Scott McCabe, The Examiner
2007-10-08 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

In the fantasy life of many sports fans, Ted Leonsis sits on top of the world. In real life, he spends his working days above the eight-floor garage of the Ballston Common Mall in Northern Virginia, a seemingly peculiar location for the offices of a near-billionaire dot-com pioneer. But it’s the perfect place for the majority owner of the Washington Capitals because the team’s $42 million practice facility is a floor below. The close proximity allows Leonsis, an attainer of the unattainable, to focus on what he calls the ultimate challenge: winning a professional sports championship.

Inside Leonsis’ glass-walled office, sunlight catches the entrepreneur’s green eyes, bejeweled watch and cuff links. An engaging man with a warm manner, Leonsis, 51, is basking in a new life after retiring from AOL last December as the company’s longest-serving executive. The Capitals are on the brink of a promising season in the NHL. He made a movie this year that won a Sundance Film Festival award. He’s heading a new online venture. And he’s just dropped off his son to his first year at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I am busy as ever,” Leonsis said, “and I’m probably happy as ever.”

Former Washington Sports & Entertainment President Susan O’Malley faced Leonsis in an adversarial role at the negotiating table. She found him to be a straight shooter who works hard at preserving relationships. His enthusiasm and stamina prompted her to dub him the Energizer Bunny.

“He’s refreshingly honest,” she said. “If he thinks you’re wrong, he will tell you. If he thinks he’s wrong, he will tell you.”

Leonsis credits his success to a near-death experience in 1983. At age 25, feeling a little cocky and flush from the sale of his first company, Leonsis was on a flight to Florida when the plane was forced to make an emergency landing.

Faced with the possibility of death, Leonis realized there was so much that he had not experienced, and he wasn’t ready to die.

“Life became clarifying in that moment,” Leonsis said.

After landing safely, Leonsis put pen to paper and wrote down 101 things he wanted to do before he died. He calls it “The List.”

The List is outrageously ambitious, but Leonsis has already achieved 75 of his goals:

Fall in love and get married. Check.

See the Rolling Stones. Own a Ferrari. Play golf at Pebble Beach.

Check. Check. Check.

Own a pro sports team. Check.

Go one on one against Michael Jordan. Did it.

Create world’s largest media company. Twice.

Go to the Oscars. Leonsis is working on that one, but preferably as an Oscar winner, not as a spectator.

“I prefer to play offense with my life,” he said.

Leonsis was born in Brooklyn, the only son of a waiter and secretary.

He did well in school and took up boxing at 13, but he quickly retired after he got knocked out by a punch he never saw. He decided to concentrate on his studies.

Friends in the neighborhood began to get into serious trouble. One boy was shot and killed robbing a pharmacy. Leonsis’ parents decided to move close to their families and the more stable environment of Lowell, Mass. The mill town, coincidently, is the birthplace and boyhood home of Jack Kerouac, and Leonsis’ parents, uncles and aunts were friends of the Beat Generation writer.

Leonsis’ high marks in school helped gain him admission to Georgetown University. After graduation, he created a publishing company, became mayor of a wealthy small town in Florida and launched a media company that he sold to Steve Case. Case tapped him as president of AOL Services Co., and Leonsis served in several executive positions before stepping down as vice chairman. He’s retained the title vice chairman emeritus.

Susie Kay, founder of Hoops Dreams, which works with D.C. public high school students from east of the Anocostia River, said Leonsis declined to contribute money to the organization until he became personally involved as a mentor.

Leonsis was paired with a young man, Michael Hendrickson, who grew up under rough circumstances. The two have been in touch every day for seven years. Hendrickson finished high school and went on to graduate from Hampton University. Leonsis became one of Hoops Dreams’ biggest contributors.

“Ted is the leader of those who walk the walk; he has a heart of gold,” Kay said. “Everything he does is with passion and heart. You can’t fake having a heart.”

Two years ago, Leonsis started a personal blog, Ted’s Take, because he said it made sense for him to be involved with the next big thing online. And blogging fits his Zen-like personal philosophy that took shape after the emergency landing more than two decades ago. The blog provides an outlet for personal expression, and allows him to go beyond his personal concerns and weigh in on broader issues.

“Hey, I’ve got things to say,” he said. “There are wrongs that I want to right.”

Ted’s Take gets about 19,000 hits a day and nearly 60,000 on a busy day, he said.

Leonsis’ began his movie career with the documentary “Nanking,” a “Schindler’s List”-style story about the slaughter of 200,000 Chinese by the Japanese before World War II.

Although he had never produced a movie, Leonsis was inspired to make the film after seeing a New York Times obituary of Iris Chang, the young author of “The Rape of Nanking,” who took her own life at age 36.

After reading the story, Leonsis tossed the newspaper in the trash, but Chang’s story and photo haunted him.

What horrors would be so bad that they would make this beautiful woman take her own life? he asked himself.

When the cleaning woman started to take away the wastebasket the next day, Leonsis stopped her and fished the obituary from the basket.

“I wanted to know more,” he said. “I became obsessed with [Chang’s] story.”

His documentary recounts the heroic efforts of several American and Western missionaries who saved the lives of tens of thousands.

“It reveals how individuals can overcome great odds to do great work for humanity,” Leonsis said.

Leonsis says he made the movie without any thought of earning a profit, an approach he calls “filmanthropy,” producing films that make a difference.

The documentary will be released in the United States in December. Last January, it created a stir at Sundance, winning the documentary editing award, which could be a harbinger of an Oscar.

If it wins, Leonsis will be able to put a check mark next to No. 96 on The List.

Not bad for a kid from Brooklyn.

Ted Leonsis’ tips for success

1 Make dust or eat dust. Take risk. Be aggressive and go fast and make it big.

2 It is the customer, stupid. Listen through all means: face to face, e-mail, message boards and blogs. The community speaks clearly. Don’t be afraid.

3 Surrender what is yours to the customer — it is their product, their team, their service. Get buy in and belief; there is a wisdom in the crowd. If it is theirs, they will improve it and sell it for you.

4 Personally express — make it personal. It isn’t only business — people know whether you love your product and service. Your personal stamp and pride in what you do must shine through. Lead — don’t manage.

5 Find your higher calling. We don’t want to build a good team; we want to build a great team — a generational team — and immortality through winning Stanley Cups.

smccabe@dcexaminer.com

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