baseball coach. Amen was a founding member of the American Baseball Coaches Association, serving as its president. His reputation for leadership and winning teams led to the position of head football coach for Wake Forest University in 1956. While there, Amenwas named the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Coach of the Year in 1956, and again in 1959. Having earned numerous sports accolades, banking became his next challenge. Amen joined Wachovia Bank in Charlotte, N.C., where he rose to the position of vice president. Nebraska’s “Good Life” called him home in 1967 to the largest financial power in Lincoln, First Commerce Banc- shares Inc., whose main subsidiary was the National Bank of Commerce (NBC). Amen was named president. By 1968, NBC joined other banks to offer aMaster Charge (nowMasterCard) credit card. The bank expanded to travel services, and other financial institutions and services were added to the brand. Also under Amen’s leadership, a modern I.M. Pei-designed financial services building was erected as the new headquar- ters at 13th & O Streets in 1976. By 1979, then-Governor Charles Thone asked Amen to serve as director of the Nebraska Department of Banking. Quoted in a June 4, 2005, Lincoln Journal Star article, Thone said, “I thought he was ideally suited for the regulatory func- tion. He had great principles, honesty and competency.” Amen would have been 100 years old this year. His story of accomplishments reflects our shared values. Upon Amen’s death in 2005, his daughter Karen Amen said in that same article, “My father’s life was his. But, it was also a tribute to what the state of Nebraska provided the first immigrants and what the state of Nebraska provided in education, in resources, in caring, and in community support.” Nebraska banker and sports legend Paul Amen built dis- tinguished careers in both fields with those values.  Penny Rafferty Hamilton, Ph.D. is a former Lincoln, Neb., resident and University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate, earning aMaster of Arts in 1978 and Ph.D. in 1981. Hamilton is a 2015 Nebraska Alumni Association Achievement Award recipient and an award-winning journalist and author. She now lives over beautiful Lake Granby, Colo. She writes almost daily from the desk that once belonged to Paul Amen when he was president of National Bank of Commerce in Lincoln. Learn more about the author at www.pennyhamilton. com. You also may reach her at PO Box 2001, Granby CO 80446, 970-887- 2101 (home), 970-531-0803 (mobile), or drpenny.hamilton@gmail.com.