Who is the most successful person you’ve met?

Probably Roger Penske because he is ultra successful in multiple arenas.

In terms of athletes racking up numbers: Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Lance Armstrong, Roger Clemens.

 

Spent an hour and half with Sam Snead. Just he and I sitting on the veranda at The Greenbrier.
Easily the best moment of my sports-writing career. No. 1 with a bullet.

Sidebar: I wrote a terrible story. Awful. Embarrassingly awful story.

The current governor of West Virginia, who is also arguably the richest man in the state. Numerous businesses and such.

Snead and Leon Metz are the only two interviews where i was star-struck.

 

Jordan and Ali.
Ali mock-threatened to punch me.

 

John Wooden

rb

 

Roberto Duran would be the most intimidating guy I interviewed, not because he was difficult or anything but just because he was Duran, if that makes any sense

 

Most of mine would be politicians ... such as in-person interviews with former governors and congressmen from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Idaho.

Met a few people who were higher up the food chain in several Catholic dioceses, too. In fact, when I worked for a diocesan newspaper, I had to give the bishop a three-hour ride across southeast Iowa. What did we talk about? Baseball. In fact, it was during October, and he asked if I could find the World Series on the radio, so we listened to that while we talked.

He also said he would pay for dinner, so I suggested Subway as we passed through the small town of Fairfield, Iowa. "We can do better than that," he said. We ended up getting fried chicken at a Hy-Vee deli.

 

Politics:
Lamar Alexander has perhaps the best resume.
Fred Thompson was successful on multiple fronts.
John Wilder on the state level.
With the exception of the current one, I've met every governor of Tennessee dating back to the mid 70s.

 

Bill Clinton

My uncle (and dad and aunt and other uncles) grew up in a house with no running water. The five boys all shared one room. He got into the corporate insurance world after leaving the Air Force, then a variety of things. Best guess is he’s worth north of $500 million. Hell, his kids started a business they sold for $100m.

 

I forgot I once spent better part of 4 hours with Julius Erving at a table in a bar with my buddy and two attractive women (mother and daughter who were close friends of my buddy) after a round during a celebrity tournament (Ray Floyd Lexus Challenge or something like that) in Palm Springs. Dr. J had spotted the women on the course with us and then when we were at the table after the round. He was a great guy; he graciously signed a couple of things for me at the end. He insisted that I call him Julius and to just treat him like one of my friends. We all sang Motown songs on the piano and laughed a lot.

 

Defining successful is difficult. I'll say that a guy I went to high school with created a tech startup years back, eventually sold it for multiple millions, many of which he invested in Bitcoin circa 2010 or 2011 and he appears to be basically retired at age 44 with a wife, two kids, a car collection that includes a Lamborghini, a Mercedes G-Wagon, a Hummer H1, a Porsche 944 and a Dodge Viper, among others, a house that closely resembles a castle and generally has the time to pursue whatever hobbies/side projects he feels like investing his time in. Whether it's hanging with his family, restoring a car (the 944) or providing seed money and business advice to small business owners, he's can devote his time pretty much how he wants. His life could be a complete shitshow behind the scenes for all I know, but it's hard to argue with the freedom of time.