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| Pat Williams |
Magic Senior VP PAT WILLIAMS has over 40 years experience in pro sports. A catcher in the Phillies' organization in the early 60s, he later moved into the front office, where he developed a gift for promotion and marketing. Williams joined the 76ers in '68 as business manager. A year later, at 29, he became the GM of the Bulls. He worked for the Hawks for one season before rejoining the 76ers as GM in '74 and capturing an NBA title in '83. In '86 he helped sell a winning presentation to the NBA and convinced the Orlando community to support the expansion franchise. Williams spoke recently with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. Bureau Chief Jerry Kavanagh.
Question: You appear to have a full life. Senior VP of the Magic, the married father of 19 children, including 14 who are adopted, the author of 31 books, a participant in 30 marathons and a motivational speaker. How do you fit it all in?
Williams: Time management. I get up early and stay up late. I'm sleeping less than I used to. I may grab a little 15-20 minute nap during the day, which helps me pack more in. And multi-tasking. For example, when I'm working out on the Stairmaster at home for an hour, I can read five newspapers.
Q: You pepper your books with quotes from famous people. I have a quote for you from J.M. Barrie: "Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else." Is it fair to say that sums up your approach to the job?
Williams: Yes, it is. I'm asked all the time the secret to success, and the only answer I can really give is, figure out what you love to do, and then come up with a way to get paid for it. I've been able to practice that for 42 years.
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| Sports Leagues Responded Swiftly
Following September 11 Tragedy |
Q: How important are sports in America?
Williams: The significance of sports to our country was really brought out after September 11. Major League Baseball shut down; the football games that weekend were halted. Everything ground to a halt. And, of course, we were all absolutely stunned, overwhelmed by it all, just speechless. The world of sports just stopped. What went through my mind: The heartbeat, the pulse of our country is our sports teams. That is what gives America its juice, its energy and enthusiasm for life. And we lost it. It was taken away from us because of those dreadful circumstances. But it gave me a whole new appreciation for what sports means to America, and what it means to each one of us. How valuable and important it is to us. How dependent we are on sports for our mental well-being. ... There are many reasons America is the world's greatest country, but I felt very proud in the wake of 9/11 of having spent my life in sports because of how valuable it is to people's lives, mine included.
Q: What's the best thing about working in sports?
Williams: The relationships. The people you are involved with: The coaches, the athletes, the media. You just do not meet those kinds of people in any other walk of life. I ran into a man the other day who grew up in the Philadelphia area. He was almost in tears talking about what the 1983 76ers meant to him and to his father and to his neighborhood. It was the last championship in Philadelphia, 21 years ago. This man, he's probably now in his late 30s, but he was very emotional. And that just brought back to me the power of sports.
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| Frankly, Losing Sucks |
Q: Is there a down side to working in sports?
Williams: Losing. Or put it this way: The worst thing about sports is having to play the games. You know, it would be a wonderful business if all you did was draft and trade and free agency and never had to play and find out that it doesn't always work. I'm thinking, for example, of this offseason in baseball, with so many moves, so many signings, so much excitement. About the new-look Red Sox, and ANDY PETTITTE and ROGER CLEMENS in Houston, and the Angels with all that they've done, and the Orioles. And it would be wonderful if you never had to find out if it's gonna work. Because much of the time it doesn't work.
Q: Everybody is optimistic in the offseason.
Williams: Having to play the games ruins everything. Sports Illustrated picked [the Magic] to go to the finals this year. And the next thing you know, we win opening night and then lose 19 straight. And I was thinking it was a lot more fun before the season started.
Q: What's the biggest challenge in your position?
Williams: It's always winning games and selling tickets. The best lesson I ever got in sports came from IRV KOSLOFSKY, the longtime owner of the 76ers. In the summer of 1969, after my first year with him, he said, "You've got to ask yourself two questions every minute of every day if you're gonna succeed in this business: No. 1, What are you doing right now to help the 76ers win more games. And No. 2, What are you doing to help the 76ers sell more tickets? If what you're doing doesn't fall under one of those headings, you're spinning your wheels." I've never forgotten that advice.
Q: You wrote that you were influenced early in your career by BILL VEECK, who told you, "You never have to apologize for showing people a fun time."
Williams: I never worked for Bill, but for 25 years he was a friend and a mentor and an influence on my life. Bill's bottom line was once the ball goes up or the first pitch is thrown, you have no control over what happens that day, but you can control whether people have fun. And his son, MIKE, has a mantra that he uses in all of his operations: "Fun is good."
Q: You had something of your own gift as a promoter: You sold the league on Orlando and the Orlando community on the Magic. Before that, as GM of the Bulls, attendance jumped from 3,700 to over 10,000 per game. As GM of the 76ers, you obtained DR. J from the Nets. What's been your best move?
Williams: There's no question the best move was acquiring Julius. That was a $6M deal in 1976: $3M to buy him and $3M more to sign him. A new owner, FITZ DIXON, had just bought the 76ers. I had to approach a man I hardly knew and recommend a $6M deal. Well, as it turns out, that was the turning point of our franchise in Philadelphia. We went to the Finals four times after Julius arrived and finally won it in '83. We had the best regular-season won-lost record for that decade -- the Erving decade.
Q: Why Orlando? Aside from basketball, it is not home to another professional sports franchise. Is that an advantage as the only pro game in town?
Williams: When I came here almost 18 years ago, I had an inner desire to do the one thing in sports I'd never done, and that was to start up a team from scratch, an expansion team. I thought that would be the ultimate challenge, and it turned out it was. In the summer of 1986, the NBA was thinking expansion, but no more than that. So, obviously, you have to look for an area where there's no competition. I was intrigued with central Florida, not for what it was in 1986, because at that time it wasn't all that much. But the future seemed so high. And we really called that one. There's no way to measure what has happened in central Florida in the last 20 years. Maybe the best way to put it is, if Orlando was good enough for WALT DISNEY, it was good enough for me.
Q: What about your fan base? This year you're struggling. Only two NBA teams are averaging fewer fans per game than the Magic.
Williams: When we started in 1989, it was the only show in town. Enormous reaction, even with a struggling ball club. But the building was full every night. And then SHAQ came along in '92 right as we were beginning to fade a little bit from the initial exhilaration. And the next year, PENNY HARDAWAY arrived. That carried us all the way through the 90s. So we had ten or 11 years of absolute euphoria down here. Well, reality always hits in this business. Fantasyland doesn't last all that long. We now have got to build a ball club that can compete and vie for a championship like everybody else.
Q: What went wrong with the Miracle of the WNBA? Why did that not work?
Williams: We had a few good years, and then it just didn't hit. I guess the thought was, we can get people exposed to this product and it's going to hit and it's going to keep growing. We found here that it went the other way. Our very best year was the first year, and then as the years went on, we were going the other way. We weren't building. We were not developing a fan base with it.
Q: Who's the shrewdest or most creative business exec in sports today?
Williams: JERRY COLANGELO. I've known him for a long time. I first met him in 1969. What he has done [in Arizona] is pretty remarkable. He goes there in '68 and starts a franchise [the Suns] from scratch, an expansion basketball team. He moves out of that role and becomes an owner, puts a club together and gets into ownership. Then he oversees the building of a new arena and leads the way in bringing an expansion baseball team there. Gets a ballpark built. I'm not sure there's anybody in the history of sports who's done what he's done.
Q: And if he had won a coin flip he would have been a lot smarter because he would have had KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR on his team.
Williams: NEAL WALK didn't quite get it done. But I don't think we've ever seen anybody do quite what Jerry has done, and continues to do.
Q: Who's the greatest competitor you've seen?
Williams: JERRY SLOAN. When I got to Chicago in 1969, I was 29 years old, and there I am, the GM of the Bulls. I didn't have a whole lot of resources. DICK MOTTA was the coach. Jerry Sloan was there, the anchor of the franchise. His contract was up and I signed him to a three-year deal at $60,000 a year. I was scared to death. Those were staggering dollars. But in the four years I was there I've never been around anybody like Jerry Sloan. He is so tough-minded, so faithful, so serious about what he was doing, so intense, so competitive every single minute of every single night. And so to see what he's done in coaching, this is the same Jerry Sloan that you saw as a player.
Q: Smartest player?
Williams: BILLY CUNNINGHAM. Billy had as much success off the floor as he had on it. He became a very wealthy man through his business dealings. He was a smart player. He ended up, even though he didn't coach a long time, one of the most successful coaches in NBA history, percentage-wise. Smart player, smart coach, smart businessman.
Q: Favorite sportswriter?
Williams: I'm a big BOB RYAN fan. Anything he writes is gonna be good. TOM BOSWELL in Washington. You can't go wrong with him. Here in Orlando, we have MIKE BIANCHI and DAVID WHITLEY. They can write with anybody in the country. And of course the absolute king of the writers is BILL LYON of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has a style and a grace that very few writers have.
Q: What is your greatest extravagance?
Williams: Books.
Q: Erasmus wrote, "When I have money I buy books; if I have anything left over, I buy food."
Williams: Right. I spend a lot of money on books every year. Call it an extravagance, but I call it an investment.
Q: What are you reading now, and what books have meant the most to you?
Williams: The book that affected me enormously was "Veeck As in Wreck," Bill Veeck's autobiography. I read that book and was transformed by it. It gave me direction and focus and inspired me to pursue this walk of life. I read broadly and widely. I'm reading a biography of LAURA BUSH. I read civil war history, religion, leadership books. I read probably four to five hours a day. I have books in my car and read at traffic lights. I can read probably three or four books a year just sitting at traffic lights. Everything I do is predicated on my reading: my writing, my public speaking, my interfacing with others - everything triggers off my reading.
Q: Favorite piece of music?
Williams: The William Tell overture. Never ceases to raise the hair on my head.
Q: Favorite actress?
Williams: Grace Kelly
Q: Favorite movie?
Williams: "A League of Their Own."
Q: Pet peeve?
Williams: Protective secretaries, who have to ask 15 questions about why you're calling when you're trying to speak to the boss. And my second pet peeve is companies that don't have a real person who answers the phone. I want a real voice.
Q: Do you have a favorite quote?
Williams: "The only talent is perseverance" – Sally Jesse Raphael.
