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Building for Texas Sports Fans
by J.B. Bird
Tom Hicks contributes to the state in many ways, but most Texans know him as the owner of the Dallas Stars Hockey Club and Texas Rangers baseball team.
He calls owning the teams “personal stuff,” but these personal acquisitions have captured the public’s imagination. Every fan hopes for an owner like Hicks – he wants to win and will spend what it takes to do it. (In baseball such owners are now rare.) Sometimes he goes public with his expectations, placing pressure on his coaches, but on the whole he has been seen as a hands-off owner – a healthy antidote to that other Dallas sports mogul, Jerry Jones.
Hicks’ drive to win seems deeply ingrained, but it’s also part of a desire to give something back. “He believes that Dallas deserves to have a fine hockey team, North Texas deserves to have a great baseball team,” says Hicks Muse partner Dan Blanks. “It’s not facetious. He feels he’s gained a lot just by being born in this state, and he would like to see it getting better and better.”
Proving the point, Hicks practically apologized to me during our interview for the fact that he had lost out in the Roger Clemens trade war. (The day before, the Yankees had snagged the former Longhorn pitcher, who just won his fifth Cy Young.) Hicks seemed to feel personally accountable to me and all Texas baseball fans. This is the kind of owner you want for your sports team.
Hicks and the Rangers were able to sign another UT athlete this year, Heisman-trophy winner Ricky Williams. In addition to football, Williams plays minor league baseball. Will he be a two-sport star? No one knows, but the Rangers like his work ethic. And Hicks knows that work ethic will be important. “For Rickey Williams to learn to hit a major league curveball,” he says, “he’s going to have to work really hard.”
The deal made Texas fans everywhere feel good. Was it just plain good marketing? “We would have done the same thing if he’d been a great running back from the University of Michigan,” insists Hicks. “But the fact that he’s from UT, well, that added a feature,” he says, smiling. “That’s why we’re talking about it right now.”
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