Mariah Burton Nelson: Keynotes: Success, Leadership

Author/Athlete/Professional Speaker

"Think of yourself as an athlete. I guarantee you it will change the way you walk, the way you work, and the decisions you make about leadership, teamwork, and success."- MBN

The Leadership Game
Washington Business Journal
October 2003

Unsung Pioneers: Sometimes There's No First-Place Trophy

By Mariah Burton Nelson

Last month in Chicago I attended the 25-year reunion of the WBL, the first women's pro basketball league in the United States. About 150 former players, coaches, owners, and family members showed up. We re-enacted the first tip-off, with the original players and referees. We played a game, ripping rebounds from the sky as if we were still 22. After showers and ibuprofen, we watched archival video footage of ourselves, laughed at short shorts and long hair, and agreed that, despite recent strides in coaching, equipment, and weight training, we had been good!

The WNBA representative who attended was kind enough not to argue with us. He was also smart enough not to recruit us.

At the banquet, I had the privilege of addressing my former teammates and rivals. I talked about the role of the pioneer. Whether in sports, business, politics, science, or the arts, pioneers go first, exploring new territory.

Even the best pioneers stumble along without any exact idea of where they're going or what will happen when they get there. They rarely receive the rewards of future generations. Althea Gibson, who died in September at age 76, won eleven major titles and was the first African-American to play in Grand Slam tennis tournaments, but never accumulated anything like the wealth of modern tennis players.

Pioneering is a unique kind of leadership: exciting, difficult, risky. But by going first, and by braving uncertainty, pain, and indignities (long bus rides, bounced checks, and charm school, in our case,) pioneers redefine who we are as individuals, and as a society. They expand our ideas of what's possible.

Mike O'Harro, of Arlington, pioneered the concept of sports bars by founding Champions twenty years ago this month. He sold the chain to Marriott in 1992. There are now 34 Champions sports bars nationwide. More importantly, "Almost every bar now is a sports bar," notes O'Harro. “In hotels, airports, restaurants -- everywhere you go you see sports."

A sort of professional pioneer, O'Harro founded the first successful singles bar in Washington, D.C. (Gentleman II, in 1967) and the first European-style disco (Tramps, in 1975.) Now he sells photographs online, and is eBay's largest "single seller" (no employees.)

"Mine was not the first sports bar," clarifies O'Harro. "Jack Dempsey had a bar in the forties. There were others: bars where a bunch of fat former high school football players would watch a little black and white TV. I've never been an inventor. I've just improved on things.

"Having been in the singles bar business, I wanted to create a place where women could say they were going to watch the game, not just to meet guys. The original Champions (in Georgetown, near Wisconsin and M Streets) "was light and airy, not some dark rat hole. It never occurred to me that the concept would be emulated all over the country. I don't think the Wright Brothers could envision jets flying all over the world, either. You just do what you think is right at the time."

Asked for keys to pioneering leadership, O'Harro readily comes up with five:

1) Find the right fit. "I'm a "hail fellow, well met" sort of guy. I've always been better with large groups than one on one. I can work a room. I'm a glad-hander. So I was cut out for the bar business."
2) Be willing to lead. "I could never work for anyone else. If I were a coach, I could never be the assistant. If you want to be your own person, live your own lifestyle, you've got to be a leader, not a follower."
3) Surround yourself with successful people who can teach you. "Your mentor doesn’t have to be in your field. I sat at the knee of Jay Fagan for a year. He was an old-time Hollywood press agent, always coming up with wild stunts to get his actors in the newspapers. He wasn't in the bar business, but I learned a lot from him about publicity."
4) Schmooze. "Get out, shake hands, meet people, talk to reporters.
5) Take risks. "It's the only way you're ever going to get rich."

We tend to forget that pioneers fail. Who was the first woman to play against Bobby Riggs, the self-proclaimed "male chauvinist pig?" It was not Billie Jean King. It was Margaret Court. She lost. Wandering in unfamiliar territory, pioneers often become discouraged or disoriented, lose their passion, or simply fail to achieve what they set out to achieve.

Our basketball league lost too, folding without fanfare after three years of poor attendance, few sponsors, and little media coverage. A few days before our reunion, the first women's pro soccer league in the United States (WUSA) folded after three years. (A week later the league announced that it hopes to resume play as early as next year.) Someday Kristine Lilly, Julie Foudy, and Mia Hamm might attend a 25-year reunion, kick around some balls, laugh about old times, and reflect on how they inspired millions of kids.

Maybe you're a pioneer too, or will be. Maybe this is why you're struggling at work, feeling scared or unappreciated or misunderstood. Maybe you're trying to do something that has not been done before, or not by your company, or not by you. If so, go for it.

Then, when it's over, let go. "Nobody remembers me now," says O'Harro, who at 63 enjoys relative obscurity. "My time is gone. Jim Thorpe was probably the greatest athlete ever, and I just sold an original photo of him for six bucks. That's just the way of the world."
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To contact Mariah about her writing or presentations, call 703/276-8323 or write to her at Mariah@MariahBurtonNelson.com

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