Pioneering Spirit: Former Duke QB Ron Sally guides Colorado Arena team

Oct. 6, 2004

By John Roth
Blue Devil Weekly

Ron Sally and Billy King enjoyed a one-semester overlap at Duke in the early 1980s. Sally was a fifth-year senior quarterback for the football team in 1984 just as King was arriving on campus to begin his basketball career. Twenty years later, the two still don't know each other very well. They converse maybe twice a year. But last time they talked, they did manage to laugh about their one common bond beyond Duke athletics.

Sally is the president of the Colorado Crush, a team in the Arena Football League. King is president of the Philadelphia 76ers, the NBA franchise that begins its first week of preseason training camp at Duke this week.

During this moment in time where African-American executives in professional sports remain grossly under represented, the fact that two of the few black major league team presidents are also Duke graduates is worth a note.

"We're proud of it," Sally said in a recent interview with BDW. "We don't focus on it because we're so busy trying to be the best we can be. But it's come up in conversations we've had. I hope that when people think of Duke, whether it's prospective students or existing students, they'll say this is nice, another Blue Devil success story."

Sally's story certainly qualifies as a success. This past summer marked his second season as president of the Crush, which improved from 2-14 in 2003 to 11-5 and a semifinalist in the AFL playoffs in 2004. But he's been a part of the pro sports scene in the Denver area for almost a decade, following an equally successful law career in California before that.

He's just not sure he qualifies as a pioneer, even though the number of black team presidents in America can be counted on two hands.

"I look at people such as Martin Luther King as pioneering," he said. "What I'm doing is not close to being on the same level. The part that I hope is inspirational for kids out there is to see that here's a guy from a poor neighborhood in North St. Louis who leveraged athletic ability and academic accomplishment to make a productive living.

"The race issue is something that you live with every day. From an early age you just grow accustomed to that being part of your profile. For me, individually, playing quarterback at Duke was a big deal, particularly taken in the context that most of my classmates were not African-Americans. "Absolutely, I think there's more pressure on African-American executives. I think that there's a general feeling, whether it's substantiated or not, that if you're not successful it will be more difficult and challenging for the next candidate for a similar position."

Sally enjoyed some productive moments as a Duke quarterback from 1980-84. His best year came in 1981 when he started four games and passed for 888 yards with six touchdowns. His highlight contest came at Virginia, when he completed 18-of-26 passes for 336 yards to pilot a comeback victory and earn ACC player of the week honors. He also came off the bench to lead a win over N.C. State later that year.

But Sally was in the same recruiting class as fellow quarterback Ben Bennett, who rewrote the ACC record book and became the NCAA's all-time passing yardage leader. Offensive coordinator Steve Spurrier started Sally instead of Bennett for the 1982 season-opener at Tennessee, but Bennett came off the bench to direct a stunning win and Sally suffered an injury. He appeared in only one other game that year, then missed the entire 1983 season with injuries. After helping Duke win its first post-Bennett game in '84 with a pair of TD passes against Indiana, Sally's rotator cuff flared up again. He wound up playing in three games his final year and in 17 for his career.

After Duke, Sally got a job playing on Spurrier's USFL team, the Tampa Bay Bandits, then he headed to law school at UCLA. He was a litigator for prominent firms in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, but decided to turn his career in a different direction when he couldn't convince the partners at his firm to open a sports law division to represent pro athletes. It has since become commonplace in the industry to see athletes employing attorneys to handle their contracts, endorsements and other specialized legal services for an hourly fee, as an alternative to hiring agents who earn a percentage of their contracts.

Sally left California in 1995 for a position as assistant general counsel and director of business affairs for the NBA's Denver Nuggets. When Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke purchased the NHL's Quebec Nordiques and brought them to Colorado, Sally managed the relocation process and the immigration needs of the players, coaches and front-office personnel. Eventually he was promoted to general counsel of both franchises.

Sally later was involved in the negotiation of the two teams' $100 million television contract with Fox Sports Rocky Mountain and was on the negotiating team for their new arena, the Pepsi Center. In 2002, Kroenke tapped Sally to represent his ownership interest in the expansion Crush. The AFL team's other two owners are Pat Bowlen, who also owns the Denver Broncos, and former Broncos star quarterback John Elway.

During the inaugural 2003 season, Sally was the Crush's chief operating officer. The franchise received the AFL commissioner's award, which is presented annually to the best business operation in the league. Sally was named president shortly after the conclusion of that season.

"There is no question that Ron is ready to take on this added responsibility," Elway said upon Sally's promotion. "With his vast experience and skills, he will help us continue to be one of the best organizations in professional sports."

Ironically, Sally once had very little knowledge of the indoor summer football league, and most of that came through conversations with his brother Randy, also a former Duke football player who was an AFL fan. Randy is now an educator in Los Angeles.

"The Arena Football League has really been transformed during the last five years," Sally said. "Six or seven years ago it was in financial chaos. Players weren't making any money, players were living out of their trunks, teams held practices in public parks and were playing in run-down places. Now there's a national TV deal with NBC and big-time teams in big-time markets. It's a much different league than it used to be.

"Most people equate it to a carnival-like, barnstorming setup. It's a much different deal and a hell of a lot of fun. It's a throwback to the way football used to be when I was a kid. No tinted limousine windows and that tremendous distance between the fans and the players. There's scoring, excitement, game entertainment, and you can actually get close to the players for autographs and touch them. It's a different animal. The game is faster, the pace hasn't been bogged down like the NFL is now to a large extent because of television.

"And there's tremendous value in it. People would like to go to sports events without having to mortgage their future. It's a throwback to when you went to games with your family and people you knew, as opposed to a cold-blooded business experience."

Sally says the sport is still exploding and credibility continues to grow, with most of the players now former Division I college athletes. One of his objectives is the continued education of the fan base, since the rules of the sport are so different from the NFL and college games on television.

"That's one of the reasons why we're trying a pretty significant youth movement across the board to get more kids playing the game and understanding it," he said. "A whole generation of kids are growing up not going to NFL games because it's too expensive. Most kids have never seen a live NFL game, just on TV."

Sally is married with four children, ages 3 to 14, and he still closely follows the exploits of his alma mater.

"Everybody likes the basketball team," he said. "It's easy to like. For people of my vintage, I was there when they were trying to run Coach K off. So it's really interesting to me to see what's transpired. Beyond Coach K, I'm really proud of folks like Johnny Dawkins, who I went to school with.

I'm familiar with Johnny's career path after his playing days were done, what he's gone though and overcome.

"But the football team is what I care about the most. Suffice it to say, that is still frustrating. Nothing would make me happier than the day when the football team becomes successful."

Pioneering Spirit: Former Duke QB Ron Sally guides Colorado Arena team

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