When Charlotte businessman Mike Pruitt thinks about Coastal, the first thing that comes into his mind is baseball. A native of Bel Air, Md., Pruitt enrolled at Coastal in 1981 after he was recruited for the Chanticleer baseball team by former head coach Larry Carr. A standout hitter, Pruitt was a key player until his graduation in 1984, a memorable period during which the Chants went to three NCAA Championships.

So it seems natural that when Pruitt, a business major who has built a highly successful career as an executive and entrepreneur, decided to make a contribution to CCU, baseball would be the recipient. The first of his many acts of generosity to the baseball program was to endow a scholarship in memory of his former teammate Kenny Tomko, who died in 1999. His other baseball gifts range from donating stock from one of his companies for the construction of a clubhouse to purchasing uniforms for the team.

"But it occurred to me," says Pruitt, "that the reason I am in a position to help out the baseball program is because I've been fortunate in business." In 2002, Pruitt began to have discussions with his former Coastal finance professor, Gerry Boyles, on an innovative idea that would allow him to give something back to the academic program that has been such a primal element in his successful career.

On June 1, 2005, after three years of planning, Chanticleer Holdings opened for business. A small-cap mutual fund and investment firm, publicly traded as CEEH, Chanticleer Holdings is also serving as a real-world laboratory for students in the investment class taught by Boyles in Coastal's E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration. The business plan for the new Charlotte-based company was inspired by the investment philosophy of Warren Buffett, whose long-term, value-based strategy is esteemed by both Boyles and Pruitt. The small firm is run by Pruitt and a small staff of analysts and managers, including three recent Coastal graduates, Joe Koster, Matt Miller and Alexander Klaus.

Traditionally, up until this spring, students in Boyles' classes got excellent textbook training in the art and science of investing, but when it came to researching and selecting stocks, their portfolios were essentially hypothetical academic exercises purchased with "play money." All that changed with the spring semester of 2006 when Chanticleer Holdings got involved, giving the class an invigorating dose of realism.

According to the new course structure, Koster and Miller, both May 2005 finance graduates and former Wall Fellows, visit the class early in the semester and talk to the students about the company's approach to investing. "We don't focus on short term gains," says Miller. "Mike tells us: 'Value investors can sleep at night.' "They share their research reports with the students in the class and explain their methodology. Then, after detailed textbook coverage of the subject, students in the class divide into groups and begin evaluating specific companies and selecting stocks. Each group produces a white paper justifying its recommendations and submits it to an investment committee formed by Chanticleer Holdings including Pruitt, Koster, Miller and others. The committee will critique the students' investment proposals, and, if he is sufficiently persuaded by their arguments, Pruitt will authorize purchase of the stocks for Chanticleer Holdings.

"This integration of the real world and the academic world will certainly make the investment classes more realistic," says Boyles, Coastal's longtime professor of finance, who commends Pruitt for his personal willingness to take a professional risk in order to give Coastal business students a higher level of experience. "It will really hold the students' feet to the fire, knowing that real money will be made--and maybe lost--on the basis of their work."

Pruitt says he hopes to build on the program, placing interns from the Wall College of Business at Chanticleer Holdings to work and learn the investment business. His position in the corporate world has given Pruitt a keen understanding of the reciprocal relationship between business, philanthropy and education. For a university like Coastal to fulfill its mission of education, enlightenment and public service, it will need private capital on a continuous basis, particularly in an era of declining public funds. "It is vital," Pruitt says, "for Coastal to graduate kids who can make money."

The sky's the limit: Pruitt (center) with Coastal alumni Matt Miller and Joe Koster, the principal management team of Chanticleer Holdings.

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