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Sunday, February 20, 2000

Bosses care how the ball bounces
Sports taught them important life lessons

If the higher-ups are talking sports, chances are they're talking football, according to a national survey.
   Basketball was a distant second and baseball was close behind in a survey of chief financial officers at companies with more than 20 employees.
   Why is this important? Because a lot of bosses think sports are more than just fun and games. Some local higher-ups who are higher up than CFOs credit sports for teaching them important life lessons.
   Frost Bank regional president Mike Carrell, whose favorite sport is football, also likes to watch golf on television even though he seldom golfs. Why? Because seeing people - especially Tiger Woods - perform at such a high level under so much pressure fascinates him.
   "I've played enough golf to know how hard it is," Carrell says.
   As a spectator sport, golf finished fourth in the survey, with 8 percent of CFOs saying it's their favorite. But as a participatory sport, golf finished number one, according to the survey by Accountemps, the world's largest temporary staffing service for accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals.
   Lessons of sports
   The survey's release coincides with what many sports fans consider the slowest time of the year. It's after the Super Bowl and before the college basketball playoffs and major league baseball. It's the time of year that Sports Illustrated resorts to publishing its swimsuit edition.
   But there's never an off-season for Alan Wilson, president of Corpus Christi Bank & Trust. He'll watch just about any sport, including winter sports such as snow skiing, which is saying a lot for a boy of summer who grew up in Corpus Christi.
   Baseball is No. 1 for Wilson, who played for Texas A&M University. But, hey, a good tennis match will attract his full attention.
   "I spent a lot of my life trying to be the best at a sport and I admire those who are at the top of their sports.
   "I like competition. If I play somebody in ping pong, I like that competition. I don't have to win to enjoy it, but I like winning.
   "I'm really sad to see people think that education is just about reading, writing and arithmetic. I think my sports experience has been just as valuable because it taught me discipline, it taught me teamwork and it taught me that you can do more than you thought you could do if you just apply yourself.
   "That has been a big help to me in a lot of areas, in business and in life."
   Sports are not an all-consuming interest of Jack Pagan, owner of Pagan-Lewis Motors. He gets interested in pro football and basketball at playoff time. But he invests time and money into auto racing, which finished way down on the survey list. He has backed an entry in the Indianapolis 500 the past seven years.
   "Of course I can't speak for chief financial officers, but that's my favorite."
   This is not an off-season for Pagan because the Daytona 500 is today.
   Nor is it an off-season for another car dealer, Bill McBean of Vista Automotive Group. His favorite sport, hockey, which tied for fifth place in the survey, is nearing playoff time.
   "There is no doubt that the very fastest and greatest sport on the face of the Earth is hockey," says McBean, and why wouldn't a part owner of the Corpus Christi IceRays say that?
   He grew up in Canada and played minor league hockey. And he plays in an adult league sponsored by the IceRays.
   "At almost 50, it's still a great sport to play."
   He's no fan of figure skating, which finished at the bottom of the survey along with auto racing and soccer.
   "I like team sports. With team sports it's a synchronization of people toward a common goal. There's a strategy. There's a plan. The players have to react. They have to study it and be smart about it.
   "What team sports did for me was that I learned the importance of communication, knowing what the final objective was, how set a plan to get there, the ability to work with other people - including referees and hard-to-get along-with coaches.
   "I just think team sports in general prepare you for a lot of things in life. It's dealing with pressure and it's learning to motivate yourself and other people."
   This survey doesn't seem as frivolous as it did at first glance.


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