How To Build a Championship Culture (President, Boston Celtics)

What this episode is about

The discussion highlights the importance of building a championship culture within an organization, emphasizing that success is rooted in strong leadership, character, and mutual respect among team members. The president of the Boston Celtics reflects on the significance of caring for others and fostering a supportive environment as essential elements for sustainable success, drawing from the team's rich history and its broader impact on the community.

Key takeaways

• Your reputation is your greatest currency; invest in goodwill or face a financial drought.
• Celtic pride isn't just fandom—it's a profound connection between community and legacy.
• In leadership, showing care is non-negotiable; otherwise, you risk inspiring apathy rather than loyalty.
• Being from Boston means living with passion, which is invigorating but can lead to emotional rollercoasters.
• Winning in Boston comes with pressure; embrace the heat or get ready to fold under indifference.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Ryan Hawk (Host) · 19 min speaking
• Rich Gotham (Guest) · 44 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Boston Celtics, Brad Stevens, NCR Corporation, Red Auerbach
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Brad Stevens, Boston Celtics, Highland Capital, Joe Mazzulla
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Boston Celtics
4. 30:00 – 40:00: Brad Stevens, Boston Celtics
5. 40:00 – 50:00: Boston Celtics, Anthony Conigley
6. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Boston Celtics
7. 1:00:00 – 1:02:32: Anthony Conigley

Notable quotes from "How To Build a Championship Culture (President, Boston Celtics)"

• Celtics always represented something bigger than just a sports team, starting with Bill Russell and Red Hourback all the way through, to Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown today and Brad Stevens and Joe Missoula. And I've always.

  about Red Auerbach · at 1:46

• Web, before people even were emailing each other. And my first job out of college, I went to work for a company called NCR Corporation. They recruited me out of college. He put…

  about NCR Corporation · at 8:01

• Of years. Learned every aspect of the business and then I sort of stepped up from there. And the company I worked for before the Celtics was a company called Leus. It was a…

  about Leus · at 9:37

• Together an investor group to buy the team. But prior to owning the Celtics, he was a partner at a firm called Highland Capital that was a venture, a seed company, seed capital…

  about Highland Capital · at 10:45

• Do that well, generally speaking, player payroll correlates with success. So, you've got to be able to run a strong enough business to fund a strong player payroll. At least…

  about NBA · at 17:52

• Solving and I kind of think business in sports a lot of it is problem solving you know so I'm not involved in Joe Mazula's game planning but I'm involved in understanding what…

  about Joe Mazzulla · at 19:26

• Yeah, it's that's really the crux of it all. I it really is the Celtics, are the business of the Celtics is to win NBA championships and raise banners, right?

  about Boston Celtics · at 22:38

• Person. You know? Yeah. So, good. Well, again, Rich, thank you so much for doing this. thank you to our mutual friend Anthony Conigley for making this introduction. He's the…

  about Anthony Conigley · at 1:01:06

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Brad Stevens — Person · Referenced leader (Celtics basketball operations) · 5 mentions · first at 1:58
  Key example of leadership hiring and internal collaboration; discussed as a major culture and decision-making partner on long-term basketball strategy.
  Their jobs, on the business side, a good example is tomorrow I'm going out to meet with a couple of our owners and Brad Stevens to go through sort of a long a bigger picture…
• Anthony Conigley — Person · Referenced connector / prior guest · 2 mentions · first at 48:11
  Mutual connection who introduced host and guest; cited as a trusted peer and example of building a strong business and treating people well.
• Joe Mazzulla — Person · Referenced coach · 1 mention · first at 19:32
  Mentioned as current head coach; used to illustrate Rich’s boundary between business leadership and on-court game planning, while supporting resources and needs.
• Red Auerbach — Person · Referenced historical figure · 1 mention · first at 1:51
  Mentioned alongside Bill Russell as foundational to Celtics tradition and culture; used to frame 'Celtic pride' as a long-standing organizational identity.

Companies & orgs

• Boston Celtics — Company · Business focus · 9 mentions · first at 0:58
  Primary organization discussed, focusing on its culture, leadership, and business operations.
• NBA — Company · Industry context · 2 mentions
  The league in which the Boston Celtics compete, discussed in terms of business and competition.
• Highland Capital — Company · Investor context · 1 mention · first at 10:50
  Venture capital firm associated with the Celtics' owner, mentioned in the context of the guest's recruitment.
• Leus — Company · Career background · 2 mentions
  A startup where the guest worked before joining the Celtics, mentioned in the context of his tech career.
• NCR Corporation — Company · Career background · 1 mention · first at 8:06
  Mentioned as part of the guest's early career in tech sales.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Most of your opportunities, you know, in business and in life are the result of someone saying something good about you. They're only going to say good things about you. They like you. They respect you. You treat other people well. You can be really good at your job. You can be really smart. You can have a lot of the success attributes. But if you don't have those things, people aren't going to go to bat for you. Fortunately, some people said some nice things about me and yeah, 22 years later, here I sit. that takes very strong leadership, high character, highly competent people in important positions to make a difference, to change the course of something. How do we build something that's sustainable and and good? What are we valuing when we're making these decisions? Right? And and I think that's a big part of the culture and who you are. It's not just sort of what are you doing, it's why.

0:50 Rich, man, it is awesome to have you here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Ryan. So, I want to start with Celtic pride. You're the president of the Boston Celtics. Like, what a cool job. But at one point, you said, "I want the Celtics to be an organization of people who care. Whatever it is you're doing for the organization, I really want you to care about it." That is what Celtic pride is about. And I can't as a leader, I can't expect that of other people if they can't see it for me. What does it mean to you to have Celtic pride and to care?

1:27 I I grew up here, you know, with the Celtics and Celtics always meant something to me. I was coming up in the 80s with the bird uh big three teams, won a couple championships. It was a um the Celtics are something that made you proud to be from Boston and the Celtics always represented something bigger than just a sports team, you know, starting with Bill Russell and and Red Hourback uh all the way through, you know, to Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown today and Brad Stevens and Joe Missoula. And um I've always felt a certain like I've been a proud um I've been proud of to be from Boston and sort of from where the Celtics are from if that makes any sense. I can remember when I was younger uh I'd travel anywhere from Boston Celtics, you know, and I always felt like that was part of the civic pride here. Um and I always had that feeling and I you know my biggest goal is to have all our fans sort of share that feeling, right? that

2:30 they're proud of their team and and in order for that to happen, we've got to instill that pride in the people who work here, you know, and you've got to hire people who sort of have that in them to begin with. Um, and who do care um and they're it's important to them to be part of something that's bigger than themselves and kind of give themselves to that. And um and I think that's such a cool part of our culture. You know, it's really our our marketing tagline the last couple years in the playoffs has been different here, but it is what makes it different. If you're if you're working for the 18 time world champion Boston Celtics, that's different than working for any other team in sports.

3:10 And it's not to diminish any other team in sports. It's just something that we feel really proud of. We want our fans to be proud of. We want every person who steps in into the organization to feel that they're a part of that. And that's that's something special. What is it about Boston that's different? You different here you mentioned is the marketing tagline. I assume a lot of meetings and smart creative people went into coming up with different here. What is it about Boston that's different? You know, it's um it's in your blood here. It's sort of like you're born into it. You it's not a choice, you know. Uh you you you're born in the Boston area in New England and the Celtics, the Bruins, the Red Sox, the Patriots, they're just like a big part of the culture of the city and it means so much to the people who live here. Um and it's pretty much all walks of life. You know, it's not just people

4:06 who would identify themselves primarily as sports fans. Uh, and it is part of the civic pride of the city and people do care more about it and that brings a lot with it. Good and and sometimes not so good, right? Because it's it's passion. Um, and you don't win 100% of the time. Uh, and it's not easy to be sort of the one of 30 that's standing at the end of every season. Um, but but it's great. It's what it what's it's what fuels you, you know, it gives you that energy. And when you step into the garden on a playoff game night like we'll be doing, you know, for game two tomorrow night, you can just walk in and you can feel the energy. And it's not like some arenas where it builds throughout the game. It's like, no, our fans, they show up and they're chanting before they're in their seats and and it just builds from there. And it's it's such a cool thing to experience and be a part of. And I think if you've done

4:58 that, you say, "Oh, yeah. This is this it is different here." because I've been to every arena in the NBA and I've yet to find one that that feels like ours. So, there's good and bad that comes with that. I know this as as a guy who lives in Ohio because Ohio State football fans are probably have some similarities to Boston fans. Uh, you know, Kirk Herbstreetry, a fellow uh Ohio guy. Him and I went to the same high school. Him and him and the Ohio State fans got into some some fights this year. He called him the lunatic fringe at one point uh because of some of the craziness that went on. So I I do like I see some of this. How was that both on the good end and the bad end? Now you've had a lot of the good end, right? Because you guys win a bunch, but but how has it been for you over the course of your career with all the pressure and the winning and losing that comes with being at a place

5:47 like Boston? I mean, I think the big thing is it it beats indifference. Yes. Right. it it you know and and so you accept it and and I think you're feeling the same pain that the fans are feeling and if I wasn't a fan I wouldn't be in this job and I I tell people this when they come through the door says well once you work in sports you stop being a fan I'm like that that can't happen uh you have to think like a fan you have to feel you know you don't make your decisions you have to be able to understand the fan perspective you have to be able to accept it good and bad now in between the fans and you as the media And the media doesn't always represent what the fans think, but they they've got their own sort of take on things that they're trying to feed to the fans.

6:32 And so you have to discern between what the media is saying and what a fan thinks and how they feel. But you've got to be tuned into it and you got to be okay with it. And I think, you know, where you run into trouble in this city is where you're not accountable to it. uh and you're not you're not willing to sort of stand up to it and take the heat when it's coming whether you feel it's justified or not. Um you can't be defensive about it because really people care like that's really what you're dealing with. It's like people are passionate. They really care about this and and therefore you got to take it back.

7:09 I want to dig into your personal career because it's it's really cool as I was reading up on the fact that you had a prior job uh a role as a VP of sales and business de business development and then you leave this high up job with a big company to then move over to work with the Boston Celtics. Can you go back to maybe tell a little bit of your career arc and that story from how you got some of those big jobs prior to the Celtics and then how you made the move over into into sports? Yeah, it's not the usual path, that's for sure.

7:48 Um I had a 15-year career in in tech uh prior to joining the Celtics. And um I was fortunate I was coming up through the ranks when uh before there was an internet, before there was a worldwide web, before people even were emailing each other. And my first job out of college, I went uh I went to work for a company called NCR Corporation. They recruited me out of college. He put me into a high-tech sales training program with 80 kids from uh universities across the country out in Dayton, Ohio, as a matter of fact and um and taught us how to be professional salespeople. I started college when I was 17. I graduated when I was 21 and I was out in the world selling like multi-million dollar computer solutions and networks to Fortune 500 companies, you know, to people twice my age who knew a lot about a lot more about the product and the technology than I ever did or was interested to learn. Um, but it was such

8:44 a great foundation. Everything in my career sort of was easier after that, was built off of that. and and as my career evolved, I started to get a little bit closer and closer to what was more personally satisfying for me that was more fulfilling. Um, so I I saw this internet technology coming up and I was on the business to business side. I was more interested in the business to consumer side. I was on the hardware side. I was more interested in the software side because software is a little bit more of an art than hardware.

9:15 And then you know seeing how the internet was being deployed um in businesses I said could see where it could be deployed you know commercially in the world and started to catch on to a couple different companies who were you know ahead of the curve on that. And so I went to work for a small startup company. I think I was like the eighth or ninth employee. Did that for a bunch of years. Learned every aspect of the business and then I sort of stepped up from there. And um the company I worked for before the Celtics was a company called Leus. It was a first generation search engine before there was a Google, you know, before Google was a verb. Um and um and I I met the group of people who was, you know, who were running this company. I interviewed with them a couple times and they would they would only interview me on weekends because they didn't have any time during the week. They were like that driven, not

10:07 pushing it that hard. Um, and um, and it just it just appealed to me the the technology, the product, the consumerf facing nature of it. And I could see how it was, you know, I'm not a visionary, but I could clearly see how this was going to change people's lives. And it was just a matter of time before kind of broadband internet penetration into households caught up with it. And when it did, it just all went, you know, and so it was a first generation internet company. It's a big success. just so happened that the the guy the lead investor for the Celtics, a guy named Wick Geck, who's still our, you know, our team owner and CEO and um he put together an investor group um to buy the team. But prior to owning the Celtics, he was a partner at a firm called Highland Capital that was a venture, a seed company, seed capital company into like us where I had worked. So, while I didn't know Wick, um, and and we had

11:02 sold Leos and I took a self-imposed year off, said, "I'm not going to work. I'm just going to reacquaint myself with my family. Stop stop traveling. You know, sort of decompress a little bit. Uh, I was about seven months into it and the phone rang one day and it was Wick and he said, "Hey, Rich. Um, you know, I don't know if you've been following the Celtics, but I just put together an investor team to, you know, an investor group to buy the team." I said, "Oh, yeah. I'm following it closely. I'm a huge Celtics expand. He's like, "Well, I've been in three meetings this week and your name came up three times." Uh, and on the third time, I figured I'd just pick up the phone. I'd ask for your number, pick up the phone, and give you a call and see see if you'd be interested in um, you know, and taking a look at what we've got going on at the Celtics. And this was probably two months after he bought the team. And I

11:46 said, "Well, you know, geez, I think I can find the time for that." You know, it was such a unique opportunity that I needed to to take a look at it. But, you know, I was kind of a a made guy in another industry, right? So, there was an opportunity cost kind of walking away from that. But, he said, "Why don't you come down and uh take a look uh meet meet the team down here, tell me what you think of them, you know, best case decide you want to get involved, worst case, maybe do a little consulting for me and I'll flip you some some playoff tickets." And um yeah, it went from there. It was pretty easy when my the I got invited before I said yes to the offer, I got invited into a game and it was Michael Jordan's last game in the garden and um after the game I got invited to present him with a gift, a piece of the the parquet floor, you know, and I'm like, hm, I I could probably get used to this. So, wow. I

12:40 took a leap, but it but it was a leap because it was a it was a mom and pop shop at that point in time. It wasn't nearly the business that it is now. Um, but it was too unique an opportunity for a, you know, a Boston kid not to to want to go do it, you know. Wait, h how would how would the Boston Celtics be a mom and pop shop? Well, it was interesting in that I would say there's about 40 people. Um, everything was on paper. Nothing. There was no customer database. Uh, there was no back in the early 2000s. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. There was there was no notion of proactive outbound demand creation, sales and marketing. Uh there was no notion of sort of invest to grow and and actually that was part of what made it really attractive uh because you could see the opportunity.

13:29 They were good people by the way, you know, but what had happened was the the team was really run through the CFO's office and you know the owner would take money out every year. It was a profitable business. It wasn't a bad business, but it wasn't a business as I once went through the Celtics, which is well, the business of Celtics has to be raising banners. That's that's what it is. And we're pretty far away from that. And you can say, well, you wait until the team gets good or you got to get lucky in the draft lottery, but that's that's not a strategy. Um, so you could take a look at it and you could say, well, there this is one of the greatest brands in sports. They hadn't won anything since 86, so it had atrified.

14:10 The 90s were a tough decade for the Celtics. The sort of the the premium that the brand once had. It faded a bit and uh and the mentality had kind of set in that, you know, I remember talking to people saying, "It's not, you know, it's it's not a Celtics town, it's a Red Sox town." I'd say, "Well, wait a minute. Last time I checked, they play baseball from April through October and we play basketball from November through April. We bet monopoly on professional basketball in our region like and it's the Celtics. This is there's something this this can be a bigger better smarter business than it is. And that's not to discredit anyone who came before. It was just sort of the way it was. And uh you know so we sort of instilled a little different way of thinking about the opportunity invested in in the product which is you know step one. If you're not investing you're not going to grow.

15:05 What what do you think it was that made three different people bring up your name to Wick? Yeah, it's interesting. I I think about that because when I talk to younger people about kind of career because my I helicoptered in, you know, it's not the usual path. Um start as an intern and work your way up. Um I think a couple things, one um I love basketball. I was a basketball junkie and I they knew I love the Celtics. Uh but but two and I think it's the most valuable advice I sort of try to give people. Not that, you know, I'm the great dispenser of advice, but uh most of your opportunities, you know, in business and in life are the result of someone saying something good about you, you know, and they're they're only going to say good things about you if they they like you, they respect you, you treat other people well, you can be really good at your job, you can be really smart, you can have a lot of the

15:58 success attributes, but if you don't have those things, people aren't going to go to bat for you. So I I think you know I found out who the people were who you know had had given me a reference u and I was like well that made me feel great because those were the people who built LIOS you know who hired me to come on and I helped them grow that and um and you know so and it came around in in a way that I wouldn't have expected you know because you're really lucky if your you know your passion and your career can come together most people don't get that opportunity and people always say to me how you got your dream job and I'm like I never dreamed of it. I never thought it would was possible, right? It just didn't ever occur to me. I wasn't on the track. Uh but it was a good sort of lesson, you know, like yeah, some some fortunately some people said some nice things about me and uh yeah, 22

16:48 years later here I sit. Wow. So now let's get into to to some of the details of your role. So you're president of the Celtics. So how much of that and I know this is different probably team by team, sport by sport. How much of your job is let's make a bunch of money and how much of your job is let's work with Brad Stevens and the coaches and the players and and help be a part of building a great team? Like I'm curious about what your day-to-day looks like and and how much of both of those elements you're working on.

17:23 Yeah, it's mostly the business side. Uh I mean, you know, it starts with revenue, right? So I think where you want to be in sports if if if you're doing things the right way and and you're you know have a little luck where you're running a strong business which allows you to generate a strong top line that allows you to invest in your product. Your product is your your team and your players and every all the supporting resources around that that team and those players. Um, and if you do that well, generally speaking, player payroll correlates with success. So, you've got to be able to run a strong enough business to to fund a strong player payroll. At least, you know, in the NBA, that's certainly true. And um, and that correlates with success on the court and and with the and if the team wins and and if you're able to accomplish that, the team wins, then that drives the business and it's kind

18:17 of a virtuous cycle. So, while I spend the bulk of my time managing a couple hundred people who are really good at their jobs, on the business side, a good example is tomorrow I'm going out to meet with a couple of our owners and Brad Stevens to go through sort of a long a bigger picture view, long-term view of, you know, of basketball and um and a and a bunch of, you know, things we're thinking about and decisions we're going to need to make in the offseason, things that, you know, I can't get into, but but generally my role with Brad is to help him think through this, right?

18:51 Because he's he's a coach. He was a coach. He's a smart person. He's a thoughtful person. He's got all these success attributes. Um but, you know, these are you sort of look at a lot of these decisions and they're all balancing short-term with long-term. They're balancing, you know, um opportunity cost to do this and that cuts off your ability to do this, this, and this. So, you got to be right about this. uh how do you make this decision but still leave yourself some optionality and some flexibility so that you can keep getting better and you're not stuck um and and that's all problem solving and I kind of think business in sports a lot of it is problem solving you know so I'm not involved in in in Joe Mazula's game planning but I'm involved in understanding what he thinks he really needs you know to to have a championship caliber team and trying to make sure he has that around him you and

19:47 more of my involvement is at sort of the higher level when we're making big decisions whether it's you know trades or free agent signings transactions and and sort of think I've got opinions on players and talent I I can't resist that it's big you know it's why I'm in the business but that's not the expertise you know that that that is needed from me um it's it's how do we how do we build something that's sustainable and and good and how do we sort of how do what are we valuing when we're making these decisions, right? And and I think that's a big part of the culture and who you are. It's not just sort of what are you doing, it's why, you know, and um and so I'd like to think I I help us think through that a little bit. And um and really, you know, it's interesting because the sport side of it has grown so much. I mean, our team photo used to be, you know, 12 players, four coaches, the owners, me and the general manager.

20:45 Now it's like 60 people in it. And it's an army of coaches and strength and conditioning people and rest and recovery people, nutrition, mind wellness, every, you know, um, everything it takes to sort of like optimize performance and um, and that's building an organization and building an org structure. So, I spend a good amount of time uh with basketball side and sort of how to do that. Not telling them how to do it, but sort of being a sounding board for it, bouncing things around with them, you know, and then there's obviously the budget costs because everything, you know, always, you know, inevitably ties back to money and we've got to think through all of that together, you know, again, short-term, long-term, and uh yeah, so that's, you know, that's sort of the the area of overlap there. Um, and so I keep an office in both places, but most of my time is spent with the the business group for sure. So I'm also curious

21:40 about your your relationship with ownership. Um, and we we can get into the the recent sale in a second, but uh, prior prior to the sale, right? You mentioned the the ownership group uh, recruited you. They they they wanted you. How much freedom do they give you with the budget? because it's ultimately their money, right, that you're going to spend more of to invest in extra coaches or support or players or luxury tax. I mean, there's a million different things that that you h how do you guys manage a budget in a multi-billion dollar business where it's it's not just about the money because you want to win, right? You want to win games like like I think the the Warriors and others have gone deep into the luxury tax in order to get the players they needed to win. I mean, that that's part of basketball at times. So, h how do you guys have like how what's that relationship like when it comes to money and trying to win, but

22:34 also trying to to make money for your owners? Um, yeah, it's I mean, that's really the the crux of it all. I it it really is the Celtics, you know, are the the business of the Celtics is to win NBA championships and raise banners, right? So, that's a pretty clear north star. Now, you're not going to do that every single year. um you you don't want to delude yourself into thinking that. You want to be very realistic. And when you're in a window, when you're able to uh for us, it's not about profitability. It's never been about profitability. It's been about winning. And you know, the good news about the NBA, if you're running a team, if you're a well-run team, you can win and make money. But there are certain years where you're guaranteed to lose money by winning. because in order to win at the highest level as as you referenced Golden State as our team currently, you know, um is way way into

23:28 the luxury tax and the repeater tax is coming and the the first and second apron and uh but what we've done is we've run a business that allows us to do that because you know you're sort of uh you run a financially successful enough business then you can fund losses for a period of time. You can't do it in perpetuity, but you can decide to do it for a period of time. And the great thing about our ownership is I when I tell you I've been here 22 years, I've never had a conversation with anyone in our ownership group, particularly, you know, my boss Wick and Steve Paluka who's been involved for for years about how do we make more how do you make more money for me? How does this team make more money? It's got nothing to do with that. It's like how do we, you know, ideally it's how do we win and not lose money, but if winning means losing money, then we'll lose money. And my job is to sort of help fund that. And then

24:25 also say, well, at a certain point, you know, we've got to make some decisions because it's not always going to be sustainable. And it's not because the owners are saying, well, we're cheap. We don't want to pay it. It's because you run into not just financial penalties, you run into basketball penalties now with the new CBA. So you lose draft picks, you get assets that are frozen, you really can't continue to improve your team. So what you do is you sort of limit your ability to get better and that'll cost you in the long term. Um, so, uh, it's it's been a good situation, um, for me personally because, um, I've been given the freedom to just do my job and and do, you know, and and try to build this thing and, you know, you get that when the results are there. Uh, but the ownership group has been really good. It's a very, you know, supportive group, a supportive board.

25:18 Um, not questioning, you know, why are you spending it on this play? It's more okay, how do we how do we win and what's it going to take? And uh if that means spending a ton of money, then we spend a ton of money. And there are some years when you could just say, listen, we're we're not there now. We've got to reload. We've got to rebuild. And you sort of duck under a little bit so you can then move forward again. Well, and and also the asset grows really well. And it's specifically for this ownership group, right? Uh, I think I you correct me if these are wrong, but I believe they bought the team in 2002 for 360 million and just sold the team for 6.1 billion um recently. Not bad. Not bad.

26:04 Not not a bad investment in in growth over over 20 years. Well, yeah. And particularly when they didn't buy it for that reason. I think they're all smart investors. A lot of the investors in the group are private equity people, venture capitalists. They sort of understand sort of they bought a kind of undermanaged assets, plug in plug in the right people and invest in it and watch it grow. But yeah, I mean, professional sports franchises, NBA sports franchises have beat just about any market index you could imagine over the last 20 years. And um and the good news I I feel and I think this is you know our ownership group they've been they've been paid back in in love of the game and joy you know being a part of it winning a couple championships like having it be become such a like a a civic asset such an important part of the city so important to so many people and being a part of that having restored

27:01 that and all the enjoyment of it along the way and then at the end you poke your head you're like oh yeah by the way we can we can sell ing for a lot too. And but but I can tell you that's not what drove the sale. You know, um it was and and I'd tell you right now, uh most of the the people in the investor group would say, "Oh yeah, I'd leave the, you know, the six billion on the table and and you know, keep enjoying the team. I'd make that trade, you know, at some point, you know, whenever it gets traded later, it'll trade for more, you know.

27:36 So yeah, it's a good it's turned out to be a really good investment for some people who um really enjoyed it along the way and got their payback in, you know, championship parades. Well, I mean, as a as a sports guy, I don't know if there's a cooler rich guy thing to do to own a team. I mean, like that would be the ultimate is that you get to be have one of those franchises. And that's that's why I'm sure big part of the reason that they they cost so much, right, is because the the supply is so low. a team rarely rarely comes for sale because it's such a coveted thing to have and then the Boston Celtics go for sale and you're like wow and that's why it breaks records in all franchises. Um what was your role through that throughout that process after they announced you win a championship and then they announced hey we're open to potentially selling this thing and you know a year later or less it it it it

28:31 goes through like what's your life been like through that process? Yeah, it's been busy. It's been like having two full-time jobs. I'm not complaining, you know. Uh but it's um it's been a lot. You know, what we've had to do, you know, it's one of the things that it it um has has made me think, you know, we we rarely look backwards. Like you don't look backwards at the previous 21 years. You look at the next year. Like we're always like how do we get better? How do we win? How do we win? You know, how do we build a better business um so that we can sustain winning? And um and the job, you know, with the sale of team has kind of been, I guess, for lack of a better term, packaging it up. And that meant going back to 22 years of financials and presenting those out, you know, and and there's the way we run the business operationally. And then there's a way that an investor, private equity people,

29:24 investment bankers look at an asset. And you sort of have to say how do we how do we take our business and run it through this filter so that the people who are the potential buyers can understand it right and see it in a language that that's familiar to them like this is how I value assets how I buy assets but ultimately and you said it a minute ago um it's really not what it's worth it's what someone's willing to pay because it's it is a rare asset you know it's whether it's you want to compare it to an original work of art that's famous or you know beachfront real estate of which there's only so much. Um it's a scarce asset and one of the greatest brands in sports globally known and and so our job was to kind of uh show all that and not only that but also demonstrate the future growth potential.

30:16 Uh no one wants to think they bought something at the very top and there's no no upside on it. And so we spent a lot of time sort of framing what we think the future looks like for the NBA as well as the Celtics and where our growth is going to come from in the future. And so it's been, you know, it's been a lot of work. It's really been but but I will say, you know, that at the advanced stage of my career, you don't have a lot of, I guess, what I'd call really new learning experiences. And this has really been an interesting learning process to go through. Uh, and that it's been, you know, really cool. Uh, and I never thought of this, you know, because I still my mind doesn't really work this way. To sort of look back and say, "Wow, when we bought it, this is what it was."

30:58 And sort of look at it now. You know, it's not just the difference between what it, you know, what it was bought for then and what it's sold for now. It's like, "Holy smokes, look at all everything we did here." Because you just generally don't take the time to go back and say, "Well, we did this five years ago and it was incredible." You know, then you look back over it all and you're like, "Wow, this is, you know, something you can feel proud of." But I I think um I think a big part of it, you know, for me, I've talked about, you know, sort of it being meaningful.

31:28 Um you're you're kind of stewarding it for a period of time, right? You know, it's it's sort of cliche to say, well, it's not our team. The fans own it, not us. Well, they but they do. You know, it's that it really is for the fans, and it doesn't exist without them. um you know without the support of the community we can't do what we do and um so it's been pretty cool to say yeah you know during our time here you know we've stewarded this thing from here to here and we you know I'm hoping to be around but you know whenever that ends you could look back and say wow we we left this better than we we found it and uh we kind of restored that what the Celtics really mean to people well much like Wick uh recruiting you. He understood that it takes very strong leadership, high character, highly competent people um in important positions to make a difference to change the course of something. And one of the hires that you

32:33 were at least I assume part of I don't know how much a part of it that fascinated me at the time was Brad Stevens. Um I you know he was coaching right at this I live in Ohio so he's right next to me in in Indiana at Butler right not at a big school you know probably had opportunities to go to bigger schools but but never did uh also I believe a former medical sales guy so maybe you guys have a little kinship there that you have some sales skills developed earlier in your career but that was a strategic bet right that was betting on potential that was betting on the future you had never coached in the NBA and you guys, you along with your general manager at the time and I assume ownership decided to make this big bet.

33:16 Like what was that process like to hire someone who was unproven in the NBA who was young, who had never done it before and you have him coached the most storied franchise, one of the most storied franchises in all of sports. Yeah, this would be a bit of a long answer, but it was um interesting. We once ran a sort of an analytical study to try to understand what coaches really had an impact on winning. You know, because everyone will say, you know, it's a talent league. You got Michael Jordan, you got LeBron James, you got Larry Bird, you got Kevin Garnett, you're going to win. But we we tried to, you know, run a regression to understand really what coaches and what characteristics of coaches would most, you know, be most reliable in projecting future success. And it was really only two two things that came out of it. You couldn't really predict individually a coach. You could predict that if a coach

34:09 had already previously won coach of the year in the NBA, then they'd still be a good coach and they'd still have success. And you could predict pretty reliably that if a coach was coming from college into the NBA, they weren't going to be successful. And and it's partly because if you think, you know, you think back to a lot of the I don't want to call them old school coaches, but you know, these coaches, these, you know, these huge names in in college basketball, you know, it's about the coach. less about the players. It's who's the coach and that's who you know and that's the the name that sticks because the players turn over every four years, every one year now.

34:44 Um and uh and and that didn't lend itself to going into a players league, right? And and being as effective. Um Danny A, who was our general manager at the time, was a wonderful, smart, competitive, you know, just awesome guy for me to work with. I really lucky. I had two partners in this business, Danny and and Brad. They're just worldclass people. Uh but Danny said, you know, um we we we knew Doc Rivers was leaving. Um we started a bit of a search and he was kind of koi about it. He didn't talk about Brad at all throughout and then we got to it. He goes, "I think I got a guy like Butler." And I was like, "Oh, Brad Stevens." You know, uh yeah. I mean, I knew he took Butler to the Final Four.

35:32 you know, the um you know, the the Dave and Goliath, you know, against Yukon and Duke, you know, and and um he um you know, he always struck me as a smart, thoughtful guy, but you know, only from a distance. And you know, the the the story is um Danny uh went down to a Duke Butler game. Uh Steve Paluca, one of our owners, is a Duke guy. And Danny looks at Steve and goes, "Here's the best coach in college basketball." And Steve says, "Oh, Coach Gay." And Danny goes, "No, the other guy." Uh, and um, and so we zeroed in on Brad and it was really Danny taking a risk, you know, and uh, and you know, interestingly, have you ever been to Hinkle Fieldhouse?

36:19 That's where Butler plays. It is like Field of Dreams for basketball. It is just this exposed brick on the inside glass wall where the the light comes like streaming through the glass onto the co. It's just like I I walked in I didn't go until last year when the NBA Allstar game was in Indianapolis and I went to see Butler playraton. But I walked out of there I was like oh no wonder it was so hard to pry Brad out of here because he's a guy it wasn't about money for him you know. Um, so you know, it wasn't about power and you know, he's enjoyed like having more resources, you know, to be able to say, "Oh, let's, you know, I've got resources to go figure out a lot of these things that I wanted to figure out when I was in college." I think to get Brad, it had to be same thing sort of purpose- driven thing like the the Boston Celtics meant something to him.

37:13 You know, he's from Indiana, the cradle of of basketball, you know, Larry Bird country. Um, and I think he got it, you know, and um, and so we were lucky because I know some other NBA teams had nibbled around with him before and he just wasn't interested, you know, and then um, the timing was, I guess, right for whatever reason for him to do it. I think he probably done most all of what he could at Butler. Um, he probably could have had any college coaching job in the country. probably could have had half the coaching jobs in the NBA. So, we're we're lucky we we got him. And um and you know, I think with with Brad, it was a comfort thing. It wasn't splashy. Oh, we're going to make you famous, you know, we're going to make you the greatest coach in the world. It's like, no, you know, your your family will love Boston. You know, you'll you'll come here and you'll feel it the way you feel it in Indiana.

38:12 Um and um you know, I wasn't the person giving that recruiting pitch. that was, you know, Danny and um and you know, we're yeah, we're really lucky that that we we got Brad because not only is he a great coach and a great basketball mind, um he's been so great for culture, he's such a kind person. He really cares about people. Um you know, he um he's humble. He's self-aware. Uh all the sort of he's got great communication skills, treats everyone with respect. um no pretense, just you know, all these qualities and you don't, you know, been around professional sports, you don't on the talent side, you don't always see that, you know, um and and so he's been special and different and people always ask me, how did he go from being how could you go from being a coach to being, you know, the president of basketball operations and be so successful? And how did you guys know?

39:11 It's like, well, Brad's got the the attributes and traits that are going to make him successful no matter what he's doing. If he stayed in business at I think Eli Liy, he'd probably be the CEO or he'd have some very big job there. You know, he I think whatever he was going to do because he works hard, he's prepared, like he doesn't, you know, he does things the right way. And um and so I you know I don't know what he'll you know hopefully he retires with the Celtics but whatever he does next he'll do great at that too you know he will you as mentioned hiring is such a big part of being a leader especially a leader at the top of an organization like you're at. you regularly um need to be surrounding yourself with excellent people that uphold the culture that are innovative and and do big things to help the company grow. What are some of the musthaves like what are some of the qualities and attributes in a person for

40:10 you to say yes I want to promote them or I want to hire them to be a leader within my organization? Yeah. you know, I it's um I think you know, you sort of you look at what are the non-negotiables, right? And I I think, you know, work ethic has to be there, you know, um if you don't have a strong work ethic, um at least from my perch, you know, I'm I'm probably not going to see as much value. Uh I think I mentioned self-awareness. You really do have to have an understanding that everything you do impacts other people and and you have to be aware of your impact on other people, good and and bad. And you have to be able to um you have to be able to I you know and I don't know what what the right word is but you have to be able to sort of customize your approach based upon whatever constituent you might be dealing with. So for me, if it's a senior, if it's if it's our chief marketing officer or chief partnership

41:17 officer, people I've been working with for 20 years, I can go shortorthhand. I can give it to them straight. I don't have to couch anything. I don't have to, you know, um but if it's a young person in their first year here, I want to make sure I'm encouraging and I'm helping them feel good about themselves and getting their growth and and so you want I don't know how you'd sort of describe that trait, but you want people who kind of get that if you're because my job is to hire the other leaders in the organization, right? I'm not occasionally I'll meet an entry level, you know, hire um during the hiring process and but but the other thing I sort of always look at is like you want people who are um like they're catalysts. They're positive energy givers, right? They give good positive energies to the group, to the organization. And I just think when you're coming to work every day, you're

42:07 picking your ass up, you know, on a Friday morning after a Thursday night loss and you're going to come in and you can hang your head and you can be tired and grumpy or you can be the person who, you know, kind of helps people get up, you know, and feel good. And I really look for that kind of spark in people, you know, who you think, all right, you know, these are people who kind of inspire other people. not doesn't matter what seat you're in, you know, you can you can do it from anywhere, but the other people tend to gravitate towards those people because they make other people feel good. And um and so you look for that. Um and then the other thing is, you know, uh we talked about it earlier, it is it's purpose.

42:47 Um you know, people are purpose driven. I just think you get so much more from them. Um and and they have so much more to offer. Um, and and you know, I would say like I'm I'm looking for people who give a Like, you know, whatever it is they're doing, I don't care what the job is, what the role is, like they're really going to care about what they're doing and really want to do it well because they're because they've got pride in it. That Celtic pride thing we talk about. And um, and it's not something you have to instill in them.

43:18 It's it's something that they they kind of have. And I think it's important particularly in what we do because the Celtics mean a lot to a lot of people. And I'm not trying to overly romanticize it. You know, it's it's sports. We all know there's a superficiality to some of it. But on the other hand, people do really really care. And um and you can lift people up. You know, you can give people joy doing this. And and you want people who kind of like they like that. They want to be part of that. They want to make that happen.

43:50 and you know so I don't necessarily have a checklist you know but these are the kinds of things that I that kind of catch my attention um when I'm you know talking to people or thinking about someone as a future leader someone who's maybe not running a group now in the organization but who could be and those are the those are the people I spend most of my time thinking about it's like okay there's these sort of however many of them four five six eight 10 who are going to be the future leaders of the Celtics they're going be the sea level people, you know, when I'm on a beach somewhere and uh and the rest of, you know, the the senior team is. Um and and it's sort of like, you know, what are the attributes I'm you know, you're looking for there. And uh that's the fun. I think that's really fun when you can actually see it in in people.

44:39 Um and and you can see that they're they're going to get there if they if they've got enough support and a little bit of help. So um yeah, I noticed Yeah. So good. I I noticed this. Uh so I went to one of your games earlier this year when you played against the Cavs. Cavs are having a great year and uh it was in Cleveland. I got there really early. Uh I like watching um this maybe weird, maybe it comes from my dad, but I like watching how people prepare for things. Yeah. And I noticed this little guy that didn't to me, he wasn't wearing a uniform yet. It didn't look like he didn't look like an NBA player, but he was shooting. He must have shot a billion threes before the game. He had he was upbeat. He was bouncing around.

45:24 He had rebounders who were like acting the same way. Like when you talk about work ethic and you talk about catalyst and positive energy and you talk about like really caring for your craft. It was Pton Pritchard and I just noticed like this guy shoots he I I honestly like he was shooting forever and he had this he wasn't like he was taking it serious but he was also having fun it seemed like and serious at the same time as well as his rebounders. He he also like made them all basically. Um, and then, you know, he gets in the game and he and he and he did in the game what he what he does in practice. And it, to me, it's just like, God, it is just, it's inspiring to me to see, he wasn't the only one, by the way, but it was inspiring to me just to see a guy to care so much to prepare so that when he got his moment, because he's not a starter, right? When he got his moment, he was going to make the most of it. And

46:17 that's like an example of a guy who just makes the most of the moment by being overprepared. And it's inspiring to see stuff like that. Yeah, it's great. It takes a special person too because you know he was a guy who had a little bit of success early. Brad was his coach in his first year. He started getting minutes. Brad had a belief in him. Um then um co hit things changed. We changed coaches. Uh new guy came in Odoka. He was more of a defense first kind of guy like big physical strong you know tough defenders. So Payton kind of fell out of the rotation a little bit. A year later Joe Misoula comes in. Joe's coaching. Joe knows Payton as an assistant coach, but we've got at the time, you know, Malcolm Brogden, Marcus Smart, Derek White, he's got like good players in front of him, right? Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum, the wing players.

47:03 So, there's not a lot of minutes. And the guy just kept working. Just kept working, you know? And you think about like a um a basketball team, it's 15 roster spots, right? And you know so your impact is one of 15 is a lot greater than let's say football team one of 45 you know um but yet you expect it right like and and people who have that kind of drive and that kind of work ethic and other people see it it it it raises the standard and um for Payton man like it's oxygen for him it's breathing like I don't know what that guy would do without a basketball in his hand honestly it just it's who he is you know um but it's great to see and now you know he's up for NB NBA six man of the year this year, you know, and he's had an incredible year and he hit, you know, two huge baskets in the finals for us last year and um you know, yeah, it's it's good to see the payoff, but but you're right, you know, like it takes a

47:57 certain mindset to be able to persevere and stay positive and keep putting the work in even when you're not getting the reward for it. Yeah. Amazing. I uh so I got some notes from your from your buddy Anthony Conigley who was a prior guest on this podcast. One of the things he said to me was that um that you do a good job of staying in close contact and are friends with your other fellow professional sports leaders uh for the Bruins and the Red Sox. How how like how do you bounce ideas off of or how do you work with other leaders from other Boston franchises to to do to do your job even better?

48:37 Yeah, interesting. When I got here, there was a there was always sort of, you know, Celtics and Bruins tension in competition because they're both winter sports. and and then you you sort of you could see the dynamic that there were um I don't know I I guess I'd say at the at the lower the lower work yes bad way to say it at the working level there were good relationships amongst the people at the teams but the higher up you got the more the egos got in the way and the more it was you know competition for mind share for you know headlines what whatever you want to call it ego-driven kind of stuff um I came in I was like okay they aren't the compet competition. You know, I don't have to steal Bruins fans and turn them into Celtics fans. Again, I've got a Boston Celtics monopoly on professional basketball in in Boston and in the whole region of New England, right? So, um, and by the way, we work in the same

49:31 building, right? You know, they're our landlords, you know, and and then you meet the people and they're nice people like the the Red Sox people. I love the Red Sox people. I've had friendships over there kind of from the get-go and the Bruins. It's interesting because early on we had some clashes. We had to kind of reset the relationship. Um, and once it was reset and the uh we had an alignment of incentives like here's here's how the Celtics help the TD Garden and hence the Bruins and here's how the TD Garden helps the Celtics that allows us to help you and it all kind of you know aligns. Um, it's it's been easy because it's it's good people and and you know there's always learnings uh because we're we're going through a lot of the same stuff and it's interesting because anyone um anyone who's been in one of these jobs sort of well the going's good.

50:22 Everyone's everyone loves you. You know, it's all positive feedback. Hey, you're great. You know, pats on the back. Love the team. when it's tough is when you actually need your your friends in sports, you know, and and you know, I'm that's when you want to reach out to them and and try to lift them up a little bit and, you know, say, "Hey, you guys doing the right things. It's it's going to come." And and there are certain specific things that are sort of, you know, shop talk that we need to talk about with each other occasionally.

50:49 Um, but even more so at the NBA level, you know, while we all kind of compete fiercely on the court, off the court it's the opposite. It's all best practice sharing across the teams. And I've met so many great people at the league and across the teams, you know, and I think the common denominator, you know, it's generally like it is a labor of love for a lot of people. Not every person, but almost all the people and and certainly you can see the organizations where that's true. Um, you know, we're in sports. It's supposed to be fun. There's supposed to be some joy and it's supposed to be like this. Why would you want to be in sports if those things weren't true? Because you could probably make more money elsewhere, you know, unless you're, you know, an athlete. Um, and and it's really been great over the years to kind of learn from others, you know, and observe others and then when you get a chance to

51:41 try to try to help them with some perspective whenever, you know, whenever it's called upon. So, it's it's been great. Yeah. Anthony also told me that you were like the guy who helped activate like the entire area around your arena and like created this new fan experience. And he said as a construction guy, he goes, "You have no idea how hard it is to get consensus when trying to do all of that type of stuff." A and I I I find you now from from our conversations before this as well as now as like you you seem like a low ego, highly competent, easy to trust person, which just seems genuine. I don't know. Like that's just that that's the feeling I get. I I'm curious like with all of that, how you're able to get consensus with people who maybe have a variety of different incentive structures in place because I think this could be a a potentially a portable leadership lesson beyond sports or

52:44 beyond being the president of a of a team. Yeah. Well, I mean, first I'd love to take the credit that Anony's given me, but I think there are people more to do with that. That was but but that's the reality of it, right? Um I mean we don't own the land u so it wasn't our development to make uh but we've been a partner you know in the success of um the TD garden and the neighborhood and the city and I think you know I really do think a big part of it um which is easier for some than others is um you do have to put the ego aside. It's not like I don't have an ego. I've got an ego, but um if you want to get something done, you've got to be able to see it from the other person's perspective.

53:35 And you've got to be able to, you know, appreciate and respect that and not just bang your head against it. Even when you don't agree with it, you have to be able to say, "Okay, I understand it. I get it. Like their incentives are different than ours. Their priorities are different than ours. Their culture is different than ours." Yeah. you know, so you you kind of have to find, okay, well, what brings us together, you know, and and you know, the development of this neighborhood's been it's been great to see, but I sort of go back further than that when we, you know, first bought the team when Wick and his partners bought the team and one of my first jobs was to try to get a new lease for the Celtics because the one we were in, we couldn't look at and say it's going to get us where we want to go and there were some pain points in it for the for the TD Garden in Delaware North and the Bruins as Well, but I'll tell

54:24 you what, there were years and years of just clashing between the organizations, just leveraging each other where they could. It's like this lease allows us to inflict pain on each other, but doesn't really align our incentives such that we can actually have success together. And and that was sort of my So, we went through like a bit of I call it like a disarmament. Like we had me and another guy had like weekly meetings away from the office just to go sit and talk through like how do we get this to a different place? I'm like, I'm not Red Hourback. You're not Harrison Synindon.

54:54 Like, we don't have to fight the battles that were being fought for 40 years here. You know, we can just sort of say what would what would make this better for both of us. And let's kind of try to kind of dial in on that. And and you know, the good news for me was I came out of tech. I had no history. So, I I didn't have the scar tissue that maybe would have prevented me from looking at it that way. Um, so, you know, I I don't know. Like I I try to think you have to um you have to first you know as they say sort of um it's a sunsu seek uh seek first to understand and then to be understood. Um you know take that approach to things and it it tends to help a little bit. So so good. Um Rich I I really appreciate um your time being here especially in the middle of the playoffs. Um, one one more question before we run though and you and you you touched on this a little bit at the beginning, but I'd like to to to maybe

55:48 bring it home even now for that person who's a bit earlier in their career, um, who wants to leave a positive dent in the world like you're currently doing, but they don't they're not exactly sure how or where or what they're going to do. What are some general pieces of life slashcareer advice you give to them? Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting because I I I sort of I I hesitate to try to get everyone's different. I hesitate to try to even with my own children, I hesitate to try to say, "Hey, here's how you got to think about this." I I try to tell people like younger people, you have to have self-belief. You just it's got to start there, you know, like you believe in yourself, right? And if you can solve for that, like if you really say, "All right, you know, I I believe in my ability, I believe in my ability to get where I want to go, to have a positive impact to do things in the world, you

56:46 can. But if you you know, you you got to don't let that get chipped away at, you know, and it can there's a lot of things that chip away at it, particularly for younger people the last, you know, five years or so, 10 years. Um, you know, it's been a difficult environment, certainly a different environment than certainly what I grew up in with and probably what what you did as well, Ryan. I So, you know, I I try I can't walk in everyone's shoes. But I think starts with that self-belief and then I think it I always say you you got to sort of be able to answer maybe this is a self-belief thing, the question that's just like why me? You know, so if you're across the table from someone, whether it's a job interview or just um a get to know you conversation, informational or or even if it's just someone who's in a role or in an industry that you're interested in, you want that person to leave that

57:40 conversation feeling better than they did before it started. and and you want them to sort of have some insight into you that would allow them to say, "Hey, I like this person and here's why I like this person." You know, and there's a lot of job advice you could give people about networking and but I think fundamentally, you know, when you get bad at that, wherever it might occur, like you got to be able to willing to share something about yourself. You want to, you know, people call it vulnerability these days. I just So, so give people a peak. let them see who you are a little bit. Um that helps people connect with you and if they can connect with you, you know, they're more likely to say, I want to give this person an opportunity.

58:24 Um and and it's hard like I I I had didn't have anyone telling me that when I was coming up and I'm not sure, you know, I think I I feel like I got lucky with a couple people who saw that in me maybe, you know, um when I didn't know I had it. Um, but but I I I feel like that's that's where it starts. Yeah. I love it. It's like you mentioned it earlier, but if you leave if you if you like intentionally go into every interaction with with a person to leave them better than you found them to add value to their life. That answers some of that, why me? They're going to say, I want that rich guy around. In fact, I just bought the Boston Celtics. Now everybody's telling me I need this rich guy to come uh run the show. I'm going to call them, right? Because I'm guessing, right, and you didn't even say this, but I'm guessing those people who told Wick that were people that you routinely added value to their lives.

59:18 You performed, you had high character, right? High competence, all the things that develop trust. And then that obviously earns results as well. And and and then that gets people talking positively behind your back. I think that's like a an aspirational thing for all of us to think about is how can I intentionally leave each person better than I found them, add value to their life. You do that over and over and over and that just becomes kind of intuitively intuitively the way you operate. Uh probably good things are going to happen, right? Probably good things will happen for you. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm reticent to sort of give anyone a how-to, you know, or, you know, like, hey, do what I did kind of thing because I, you know, listen, I we all find our own path, I I guess. But, um, yeah, I I do think, you know, you can, and this is funny whenever I particularly when I meet a younger

1:00:08 person, you know, you're doing you're doing Zoom interviews or I do a ton of informational interviewing for kids coming out of college who think they want to get into sports. And I just remember the ones who just made me smile or laugh a little bit. And it's not always because they told a joke. It's just something that they said or shared that I could that resonated with me a little bit. And I always like, yeah, you know what? I I I like that. There's something there's something there. And and that's different than someone who just kind of going through the motions. And and I think when you're young, it's, you know, if you're lucky, you've got mentors who've been around you, people that you've observed, you know, in your family or in your, you know, close circle who you could say, I want to be more like that person. But most people don't have like someone to say, "Hey, here's how you got to do

1:00:49 this." And and even if they do, you know, you got to be who you are, right? So, I think you got to find it in yourself a little bit. Um, and, you know, and hope you do have enough people that you've been able to look around and say, "Hey, I wish I was more like that person." You know? Yeah. So, good. Well, again, Rich, thank you so much uh for doing this. Uh, thank you to our mutual friend Anthony Conigley for making this introduction. He's the best. He's He's the best. How do you guys know each other, by the way? We uh we played Pop Warner football together. Are you serious? Yeah. He went on to play college football at Harvard and I I did not. Uh but uh yeah, he um the Conigley family is a big family in Milford, the town we grew up in together. So, we knew each other when we were young. We were on the wrestling team in high school together. And um he's he's done amazingly well for himself. talk about

1:01:43 taking a business that was like a a local business and turning it into an amazing business. And because I have friends who are employed there, like guys I went to high school with uh who, you know, work there now and they're like, "Anthony has just been great to me and to my family and how they treat people, uh, you know, in a business where it's it's not, you know, construction's not not for the soft, right?" But they've they've really Yeah, they've really done a great job and I'm glad Anthony uh connected the two of us.

1:02:12 Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Me too. Well, uh, I would love Rich to continue our dialogue as we both progress. A lot of big things happening in the future for you, too. I'm excited and would love to talk more as we go. Man, that's great, Brian. It's really great getting to know you a little bit and happy to do it anytime. Awesome. Thank you so much. Be well. Take care.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "How To Build a Championship Culture (President, Boston Celtics)"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), Rich Gotham (Guest).

What is "How To Build a Championship Culture (President, Boston Celtics)" about?

The discussion highlights the importance of building a championship culture within an organization, emphasizing that success is rooted in strong leadership, character, and mutual respect among team members. The president of the Boston Celtics reflects on the significance of caring for others and fostering a supportive environment as essential elements for sustainable success, drawing from the…

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Boston Celtics, NBA, Brad Stevens, Anthony Conigley, Highland Capital, Leus. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How To Build a Championship Culture (President, Boston Celtics)"?

The episode runs 1 h 3 min; the transcript is about 12,327 words in 78 timestamped sections.

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