Pat Hickey
| Memo from the Middle
The 2025 American Century Championship at Edgewood Tahoe
Fans enjoy the lakeside atmosphere during the American Century Championship at Edgewood Tahoe on July 10, 2025.
For the past 36 years, both everyday Americans and many of their favorite celebrities have gathered at Edgewood Tahoe Resort in July to gaze and mingle with each other.
Summer is officially declared at the lake when speedboats full of swimsuit-clad gawkers and beer-guzzlers lay anchored off the 17th hole hoping to be thrown a pass from their favorite NFL quarterback or retrieve an air ball from a beloved NBA three-point shooter like Steph Curry.
America’s year-round blue and green playground is the perfect setting for celebrity glitz and Americana normal to meet up and enjoy each other’s company.
Fans wearing their favorite team’s gear don’t mind camping at nearby Nevada Beach in their tents and trailers, even when the players are staying at the Edgewood Lodge or private residences in what the Abbi Agency of Reno has described as “luxury beyond limits.”
In fact, there are few limits die-hard fans won’t do to get noticed and secure an autograph from their favorite star. Waiting on Edgewood’s 14th tee, the Egge family from Sacramento are decked out in their best Buffalo Bills blue and red gear in hopes of once again making a connection with their beloved Bills QB, Josh Allen.
Mom Amy tells me the family comes every year to the American Century Championship Tournament.
“Tahoe has a special place in our hearts,” she told me. “We got married here on the lake. We are a sports family, and especially are excited to see our guy, Josh Allen.”
Their sports-playing kids have managed to get the Bills star’s autograph every year they have attended. Dad Derek said, “It’s great to give our kids the chance to see all the athletes (and others) up close and personal.”
Why are we fascinated with celebrities?
Dr. Paul Harrison from Deakin University’s Faculty of Business and Law is an expert in consumer behavior and culture. Harrison believes our obsession and interest in celebrities is driven by our human instinct to follow or look up to an authority figure.
“What celebrities have done is replace authority figures like kings and queens or religious leaders,” he said. “Everything is about seeking a better life and a desperate desire not to be ignored or forgotten, so we look to celebrities to help guide us on how to achieve something akin to their lives. We know that we’re not the same, but we also have to believe that what they have achieved is only just out of our reach.”
Psychology and idealized lifestyles aside, I think it also boils down to the fact that people are social creatures and we want to feel a close connection to those we’d admire — and those who we admire (celebrities, etc.) also benefit from feeling closeness and kinship with those that do the admiring.
I waited around that same 14th green with my two grandsons visiting from Atlanta — and when they weren’t wrestling and generally horsing around, they were happy to see stars they had seen on TV and the movies. One of this year’s celebrity golfers was Hollywood actor Miles Teller, who was one of 200 actors who auditioned for the part of “Rooster” in the latest Tom Cruise saga, “Top Gun: Maverick.” He came over and posed for a photo with the two young men. They’re not old enough yet to be permitted to see the latest installment in American bravado, but the boys’ mother was delighted. The day will no doubt come when they see the Hollywood heartthrob’s movies before rushing to tell their friends at school about their chance meeting with the kind actor.
Celebrities, like all of us, need affirmation as well — especially from the more normal of us, which most of them once were before our infatuation with their stardom became an obsession all too often for both of us.
American author John Updike, who chronicled the lives of a “middle class everyman” in novels like “Rabbit Run,” pulled back the veil on celebrityhood by reminding those that have it bestowed upon them that “celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.”
Luckily, most of Edgewood’s perennial celebrity participants are like NBA great Charles Barkley — his face is usually smiling. The fan favorite with a wickedly bad golf swing even shot his best round of golf ever at this year’s tournament. His authenticity has made him a beloved celebrity with just about every man, woman and child that comes into contact with the legendary Sir Charles.
Build it and they will come
For regular readers of “Memo from the Middle,” or my memoir, “Tahoe Boy,” you will remember that my Irish aunt, Maggie Hickey, married into the Park family that owns and operates Edgewood. I have fond memories of the once-ranchland that Park Cattle Co. occupied in summers and where I caught tadpoles and fished for brook trout in the ponds that Charles Barkley used to slice his wayward tee shots into.
Brooks, the Park family patriarch and the namesake of the Edgewood Clubhouse bar, was a rancher with a work ethic and a vision to turn Edgewood’s meadows into a world-class golfing resort. His famed mantra of “putting your head down and your butt up to work” resulted in a successful ranching legacy. But more importantly for the 70,000-plus attendees who come to revel in one of Lake Tahoe’s most beautifully designed recreation opportunities, that mantra gave him the vision of building a way for future generations to enjoy (with or without celebrities in attendance). It was a great reward to him while he still lived, and the countless beneficiaries of his innovation in building something we all enjoy coming to.
Everyone wants that connection
Mark Twain was correct to call Lake Tahoe “the fairest picture the world affords.” It’s hard for people to stay away. That’s always been the case. The Washoe people are the original inhabitants of the Lake Tahoe region, which they call Da-ow-a-ga. Their history and culture are deeply intertwined with the lake, which they consider a sacred and life-sustaining entity. The Washoe have lived in the Lake Tahoe Basin for thousands of years, and the area remains their most sacred place.
Thousands of years later, events at Lake Tahoe continue to “sell out.” Hall of famers, comedians, actors, musicians, media personalities and even fans from Sacramento and elsewhere flock to it shores in summertime for what I recalled from my youth in Tahoe Boy:
“And if this world is all there is, then, we are no less indebted to our sources. But if eternity doers await us on the other side of this life, then we’ll enter as mere babes in the woods with forever to find just over the next horizon, our beloved Tahoe.”
We and a number of celebrities and fans. Neither of those titles matter compared to the awe of the blue legacy so many of us feel running through our veins.
Your Tahoe thoughts? Email me at tahoeboy68@gmail.com.
“Memo from the Middle” is an opinion column written by RGJ columnist Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada Legislature from 1996 to 2016.