Remembering Pat Williams w/ Dick Weiss | Bob Ryan & Jeff Goodman Podcast
Pat Williams passed away on July 17, 2024 at age of 84. Today, Bob Ryan is joined by Philly writer Dick Weiss to remember the life of the man who brought the Magic to Orlando, and Dr J to Philadelphia. Bob and Dick share stories, memories, and much more.
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00:00Welcome everybody, Bob Ryan, Gary Tangway, with a special guest today, Dick Weiss, an
00:25old colleague and friend of Bob's who wrote for the Philadelphia Daily News and the New
00:28York Daily News. He has a very long career in the media, just like Bob. We are brought
00:33to you by PrizePix, the exclusive daily fantasy partner of CLNS Media Network. Pick more,
00:38pick less with PrizePix. And we are here today to talk about the amazing life of Pat Williams,
00:44who passed away at the age of 84. And both of these gentlemen were good friends with
00:49Pat. Quickly, I'll just say I met him once and he was infectious. He came in the studio
00:53at Comcast Sportsnet. And Tommy was on the set and he came in with Tommy and he was just
00:59the guy was a ball of energy. And then as I was reading about him, I could certainly
01:03see why he ran 58 marathons in Boston 13 times. Yeah. So it was a life well lived. We got
01:11a lot of ground to cover from, as Bob told me yesterday, Dick, he was a catcher for Ferguson
01:15Jenkins in the minor leagues. And then I first knew of him when he was a general manager
01:21in the NBA through Philadelphia, Chicago, obviously the Orlando Magic, and just a life
01:28well lived, not to mention having 19 kids, 14 which were adopted. I remember the Sports
01:34Illustrated picture. So, Bob, I'm going to give the floor to you and I'm going to let
01:40you guys go to talk about your friend, Pat Williams, and what he meant to people and
01:44the league. Well, it meant so much to me because when I'm well, because he was who he was,
01:49I met him my first year in 1969, 70. And he was with the Bulls then. And we hit it
01:57off. We bonded over baseball. And you made an allusion to the career in the minor leagues
02:01as a catcher in Palatka, Florida in 1962, in the class D Florida State League. And yeah,
02:09he was the battery mate for the young Ferguson Jenkins. He had been a best baseball player
02:14at Wake Forest from Wilmington, Delaware area, went to Tower Hill, which is a preppy school
02:20in Wilmington. And then he went to Wake Forest. Anyway, we hit it off over baseball, even
02:25though the professional reason was, you know, basketball. And but we maintained this baseball
02:34bond for, you know, until the day he died. And so that was always our big connection.
02:40But the guy was just so, you mentioned, so a positive force and so infectious. And funny,
02:47just just, I mean, just a guy you want to be with. And I had, you know, we'll get my favorite
02:55story with him coming up. But he was a guy that I just look forward to every meeting,
03:01every conversation with him. But what a career of five different teams. People,
03:07the one I forget, by the way, is the Hawks. And the fact that he's the guy that traded Pete
03:14Marafitch to the Jazz. And I don't know how that went over too well at Atlanta. But and then,
03:20of course, finally, he was the heart and soul of getting the and the reason that Magic got created.
03:28I mean, they had their owners, but he did all the groundwork. And he was the one who fought
03:32and got it done to create an expansion franchise in Orlando. And by the way, until the day he died,
03:38he was dreaming of a baseball franchise in Orlando, too. So that we that that's an opener.
03:45Dick, your thoughts?
03:47Well, I think he's a guy who was heavily influenced by Bill Beck, who was
03:55an innovative owner with the Cleveland Indians. Really brought in the first black player there,
04:02Larry Doby, won a American League championship with him. Was really into the Carnival Barker
04:17part of the game. I mean, back then, the NBA still was a barnstorming league. And I think
04:27halftime was always entertainment when Pat was in marketing. In Chicago, he got into the ring
04:34with a wrestling bear, the wrestling bear. He, you know, he lived to tell a story. So I guess
04:43that's pretty good. He also gave us little Arlene, the hot dog queen, long before Nathan's.
04:53Uh, she was a professional eater and he used to bring her in and pair against five or six guys
05:00and teach him up. And he and finally he was involved with one stunt, which I was actually
05:09partially involved with. That was the general manager of the centers. I was a player. We were
05:15really good friends. He was always looking for new acts the day before they had a Sunday afternoon
05:22game. It was a doubleheader at the bluster and they had a 10 year old kid out there who was a
05:28ball hand with him and his little brother would introduce him. Uh, so I, I got on the phone with
05:35Pat, Pat, Pat, you got to get this kid down here. You'll love them. You'll love them. You'll love
05:38them. As it turns out, the kid's name was Sean Miller ended up being a ball handling wizard
05:46is now the head coach at Xavier. He was kind of a poor man's Ernie D, but he was a great
05:54ball handler and his brother Archie would dress up in a tuxedo at age seven or eight years old
06:03and introduce them. And the thing became such a big hit. The kid actually appeared on the tonight
06:10show with Johnny Carson. Um, you know, he, I mean, he was so influenced by Beck. I mean,
06:18that gave us the Eddie Goodell story, uh, when he was, uh, um, with the, with the St. Louis Browns
06:27and Beck. And this is something I didn't know. Beck actually came up with the idea of putting,
06:34uh, Ivy on the, uh, uh, Wrigley field walls. I, I did not know that he planted the Ivy Dick
06:46he was adopted son of a nephew or something. Anyway, he was a popcorn vendor. When he first
06:53started, he planted the Ivy, which is pretty amazing. And he actually had one day where they
07:01call it grandstand manager day, where he let the fans determine what the team should do by holding
07:10up placards steel, uh, walk, take a pitch. I mean, it was crazy. They won that game by the way,
07:20which tell you more than you need to know about managing. Uh, but, uh, but Pat was great. And he,
07:27I don't think Pat Bob, I don't think he ever gets the credit he deserves as a general manager in
07:34terms of putting together, uh, teams. I mean, he inherited a 76, his team was nine and 73
07:42in the next three years, he gets Daryl Dawkins through the draft. He beats the Knicks out for
07:48George McGuinness and he gets Julius Irving. Uh, and when the Irving thing came up, I still
07:55remember him going up and meeting with Fitz Dixon, who was a sportsman who knew very little about
08:03basketball, but wanted to own a professional sports teams. And, uh, so Pat's making this
08:08big pitch. We've got to get this guy. I got to get this guy. And, and Fitz Dixon says,
08:13who's Julius Irving? As it turns out, they signed up for $6 million. And eventually they
08:19add some other pieces. They get Bobby Jones in the McGuinness deal. They get, uh, Moses Malone,
08:25and they became one of the three best teams in the league during the early eighties, actually
08:30won a championship in 1983. I mean, it was great. I, uh, there was so much pressure on that team
08:38because they had so much talent, Bob, the first year he, uh, uh, that Julius was there, they
08:44finished a runner up to the Portland Trailblazers in the NBA playoffs. And it had after the season,
08:54Pat decided to come up with the slogan for next year's season ticket campaign. We owe you one.
09:01There was only one problem. The next year they lost to Washington in the playoffs.
09:06And so the fans started chanting, we owe you too. That's true. Uh, it's true. Uh, yeah, you're right.
09:13He put that, that 76 or team that one year, they're one of the best one-year teams in the
09:17league history. Moses was absolutely unstoppable, uh, that year. And, and what a, what a good group
09:23that was. And, uh, uh, so he, you know, he, so he can have that on his resume. Yeah, Bob, from what
09:29I've read, I'm sorry, I just want to get this in there. It's technically Dick, it seems, it says
09:34that he was the first general manager in the NBA with the Bulls. Now, obviously that means title
09:41only. So Bob, did he, did he help define the role? I didn't know that that's, that is new news
09:48to me that people are making, if that's an assertion, because it seems to me that there
09:53were general managers that I've, you know, maybe it's the title. Jack Ramsey was a general manager.
09:58Jack Ramsey was general manager in the Sixers. He, back when he went from St. Joe's, he went to
10:01be general manager, not coach. He eventually became a coach. So whoever's saying that,
10:06I don't know what they're talking about. Maybe he was the first general manager with the Bulls.
10:10I don't know. But it seemed to be entitled. So I was just wondering if he helped, like,
10:14define the role, because you guys and I, you guys know better than anybody, like in the 60s,
10:18when he became involved, I mean, guys were coaches, drivers of the bus, general managers,
10:23they did it all. So it seemed that you got into the 70s, maybe the roles became more defined.
10:28Bob, start at the beginning. Talk about his younger days, born in Philly, lived in Delaware,
10:35then ended up playing baseball before going to basketball. Well, his father was friends
10:39with, or had been a player, and had been friends with Rooley Carpenter, who owned the Phillies.
10:47And so that got him an entree eventually. He was kind of brought up in it. Definitely,
10:55there was a sport, he was a sports pup. He was brought up in it. And he obviously took to it.
11:00And as I say, think about this. In 1962, he's the back, he's a catcher in the
11:07class D. That's what we had. For people who don't know, the original, the minor leagues in those
11:13days had class A, B, C, D, double A, and triple A. Okay. And there were two major triple A leagues,
11:20International League and Pacific Coast League, three, and American Association. Anyway,
11:24this is the world where it existed in 1962. By 1967, when he was 27 years old,
11:31he is the Sporting News acclaimed General Manager of the Year in class D baseball for the job he
11:37had done at Spartanburg, South Carolina. So he went directly from playing into administration,
11:43because they recognized his talent, his extreme talent. And of course, he was, as Dick said,
11:49a VEC acolyte. He's a VEC product. By the way, the great slogan that came out of that,
11:56that he used to live by was, Bill VEC said, you can't always win the game, but you can always
12:02have fun. And that was Pat's guiding credo when he was promoting. But at the same time that he
12:09was doing all the promotions that we know, he was about basketball still. He wasn't just some
12:16marketing nerd. You know, he was about, as he proved, he assembled a championship team
12:22eventually. When I first met him, he was with the Bulls. And he liked to have, he liked gossip.
12:27You know that, Dick. He loved it. And he's the guy that nicknamed Jerry Krause the sleuth,
12:34because of his mysterious ways of going about his business. So he's got Jerry Krause on his resume.
12:41Bob, one thing that I should point out is, Dad was the baseball coach at Tower Hill.
12:49And he and Rooley Carpenter were actually classmates. So there was a natural building
12:57relationship. I knew there was a Carpenter connection, sure.
13:00Yeah. And the Carpenters owned the Phillies forever, it seemed like. And so it was a perfect
13:08fit for him. He made the most of every opportunity he had.
13:14Well, and Dick, Bob also told me he caught a future Hall of Famer in the minor leagues.
13:19Yeah, Ferguson Jenkins. He was in Palatka, Florida. And because Jenkins was eventually
13:25traded to the Cubs, where people don't realize that he wasn't always a Cub, but he was a Philly
13:30originally. And then he went to the Cubs on his way to the Hall of Fame,
13:34launched the Hall of Fame career with the Cubs. Anyway, it's a guy that you make a phone call,
13:42and it would be a joy. I mean, we'd have so much fun just talking.
13:49How many phone calls did he make to you when he was writing books? He must have written 21 books.
13:57He'd always get in the phone, Gary, and ask you for a story, right, Bob?
14:01Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was famous for that. I mean, just think about that. And in the midst
14:06of everything else, and he's not using some ghost author. He's doing it. And, you know,
14:12Dick knows very well, and I know about writing books. And it's like having a giant term paper
14:18over your head every day. And he was doing that in the midst of all the other things he was doing,
14:24including adopting those 14 kids, which is a whole other story.
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16:28Now let's talk about Orlando. Because I remember when that team first came about,
16:38and I said, there's an NBA team in Orlando? Now, based on what I know of him, and based on when I
16:49met him, because when I met him with Tommy, I mean, you know, Tommy's on the set. And you know,
16:55Tommy's like, he's, and then Pat comes in. He's walking three feet off the ground.
17:03And Tommy, like, Tommy just gets up and just starts laughing, lights right up,
17:10you know, and just like, the whole mood changed. You know, so when the guy walked in the room,
17:15he was like, the air, he could change the air in a room. So Dick, I'll start with you on this.
17:21Based on what I know of him, I don't know if there's anybody else who could have got a franchise
17:27in Orlando. No, I'll tell you what, when he when he did this, he had did have some money backing,
17:33but he went out and promised the league that he would get an average of 10,000 fans his first
17:41year at Orlando. And he did. I mean, the one thing you got going, it's destination town for obviously
17:48Disneyland and SeaWorld, right? Some of the entertainment centers, but I think that he
17:56created he saw what could happen if you had people in cities like Vegas, where people were always
18:05looking for something else to do. Right. But as far as getting a fan base, you know, you just
18:10don't look you look at it as a transient town, you know, season tickets, how do you sell season
18:14tickets? How do you that sort of thing? I think it really helped when they won the lottery and
18:21got Shaquille O'Neal. Huge, it was huge. And plus taxes, players like to live in Orlando.
18:27Oh, yes. The big thing in Orlando was getting an arena and getting the it was it was the city
18:34versus the county that was local politics were huge. And in fact, when they had the groundbreaking
18:44for the arena, they literally dug a hole, and kind of on one side and the mayor and people on
18:50the other side, and they threw a hatchet down the hole, and they then mutually buried the hatchet
18:57physically. And in Orlando, that's how Orlando got the grounds work for the arena, which they
19:05you know, they didn't have one. You know, the way there's that expansion was interesting. In 1986,
19:09at the league meetings in Arizona, which I happened to it, I covered it. And, and that's,
19:15by the way, that's where I met Mad Dog Russo. He was there covering it for Orlando. He was working
19:20radio in Orlando. And he and Pat became lifelong friends, too, by the way, and he's he's in mourning
19:27as Dick and I are. So anyway, there was seven different applicants for potential expansion
19:34franchises at the learners meeting, and they all came in and made their pitch.
19:38Wilk Chamberlain was involved with Toronto, I think. I can still see him standing in the lobby
19:43wearing his Alibaba pants. You know, imagine that seven feet tall with the flowing pants.
19:48Oh, I remember he wore them at Bill Russell's thing in the garden.
19:55I'm sure was the spokesperson. And he could be persuasive. Anyway, and they needed to be
20:02persuaded because this took his time. Orlando was hardly a glam. He didn't think of it in terms of
20:08sports franchise. That's all you thought about in terms of Disney World. And that's it. So
20:14anyway, so Pat, but they had to literally, I watched it, I saw it,
20:19buried a hatchet. They literally, so somewhere underneath that arena, there was a hatchet.
20:24You know, I actually think they could have won a championship, too, of Shaq and stayed. He became
20:31a free agent at 24. I mean, that he and Penny Hardaway, who was at the height of his talent
20:38at that point. Well, they made it to the finals, right? They did Eastern finals, wasn't it?
20:43No, they got to the finals. And Hakeem schooled Shaq in that. Oh, he did. I mean,
20:54Shaq was a kid then. And he, you know, and he schooled them. And that was a large one at his
21:00prime, absolute peak. And Shaq was getting his feet wet in the league. And so, you know,
21:05that's all. All right. I got to tell the story. This is Pat Williams. So it's 1980
21:14at the NBA finals. His 76 years having just dispatched the Celtics in five,
21:19Larry Bird's rookie year. We're playing the Lakers. And we're in L.A. And it's the day of
21:26an off day. It's an off day. And there's a morning of practice. And of course, we have a
21:32three hour time difference. So I've gone to practice. I've written already. It's two o'clock
21:36in the afternoon, five o'clock Eastern. I'm getting ready to go to the pool. And the phone
21:41rings in my room. It's Pat, what are you doing? I'm going to the pool. Now come with me. We're
21:46going to go see Daryl Strawberry. Wait a minute. It was the week of the NBA, of NFL, excuse me,
21:52the baseball draft. Daryl Strawberry had been in Sports Illustrated, I think Faces in the Crowd or
21:57something like that, you know, but he's going to be the number one pick. And he's got a game today
22:02at Crenshaw High School. So he, he, he, I said, Yeah, I'll go with you. I pick him up. He picks
22:12me up. We go. And we get to the directions, which by the way, I have the directions. I forwarded to
22:18both you guys, you know, the actual handwritten directions from Marriott Stationery in 1980,
22:23Pat Williams. So we get to Crenshaw, which is in a middle class neighborhood in Inglewood,
22:27California, middle class black neighborhood, I have to say, in Inglewood, California. And we get
22:33there. And the only other white people are the scouts. And that's so we're there watching the
22:39game. And by the way, you identify without a program without numbers, you picked out the
22:47target, just by looking at him, just by his jog was professional, you know, I'm saying he carried
22:54himself as a star, the 18 year old Darryl Strawberry. So we were sitting in the first
23:01row of bleachers, and had one of those batting cage deals, you know, the permanent batting cage
23:06deal on this field that I played. So the scouts went up and all hung out at the batting cage
23:13to watch the batting take place that you know, this is high school, I don't know, nobody's
23:19yelling. So they had a pitcher was a very burly, heavyset Latino from University High School. I
23:29don't know his name. He's a right hander, threw hard. And when Strawberry came up for the first
23:35time in the first inning, I guess he batted in third. He takes pick ball one, Pat had gone up
23:43to join the scouts. He would join the scouts at the cage. He comes scurrying back. All I remember,
23:50you know, the Pipers on the beach when it comes when the when the waves are coming in, and the
23:54little become scurrying, you know, away, become scurrying back to me. And he says, they like the
23:59way he took the pitch. They like the way he took the pitch. And so we watched the game and Strawberry
24:06wound up getting a couple of hits and stole a base with a beautiful pop up slide professional
24:11slide sliding. Remember that guys? Really? I know it's hard for you kids to understand that. But
24:18people used to slide feet first, which is the safest way and the best way anyway. So anyway,
24:23we watched the game and we saw Daryl Strawberry and together and only Pat Williams. I don't think
24:29any other general manager is calling me up to say you want to go see Pat Williams. Are you going to
24:33see Daryl Strawberry? No, no. Why didn't Dick? Why didn't he get back into baseball? You know,
24:41I think he wanted to at the end. They really had a dream of putting together a major league
24:47franchise in Orlando. And he was actually still working on that till the day he died. Right, Bob?
24:54Yes, he was. He was his last wishing dream was getting my major league baseball in Orlando.
25:00Yeah, they had a minor league. He had, I think he did have a connection, Dick,
25:03and when one of their minor league teams at one point, I know, but because it was baseball.
25:10Listen, we would have these conversations. Here's a game we would play. We pick a surname, you know,
25:14Phil. And we chose how many guys named Phil can you name in baseball history, you know,
25:22and we have a competition. And, you know, he just loved, loved everything about baseball.
25:28And yet he made his life and fame and fortune, if you will, and in basketball, but I mean,
25:34but he would have preferred to do it in baseball. Well, Bob, that's similar to you.
25:39Well, I wasn't going to personalize it. But yes, if you would ask me at age 20,
25:45would you rather be a baseball writer or a basketball writer? And I would have thought
25:48baseball me because that was my first love. I love basketball. I played basketball much
25:52better than I ever played baseball. But but I, but baseball was in my blood.
25:56Right. So you had that in common.
25:58It turned out a baseball writing job is not a job. It's a lifestyle. And, you know, it's a I did it
26:07for one year at 77. And I was I liked it. I was ready to do it again. But it was it was a
26:13very different way of life. And that's a grind. There's no doubt. Yeah.
26:16Yeah. What did you what? Why were you in? And it also speaks to the age
26:22of when you were working in today's age. It's very difficult to become friends with
26:28the enemy. Yeah. Right. It's a whole different it's a whole different ballgame. No pun intended.
26:33What did you have in common with Pat? Why did you become so close to him?
26:37I think we both loved evaluating college talent in terms of players who had a chance to become
26:46stars the next level up. The one thing that Pat Williams did when he was the general manager,
26:52the sixes, I think he hired a brilliant coaching staff when he had Billy Cunningham and Chuck
26:57Daly and Jack McMahon. Jack McMahon was maybe the best talent evaluator I was ever around, Bob.
27:04He discovered Bo Cheeks, which was one of Bob's favorite. He really was the first person that
27:11discovered Charles Barkley back when Barkley was 280, 80 pounds. And he discovered a player who
27:19never played for the Sixers. We were in Indianapolis. He says to me, let's go to Tower
27:25Hotel. And the first time I'd seen Larry Bird play and Bird got 41 against Illinois State and
27:33Jeff Wilkins that night. And I said, oh, my God, this kid's the real deal. And he had already
27:41been drafted by Boston. So Boston had his rights. But I still remember at the end of the year,
27:47right around the draft, going up to Bob and saying, Bob, this guy is going to change your life.
27:52And the next year, the seller is 160. I'll tell you the gospel truth, Gary, that at that time,
27:58I was already infatuated with Bird. Well, you had seen him with Jason Stark and Mike Madden.
28:05Yeah, right. I had exactly right. But Dick liked him even more. He absolutely he was he was
28:13absolutely he he he saw it. He saw it from the beginning. And he was ahead of the pack on that
28:20regard. Yeah. So no question. What would Pat have done? Say Pat is 27 years old and running a team
28:27today. Does he do it any differently? Bob, I'll start with you. I'm it's it's all I don't know.
28:35First of all, it's all about analytics now. And you know that that whole world is and every sports
28:42infested with it, you know, soccer now making coming to grips with it, you know, and as however
28:48they can, everybody's come to grips with hockey said to come to grips with it. They're all they're
28:52all analytics driven. I'm not saying he would have resisted, you know, he wasn't. But, you know,
28:58he's a people guy. I mean, I, I just don't think he would have flourished in this regard at all.
29:05He wouldn't have been appreciated the way you know, he was in those days, I don't think.
29:11Dick, what do you think? I think Pat was old school on the fact that he wanted to be able
29:17to look at a player and determine a how they would fit in with the team and be
29:22how well they would do with a given team. I mean, I, I would have never guessed on
29:28Marie's cheeks. He played for an eight and 20 team at West Texas State. He's a Chicago kid who
29:35struggled to get a scholarship out of out of high school and winds up in the Hall of Fame.
29:43I mean, Bob pushed for him to go in the Hall of Fame for a long while, I remember.
29:49You're certainly right.
29:52I mean, look, that team that won it had four players who wound up in the Hall of Fame, Moses,
30:00Julius, Bobby Jones, and Mo. What about as far as, and Dick, I'll start with you on this one.
30:07What about as far as the relationship with the media? Because that's the big difference I see.
30:11I think it was different, Gary, back then because there wasn't so much confrontation
30:19and animosity between the people who covered the teams and both the players and the coaches. I
30:27think a lot of it had to do with the fact we actually traveled together on the road. I mean,
30:33you didn't have the players traveling on a private jet, staying at the Ritz. I mean,
30:40we all, I mean, we'd get the bus with the team to the games. We would fly in the same plane.
30:50And the irony of the whole situation is back then, they would give the first class seats to the
30:55veterans. The rookies and the coaches would all stay in the back. And in Philly, I mean,
31:03Jack McMahon would read his books and the rest, and Al Domenico and Billy Cunningham and Chuck
31:08Daly would play pinochle. But you got to know these guys personally. And there was a level of
31:16respect between you and the majority of players, because you were all in this together. We hadn't
31:24reached the Magic Bird crossing yet. And we certainly hadn't reached the Michael Jordan
31:33era where the Bulls actually became bigger than the league that they played in.
31:38It was a giant fraternity. And I'll give you a perfect example. One time, the Celtics were flying
31:45to the coast. And there wasn't even a direct flight. We were all, I'm with the party,
31:54we're changing planes in Chicago. And we got a pretty good hefty layover. And we're walking down,
32:00we're going to go to the bar. And we're walking down the corridor and a whole bunch of tall
32:04people were coming the other way at us. And it happens to be the Phoenix Suns who were going the
32:09other way. And they had time to kill. So now we're all we all pile into the bar, teams, coaches,
32:17trainers, etc, writers. And it's like a fraternity meeting, as we're all the Celtics and Suns are
32:26socializing in O'Hare Airport. I don't think anybody today can even begin to wrap his or her
32:32head around that or what the league was like in those days. I'll tell you the other thing that
32:38that Gary is the fact that papers back then actually had money to travel. Right. And we
32:45were all over. I must have seen the year I covered the six or three of his first five years.
32:53I must have seen at least at least 120 games. I covered all of the
32:59Lakers Celtics games in the 80s. Right. And you cover the Sixers. And when they lost,
33:09you'd move to Boston. I mean, there were years I thought I had been to Boston so many times I could
33:14vote. I mean, it was just it was he and I famously, we think it's famous to us, covered playoffs in
33:2279. There were three. Yeah. Right. From Washington to San Antonio to eventually out to
33:33Seattle. Yeah. And we opened up a hotel in San Antonio, we think. And what did we
33:42we hung out for? You know, we were living huge back then, Bob.
33:46Oh, no. I always say, hey, I'll say it again. Gary's heard it. He's going to hear it again.
33:52I am so glad I did it when I did it. Yeah. And where I did it. It was the golden year of
34:00sports writing, particularly on the East Coast with the Boston and New York. Yeah. I mean,
34:07and we had we had I mean, I guess Dallas had money in L.A. had money. Yeah, but it wasn't
34:15we were kind of the p.m. news cycle for Knight Ritter. So we had more money than we knew how
34:21to spend. And I spent a lot of money, by the way. Well, I had I don't know if you know, Dick, but
34:29I had the pleasure of having Bob and Dan Shaughnessy on and we did a 90 minute.
34:34That's great. Even a career retrospective. And we just went through the 80s. And I'm sure it was
34:39the same thing in Philadelphia, you know, the 80s into the 90s, the Globe, the Philly Papers,
34:45The Times, The Post. I mean, that was you guys lived it. It was the heyday. It was the heyday.
34:50And that's when I started to see all your faces on TV. You know, and most of us,
34:56most of my best friends were in other cities because you'd be on the road so often. You build
35:03up enormous friendships with people in other cities. And I think Bob and I bonded because his
35:10dad used to be the assistant athletic director going over. Right. And he actually got to the
35:16plaster before I did. I beat him there. That's it's a big that's a big thing in our business.
35:23Because this is this is the ultimate basketball guru right here, Mr. Weiss.
35:27And and he was weaned on the plaster. But so was I.
35:32How were you? Well, I felt that that was the connection when I was looking at your bios.
35:36OK, now let's get to Pat Williams, the humanitarian. Bob and I were talking about it the
35:41other night. I still have the Sports Illustrated picture in my in my mind at the pool. So according
35:48to what I've read, 19 kids, 14 were adopted. OK, first of all, it was a a staunch Christian man.
35:57He was a man of faith. And I think it's all stemmed from him thinking that it was the right
36:03thing to do to take care of these kids, to take it down. And they all live at his house in Orlando.
36:09National or like somehow, some way. Yeah, I did. I just said in his own bit that the
36:17food bill was fifteen hundred dollars a week. That's correct. And, you know,
36:21the amazing thing is the kids were from all over Bob. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
36:27Yeah. He had an international family. Yeah. Yeah. And his own kids and his own.
36:33Jimmy, his oldest. Yeah. Who's the one that most of us met first? Yeah. But I remember
36:41that Pat announced his birth over the draft, over the on the conference call and at the Bulls
36:49and a new draftee, a young James Williams. So, yeah. So so so I was that was circa 1970
36:57that he announced on Squawk Box that he had. Why did he do it? But like, let's can you
37:03why did he do it? How did he do it? I mean, over it. We don't know how it how I know how he did.
37:09You know, I would say this. I think he thought it would save his first marriage.
37:13Yeah. Yeah. I honestly do. Yeah. Why do you say that?
37:19I think that he he he believed that family was a bonding situation. I mean, he was married. His
37:26first wife was I don't know, was she Miss Illinois or she was certainly good, good, good looking
37:33enough to miss on. She sang the national anthem of the Bulls game. That was better. And I really
37:41liked her. I was surprised it was when they got divorced. It was front page news in the Orlando
37:46paper. Oh, I can imagine, you know, because it's notoriety as you know, as with that time when it
37:53was so well known that he had all these kids and there's nobody like him. And of course, he's a
37:58pillar of sports industry in Orlando. Oh, no, I'm shocked if it weren't. Yeah, I you know,
38:06he never really forgot his roots, though. He still would come back to Philadelphia
38:11every year to do the emcee job for the sports hall of fame. And I was lucky enough when I
38:19got inducted, he was actually doing it still, which is great. I love seeing him whenever I could.
38:26Me too. Well, guys, I can go ahead, Bob. He was still doing. Now he was diagnosed with
38:33melanoma, myeloma, whatever, not mela and my cancer in 2011. So he's been battling that for
38:40the last 13 years. And yet he you know, he worked through it as much as he could. He's still doing
38:47his radio. He Oh, by the way, among other things, you know, oh, yeah, talk radio. And of course,
38:51he was a wonderful talk radio host in sports, you can imagine. And I, I did his last the last
38:57for my final time was June 19. I was on his show. And so that's my that was my my last
39:04conversation with Pat. But he had me on, I guess. And I was very always thrilled to hear from this
39:12producer that Pat would like to talk to me be great. So Gary used to refer to Bob as Sir Robert
39:19Ryan. Oh, we all do. We all we all do. And he may tell me directly. And the second person would
39:26be Roberto. He used to care. That's true. He used to call me Roberto. So gentlemen, it's been great
39:34talking to you. Do you have any final thoughts, Dick, on a life well lived? You know, I I miss
39:42him. I will miss him. I I felt a little bit of a void when I heard about this. I knew he had been
39:51sick. He had pneumonia and was in intensive care in the hospital in Orlando. But you never think
40:00some guys you think are just always going to be around. And when they're gone,
40:04you realize just how much institutional knowledge is left with them.
40:10Well, I too, I'm going to miss him. And I want to now I got to find somebody to play baseball trivia with.
40:21Guys, thank you very much. A life well lived Pat Williams,
40:26baseball fan, friend of Dick Weiss and Roberto Ryan, and also one of the greats in the NBA,
40:33one of the great personalities. I'm I'm fortunate I had a chance to meet him.
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40:46And thank you for joining us.