Williams Making Magic in Orlando

Executive has brought team a long way since 1986

Magic executive Pat Williams celebrates winning the 2004 NBA Draft Lottery. With the No. 1 pick, Orlando selected current superstar Dwight Howard. (Steve Freeman/NBAE/Getty Images)

Wondering how the Magic came to be in Orlando? Look no further than Pat Williams, the current Senior Vice-President of the team. Williams spearheaded the group that brought NBA basketball to Central Florida in the mid-'80s and he still plays a vital role with the team today.

But Williams has been involved in sports for much longer than that. In fact, the Philadephia-born, Delaware-raised executive has over 46 years of pro sports experience to his credit. After a successful four years as a college baseball player at Wake Forest, he spent two seasons catching in the Phillies organization. He then headed for the franchise's front office, spending time with the Miami Marlins in the Florida State League and moving from general manager to team president in Spartanburg, S.C.

He made the move to basketball in 1968, becoming the business manager with the Philadelphia 76ers before taking over as the Chicago Bulls' general manager the following year. He stayed with the Bulls until 1973, when he left to become the GM of the Atlanta Hawks. After one season, though, he returned to his hometown of Philly, where he was hired as the 76ers' GM. He spent 12 seasons with the franchise, helping to lead them to the 1983 NBA title.

Shortly thereafter, though, he was back in Orlando, running the Twins' double-A team, working to make the city's NBA dream come true. As Williams is perhaps best known for his promotional and marketing wizardry – he is also considered one of the sports world's top motivational speakers – it's no wonder that the NBA came calling.

FanAwards.com spoke recently with the 68-year-old Williams to understand what it took to bring a major-league franchise to Central Florida, what goes into making his biggest decisions and what the reaction might be to his latest book.

FAN: In recent years, you've made your name in basketball, most notably with with the Sixers and Magic. But baseball was you first love and the sport in which you really got started. Which was your favorite sport as a kid growing up in Wilmington, Del.?

Williams: I played all three. I loved football, basketball and baseball. But I had the most success in baseball as a player through high school. But I was quarterback of the football team, too, and we were undefeated by last two seasons there. But I was a catcher and baseball was really my love. I went to Wake Forest and caught for the Wake team for four years. And that segued into my start in the minors 47 years ago this June. I got an opportunity to play two years as a minor league catcher in the Phillies organization, both years with Miami in the Florida State League. And that was such a wonderful foundational piece to understand and get some experience with the life of a professional athlete.

FAN: What did you like most about being involved in sports growing up? Was it about being with your friends? Was it the competition? What drove you to be a successful player at that point?

Williams: All of us in life have to find our passion. We all have to find out what our purpose in life is, and the younger you can do that, the better. My dad took me to my first baseball game when I was seven years old. It was at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The old Philadelphia A's played the Cleveland Indians in a double-header on a Sunday afternoon. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was absolutely captured and riveted by the sights and sounds and the smell and the color of baseball. It was an instantaneous reaction.

I think that kind of thing happens to all of us at one point or another. And it can happen in the field of art or history, music or sports. I think we're all exposed to something early on that bites us. And in this case, it was baseball that bit me.

Later, the basketball bug bit me when I went to my first college double-header at The Palestra in Philly when I was in the eighth grade. That's when my love affair with basketball started.

But this is a good lesson in parenting or grandparenting: Expose those youngsters to the great things in life as early as you possibly can and see what bites them.

FAN: After spending seven years in the Phillies organization, you got involved with basketball for a while, but went back to baseball to run a team in the Twins organization for a little while. What did you learn about sports during that period?

Williams: The Twins were just an appendage to my life. I moved to Orlando back in '86 to help start up the Magic. But in 1990, we bought the Twins double-A club here (in Orlando). We were trying to get territorial rights to make a push for Major League Baseball to come to Orlando. We owned and operated the double-A club here for three seasons (1990-1992). We had a wonderful time and I enjoyed it immensely because it allowed me to get back into my original sport. We had great fun.

But I was basically overseeing the Magic and the minor-league baseball club at the same time. Those were hectic years... but we were pushing hard to convince Major League Baseball that Orlando had a future as a baseball city. But we lost out on both occasions in the '90s, first to Miami (with the Marlins) and later to Tampa Bay (the Rays). I still think that Orlando would have been the best spot (for baseball) in Florida.

FAN: Do you think there's a shot of landing a team in Orlando if and when MLB expands again?

Williams: No, I think having two franchises in Florida is the extent of it.

FAN: So now you're the Senior Vice-President of Magic. But you started off as the general manager and played an enormous role in co-founding the team back in 1986. How do you co-found an NBA franchise? What goes into the process of creating a big-time sports team?

Williams: Timing was everything. At the time, the NBA was beginning to listen to discussions about the whole expansion idea. And that doesn't happen very often. So when we started up in June of '86, there were also stirrings in other cities, like Minneapolis, Charlotte, Miami, Toronto and Southern California. So we first had to prove to the community here that they could do it. Then we had to go sell our strengths and minimize our weaknesses to the NBA owners and the Commissioner's office. It was a massive undertaking.

So we started in June of '86 and we had 10 months until the final owners' meeting in New York in April of '87, when they made their decision. We had no idea what was going to happen. But from that meeting came the shocking news that they were going to take all four of us (Miami and Charlotte in the 1988-89 season; Orlando and Minneapolis the following year). We didn't know if they were going to take any of us! But they did.

And they were dangling a $32.5 million entry fee (to allow a team from the city to join the NBA), which seemed like the most money in the world at the time, so the NBA owners must have felt like "If we can get four of those puppies into our coffers (a total of $130 million), let's go for all four cities." That was a historic day in NBA history. And it was certainly a historic day here in Central Florida, because it introduced this community to major league sports.

FAN: What were you looking to build in Orlando? Why put so much time and effort into bringing an NBA franchise to the city?

Williams: I don’t think you can really function as a full-bore community without big-league sports. A professional team like that provides the community with a rallying point. It stands as the spirit of the community. It energizes people. So I think that's the heart and soul of any community and we saw Orlando as a wide-open territory, a growing area and the No. 1 tourist destination in the world. But they'd never had big-league sports. It was probably one of the last regions in the United States of America that was virgin territory like that. That was the appeal to me.

I also liked the fact that you can wear Hawaiian shirts here year-round… that appealed to me also (laughs).

FAN: What do you think of Orlando as a pro sports town? How have the people in Orlando embraced the Magic over the last 23 years?

Williams: There's no question. The people here gave birth to this team. They played a part in the whole thing from the beginning and helped us start it from scratch and really made it possible. They're the ones who made it happen. Without their commitment, without them locking in season tickets, without the businesses and political leaders who helped the arena get built, none of this would have happened.

And now that we've hit the 20-year mark, there's the feeling that we conceived that child and brought it into the world. By this point, we've helped the child through its adolescence. And now, the team is... oh, about a junior in college. I think that's how the community views it. We've come through a lot, but there's still a little ways to go.

We've also been very good neighbors. We've done a lot of giving back in this community. We've done everything we can to make a difference in people's lives through the power of sports and you can't put a price tag on that.

FAN: In your career as an NBA executive, you've traded Pete Maravich, traded for Julius Erving, Moses Malone and Penny Hardaway, and drafted familiar names like Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal and Dwight Howard. How do you make major decisions like these? Is it simply you making these deals and drafting these players?

Williams: I've always leaned very heavily on the people around me, like my coaching staff and the scouts. This business is so big and comprehensive that you have to have good people around you. We've done well in the draft, but we haven't hit every one of them. But we've hit enough of 'em. So the key is having good people around you and letting them do their job. At the end of the day, in this profession, you can't do it without talent. And you have to lean on your scouts. If you scout well and draft well, you're going to have success in this business. That's easier said than done, but there are no short-cuts. Yes, we're in the era of computers and high-tech philosophies, but you have to get out and see the players. It's all about putting a dollar sign on the muscle and evaluating players. But yes, I've been involved with some of basketball's most fascinating names and it has been a privilege.

FAN: What has been your favorite moment as a member of the Magic front office?

Williams: To me, that moment was when we received word from the NBA that we were birthed and that we were going to see the light of day. And there was no assurance of that ever happening. I moved down here from Philadelphia with my family and six children with no guarantees of anything. So when the word officially came from the league, it meant that I could finally unpack my suitcase. It meant we could enroll the kids in school. That was the ultimate, I think. It was the biggest challenge in the world, to go out and try to sell this project. So to have the NBA buy into it was just thrilling for our community. So many people had given so much and it was exciting to see how joyful they were.

Now if we come along and win an NBA championship one of these years, I may have to revise my statement (laughs). I'd like to keep that open. But for now, I'll stick with what I said.

FAN: What do you want Magic fans to say about you when you eventually leave your position with the team?

Williams: I will leave this organization when they cart me out on a gurney. I will never retire.

I think I want them to view me as a difference-maker. That I was a dreamer and a visionary. That I had the ability and the means to put shoe leather to those dreams and turn them into reality. That I was a leader. That I tried to live my life the right way. And that I wanted to leave an imprint.

FAN: Listening to you talk about your team and your career, it's no surprise to hear that you've come to have a very successful side career as a motivational speaker, speaking to groups both large and small at different corporations and meetings across the country. What do you talk about?

Williams: When I speak, it's typically in one of three areas: leadership, teamwork or personal improvement -- which we also call "victorious living" or "maximum living." It all depends on what the people in the group need and what they want me to do.

FAN: You've also written over 50 books, including your latest title, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inside Basketball. How did you come to compile this latest work?

Williams: Yes, that's book No. 54. It came out recently. And I'm now officially a Chicken Soup author. It's 116 stories that touch the heart, give you goose bumps or are likely to force you to bring out your Kleenex. A lot of them will also provide a chuckle. I spent a long time working on it and we captured a bunch of really good qualities in these stories that I think will help people. We got hundreds and hundreds of submissions from people (to go into the book), and we had to whittle them down and go with the ones that we thought were the best. And if I had my way, the book would be about 1,000 pages (laughs). But there are limitations, I discovered. The Chicken Soup people cut you off after a while. No more soup for you (laughs). But we had a wonderful time with it and are very encouraged by the early reaction to the book.

And there are more books coming. I have a couple more projects in the hopper.

FAN: Finally, if you were asked for guidance by a youngster in high school now who wanted to go on to compete in sports or work in sports, what would you tell them? What's the most important thing to know?

Williams: The first thing I would tell them is to play the game as long as you can. Play until the competition ends it for you, whether it's at the high school level, the college level, or for a select few, the professional level. Play as long as you can because in this business, you're always trying to build your resume, you're always trying to advance who you are both personally and professionally.

Secondly, I'd tell them to make sure they don't neglect their formal education. The requirement for a front office job used to be a college degree. These days, it's more likely to be a Master's degree. In some cases, it's a law degree. But whatever it is, don't neglect that. You've got to have it.

Finally, the best advice I'd have for young people trying to break into the business is this: internship, internship, internship! My son Thomas, who's now the senior accountant for the Red Sox, spent three summers interning with the team. As a father, I spent plenty of time wondering where that was heading. But it ended up being a great thing, he ended up getting hired by the team and he works in their front office. So that's a huge key.