How sports figures transition to business

How sports figures transition to business
From The Oklahoman (9-19-08)

When Sean O'Grady was an up-and-coming Oklahoma City-based boxer, he barnstormed across the nation with his parents, traveling in a vehicle with a boxing ring on tow.

Promoting boxing matches was their business.

The example of the O'Gradys was one of the diverse sports-business stories that an audience at Oklahoma City University's Meinder School of Business heard Thursday in a Boardroom Briefing event.

"There are lots of ways to see business," said Vince Orza, dean of OCU's business school. "There are lots of businesses that people don't think of as a business. Sean's parents operated a business promoting boxing matches."

O'Grady told an audience largely composed of OCU business students about the distances he traveled with his parents to put on boxing events in far-flung communities.

"We were the largest non-subsidized boxing promotion company in the world," he said.

Managed by his father, Pat, the younger O'Grady's career blossomed. He capped his career by winning the lightweight championship in a 1981 bout in Madison Square Garden.

Eventually, O'Grady retired from the ring, became a network television sports analyst and then added commercial real estate broker to his resume.

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