Orlando Magic owner Richard DeVos dies at age 92

 
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adkindo
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:09 am    Post subject: Orlando Magic owner Richard DeVos dies at age 92

Amway founder, philanthropist Richard DeVos dies at age 92

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Billionaire Richard DeVos, whose family bought the Orlando Magic in 1991, has died. He was 92.


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It will be interesting to see if the team is sold. There have always been rumors that may happen after Mr. Devos passing and the family is based in Michigan.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:00 am    Post subject:

and father-in-law of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
_________________
GOAT MAGIC REEL
SEDALE TRIBUTE
EDDIE DONX!
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 3:40 pm    Post subject:

Looks like Amway employees are leveling up.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 5:19 pm    Post subject:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/open-mike/os-sp-shaq-rich-devos-dies-orlando-magic-20180906-story.html

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Commentary: Shaq's big regret is he didn't win a championship for Rich DeVos

Rich DeVos, a self-made billionaire who co-founded Amway and purchased the Orlando Magic in 1991, died Thursday in Ada, Michigan, due to complications from an infection.

Fittingly and fatefully, it was Shaq who was one of the first ones to call Orlando Magic CEO Alex Martins on Thursday morning after the sad news broke that franchise owner Rich DeVos had passed away.

That’s right, Shaq — the one player who literally and figuratively represents DeVos’s most colossal failure as the owner of the Magic — wanted to call to pay his respects. All these years after DeVos mistakenly opened the door and allowed Shaq to walk through it and leave for Los Angeles, isn’t it telling that the Big Diesel still adores the late Magic owner and has even said DeVos is the main reason he still regrets leaving Orlando?

“Knowing what I know now, I would have stayed in Orlando,” Shaq said upon his retirement from the NBA. “I regret it [leaving Orlando.] Orlando is where I started and where I should’ve stayed. I regret it because of the DeVos family. They deserve a couple of NBA titles.”

To me, this will be DeVos’s lasting legacy as an owner. No, he never won a single championship, but he touched thousands of lives. Coaches he fired (Brian Hill, Matt Guokas, Richie Adubato) have come back into the fold to work for the Magic. And players he traded (Nick Anderson and Tracy McGrady) have been welcomed back into the organization.

Pictures: Rich DeVos through the years
Orlando Magic owner Rich DeVos died on September 6, 2018.
And why is it that the two greatest players in Magic history — Shaq and Dwight Howard — both forced their way out of Orlando only to regret it years later?

Martins told the story Thursday of the countless times he’s stood courtside during pre-game warm-ups and been approached by former Magic players playing for opposing teams. Invariably, those players would ask about DeVos and talk about the fun, fond memories of playing in Orlando.

“I can’t tell you how many times players who were traded or released or signed contracts elsewhere … they would come up to me and tell me the biggest thing they regretted about their careers is that they left the Orlando Magic,” Martins said. “That’s all because of Rich DeVos and the way he treated them while they were here.”

It wasn’t just the players; DeVos treated everybody that way.

“Whether you were a ticket-taker, an usher, a member of the team, a coach or the CEO, he always made you feel like you were the most important person in the world,” Martins said.

It’s true. DeVos once asked me how my wife (now ex-wife) and two daughters were doing, and, to this day, I still don’t even know how he knew I was married and had two kids. Brian Schmitz, my former colleague at the Sentinel who covered DeVos from the moment he bought the team in 1991, remembers watching DeVos approach an arena custodian one day to ask him about his family and to tell him he appreciated the job he was doing.

“Rich was genuine; I never felt I was in the company of a billionaire,” Schmitz says. “He would tease me about the color of a suit I wore. His values were true and simple, like out of an episode of ‘The Waltons.’ But his legacy as an owner was also complicated.”

Magic CEO Alex Martins comments on the passing of Rich DeVos
Magic CEO Alex Martins comments on the passing of team owner. Rich DeVos
In the minds of many Magic fans, DeVos is the owner who lost great players such as Shaq, T-Mac and Dwight, fired a great coach in Stan Van Gundy and hired ham-handed and inexperienced GMs such as John Weisbrod and Rob Hennigan. It’s hard to call him a great owner when the Magic are in the midst of a miserable six-year losing streak, but, in all honesty, DeVos ceded control of the team to his kids years ago. I would argue that the Magic’s downfall has coincided with an aging DeVos not being nearly as involved or visible as he was during the Magic’s heyday.

We can debate his politics and his controversial, conservative stance on gay marriage, but you can’t deny his positive impact on our community. Without DeVos, there might not even be an Orlando Magic. No, he didn’t bring the team to Central Florida, but he kept it here. The man who started with $49 in his basement and became a self-made billionaire as the co-founder of Amway originally wanted to bring Major League Baseball to Orlando.

As fate would have it, the baseball effort fizzled at almost exactly the same time that the bottom fell out of the Magic’s financing during the franchise’s infancy. Majority owner Bill duPont’s financial empire collapsed and he needed to sell the team. Without DeVos there to bail out the ownership group and buy the team for $85 million, there’s no telling what would have happened to the franchise.

“Rich rescued the Magic as an owner when they needed rescuing,” Schmitz says. “He gave them instant credibility and stability, not just with his money but his motives. … He wanted to make Orlando a better place and his track record proved it wasn't lip service. The organization, to this day, doesn't take community service lightly."

DeVos donated hundreds of millions of dollars throughout his life and gave countless millions to charities, causes, hurricane victims and Pulse survivors in Central Florida. There was $10 million for UCF, another $10 million for the Performing Arts Center and a combined $23 million over the years for children’s charities. Throughout the nation, there are college buildings, children’s hospitals and symphony orchestras that have been created by his generosity.

“My biggest regret today is that we didn’t bring him an NBA championship,” Martins says sadly and somberly. “We said for years we’ve got to get this done before he left us and, unfortunately, that is our unfinished business.”

Hopefully, someday, the Magic will finish that business..

But on this day — the day that franchise patriarch Rich DeVos has died — let’s not talk about the championship banners he never raised; let’s reflect on the spirits he lifted, the people he touched, the causes he funded and the lives he elevated.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:46 pm    Post subject:

I'm not surprised about Shaq. He's still close with his Magic teammates and works with them on TV these days. Who knows what the legacy of the Magic franchise would be if their centers had never left.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:14 pm    Post subject:

lakersken80 wrote:
I'm not surprised about Shaq. He's still close with his Magic teammates and works with them on TV these days. Who knows what the legacy of the Magic franchise would be if their centers had never left.


What if Shaq never left?
What if Penny's knees did not crumble?
What if Tim Duncan said yes?
What if Grant Hill returned to near 100% after injury?
What if we did not waste a draft pick on Fran Vasquez?
What if Dwight was not a dbag?

I hear those questions daily from Magic faithful.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:30 pm    Post subject:

Rich Devos will never be considered one of the greatest sports team owners or compared to Dr. Buss, but I do not think anyone could ever claim he was a bad team owner. He pumped a ton of money into a small market team, and I never recall a player or former player having anything but kind words for him. Even when guys like Shaq was furious with the organization, I do not recall anything negative directed at Devos. People in Orlando go out of their way to speak about encounters with Devos, and how he actually spoke to them, and treated them well....as if they were shocked this Billionaire did not treat everyone poorly.

In a world where it seems most wealth is inherited, Devos was truly a self made billionaire....not by creating some app/website, but by building a company from the ground.
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