Fahrenheit 45.9

It was a nice, quiet Friday evening and I remember the scene as though it were yesterday. I packed up my computer, some books, papers and material for work and walked to the elevator bank on the 14th floor at Olympic Tower/645 Fifth Avenue near Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

The long summer of global events, which included a 40+ day trek resulting in the bronze medal performance by the USA Basketball men's Olympic team in Athens, had dissolved into a busy preseason of 2004 when we staged the first-ever NBA China Games in Shanghai and Beijing. I was back home in New York City after a long streatch of travel and the NBA regular season was in full swing.

Most people do not understand that working at the NBA league office -- especially on the international goal of globalizing the game -- means that a ton of work needs to be done in the offseason. That multiplies ten-fold when you do events on three or four continents and toss in an Olympiad for men's and women's basketball. When the first two or three NBA regular season games are in the books, the work-load at the league level actually slows down and the great people at the team-level take on the bulk of the work. With that in mind, I would always take Thanksgiving Week as a break, as three vacation days would provide a wonderful ten-day break.

That was the scene as I exited Olympic Tower that Friday night, five years ago, on November 19, 2004.

Coincidentally, when my elevator doors opened on the lobby level at Olympic Tower, none other than NBA Commissioner David Stern was standing by the lobby level elevator, he too, on his way home. I don't think I'd seen him since we stood together in Beijing about four weeks before, giddy as two little children, laughing and threatening to pinch each other to be sure the NBA China Games experience was happening and that we weren't dreaming a wonderful dream together. We looked at each other and both shook our heads, saying, "Yes this is happening and we could never, ever have imagined it twenty years ago, when David had become the NBA commissioner and dispatched me and a few other loyal NBA soldiers off on a six-week sojourn called the NBA China Friendship Tour."

Remebembering the evening in '04, I recall that David was smiling and in a particularly jovial mood as he asked what I had planned for the upcoming Thanksgiving break. I was happy to tell him that I was looking at a nice 10-day break that was beginning the moment I walked out to 52nd Street and I quickly tossed in a point of business that I had met one of the original NBA Properties sales guys, Mike Suscavage, that afternoon. Stern laughed and said that he saw Mike as well and we took a second or two remembering some of Mike's antics and the days gone by. We walked to 52nd Street together and were joined by Noreen Reilly, another longtime NBA executive who ran our administration offices. Noreen joined the NBA in 1978 after assisting Stern back when he worked as the league's outside counsel for his law firm, Proskauer. David and Noreen had some 52 years of NBA experience between them which made my 23 years of service to the league seem like a fortnight or two on that fall day back in 2004.

I was homeward bound, where I enjoyed a little dinner with the family, helped put the kids to bed, chilled out to some quiet time, and then I turned on the NBA on ESPN late in the third quarter to watch some ball.

With 45.9 seconds left in that game, everything changed. And, it was not good.

All of the replays, all of the talk radio and all of the print and electronic media coverage of the incident at the Palace of Auburn Hills became a living nightmare for anyone who cashed a paycheck with an NBA logo on it and the weekend was a bad dream and blur which will always will be etched in my mind. That fight, call it a riot if you want, along with the disgrace that convicted felon Tim Donaghy thrust on the league, were the two worst days of my long and winding road with the NBA. At other points in time, we had ups & downs. Great thing were reported by the media to be greater than they actually were in reality. Terrible things, like drug indictments or altercations, injuries or sixth place finishes in the 2002 World Championship were all a part of the job. A fight like the one that took place in November of 2004 and the utter disrespect for the game that the phony felon of Philadelphia had for the NBA by his illegal actions, were, by far, the two incidents that set the league back.

I took them both hard and personally. For whatever reason, I looked upon both the Ben Wallace/Artest/Detroit fans incident and the chump-change excuse for a referee crime, as people tearing down what I had worked half a lifetime to build up. It was that simple. They were messing with my life's artwork and I didn't and still don't appreciate very much.

Stern, giddy that evening was a combination of shocked, disappointed, let down, angry and outraged as midnight fell. And, while I was deeply involved in the crisis communications mode we operated that weekend, I could not even fathom what he experienced in the days & hours leading up to the Commissioner taking the podium that Sunday evening at Madison Square Garden where the Knicks were playing a game and the media were assembled. Rather than r-create the wheel, it made more sense for the NBA to go to the media rather than drag the media out to a separate news conference.

The rest has been documented and re-documented far more than I care to get into in this blog entry.

I will say this ... and I believe I have written it before.

There is only one person on the face of the earth who performed well that terrible night in Michigan. As you review the vdeo, there was only one person who kept his cool and did the right thing the whole time.

That person's name is William "Wes" Wesley and - in the video - you can see him in a what once was a very nice, blue suit, a suit that he probably had to throw away that night because it was soaked with blood stains, human sweat stains, beer stains, soft drink stains and who knows what else. "Worldwide Wes" did one thing and one thing only that night. He did his best to take players who were and still are about 10-times bigger and stronger than he is and he hauled them towards secure areas or away from danger. He did as much as he could and he kept on doing it. In the video, you see him get a guy to the locker door, then leave and go back to assist in another way.

I knew Wes before then and I've hung with him since. We are not friends, we are acquaintances and colleagues. That night, Wes gained my friendship for the rest of our lives. A few others lost that offer of my friendship forever.

Worldwide Wes in the Paper of Record ...

A Confidant to the Big and the Small, Woven Into All Levels

By PETE THAMEL
SAN ANTONIO — Under the moonlight here, the Riverwalk bustles with coaches, administrators and players in town for the men’s college basketball Final Four.

William Wesley strolls through this world — his world — with a confident gait, his head high and a nod for almost everyone he passes. It takes only a few steps to assess his influence.

Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim and St. Joseph’s Coach Phil Martelli offer him a seat at their dinner table. A few steps away, assistant coaches from the America East to the Southeastern Conference reverently shake his hand. Wesley rubs the belly of Leon Rose, the agent for LeBron James, and whispers in the ear of a prominent ticket peddler.

All the players here — those in the game and those who run it — know and love William Wesley. They call him Wes, or Uncle Wes, or World Wide Wes.

“There goes the most powerful man in all of basketball,” one coach said softly as Wesley walked by. One of his dinner mates responded, “Who?”

Wesley is known to the people in the know but remains a face in the crowd to most everyone else. And that is how he likes it.

In recent years, he has extended a puzzling and powerful reach throughout sports. A confidant of Michael Jordan, a close friend of James and a sideline presence from summer basketball games to the N.B.A. finals to the Super Bowl, Wesley has gained power through his connections. He has the ear of N.B.A. owners and junior high phenoms alike. He had strong enough ties in the music and sports worlds to introduce James and Jay-Z.

“What Paris Hilton has done in Hollywood, Wes has done in the sports world,” said Michael Irvin, the former star receiver in the N.F.L. who now does a radio show for ESPN. “Whoever is winning a championship, Wes is there associated with them. He’s never played a down or shot a basket, but he’s a superstar anyway.”

Recently, Wesley’s profile in the world of elite college basketball recruiting has increased. He has been linked with the family of the Memphis star freshman Derrick Rose and to one of the country’s top high school players, Tyreke Evans.

What does Wesley do? How does he make his money? How did he become so influential? The questions are often greeted with more questions.

“Whether college, professional or youth basketball, shoe companies or media, U.S. or international, I would guess that Wes is as connected as any individual that I’ve observed,” said Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference. “That said, I still don’t know much about him.”

Delany, who is considered one of the most powerful people in college sports, told Wesley he would love to have him help Big Ten programs recruit players if he knew for sure that what Wesley was doing was allowed.

“Is he or is he not subject to the rules that limit a representative of the school?” said Delany, a former N.C.A.A. investigator. “That’s a fundamental question. It’s a very difficult issue.”

LuAnn Humphrey of the National Collegiate Athletic Association enforcement staff has been asking college coaches and administrators about Wesley’s role in recruiting for months. Myles Brand, the N.C.A.A.’s president, said: “Am I concerned about people who have an influence on basketball that one might not consider healthy, leaving aside this one individual? You bet, all the time.”

Wesley is tough to read. His official job is as a mortgage broker with Greentree Mortgage, with athletes as his primary clients, but he has branched out far beyond housing. Wesley rarely does interviews. But he spoke by phone a dozen times and met in person with a New York Times reporter for about three hours in San Antonio this week. Most conversations began with, “Are we off the record?”

His reluctance to speak only causes the mystery to grow.

“If someone brought him in for show and tell, I’m not quite sure what Wes would present,” Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun said. “It was easy to identify Sonny Vaccaro because of Nike and later Adidas. It was easy to identify David Falk because of the players he represented. It’s difficult to identify Wes, but in some ways he’s a power broker of the same scale.”

Wesley has close ties to the Memphis Tigers, one of the four teams here this weekend. Wesley has been friends with Memphis Coach John Calipari since the mid-1980s, when Calipari was recruiting in New Jersey, where Wesley grew up, for Kansas.

In February, a day before No. 1 Memphis played No. 2 Tennessee in the regular season, Wesley grabbed rebounds for one of the Tiger players shooting free throws. On game day, he mingled on the floor with the team, sat directly behind the bench, walked off the floor with the players at halftime and joined them in the postgame handshake line.

At the Nike-sponsored LeBron James Skills Academy last summer in Akron, Ohio, Wesley worked his connections.

Michael Gilchrist, a 6-foot-6 high school freshman who has already said he will play at Memphis, did not play in the camp. But he hung around there, mostly with Wesley and the Memphis star Chris Douglas-Roberts.

At one point, James told Wesley, “Hey, I’m going to grab some lunch.” Wesley responded, “Why don’t you bring Little Mike with you?”

It is vintage Wesley, using one relationship to build another.

During the camp, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski waved Wesley over for a conversation. Wesley is an ally of USA Basketball, and Krzyzewski coaches the men’s team. Wesley has deep access to the program, thanks to his relationships with many of the team’s star players, and even stayed on the Queen Mary II with the team at the 2004 Olympics. He expects to be in China for the Beijing Games.

When Boeheim, an assistant on the 2004 team, was asked if he was surprised that Wesley was with the group in Athens, he laughed: “No. He’s everywhere.”

‘Part of the Crowd’

Growing up in a middle class family in Camden County, N.J., Wesley was so outgoing that he was voted Class Loudmouth at Pennsauken High in 1982.

He was not a standout athlete, but he was better at basketball than football. The Pennsauken football coach, Vince McAneney, recalled Wesley as a likable reserve best known for his gap-toothed smile before he had it fixed.

Brad Vespe, a childhood friend, said, “I wish I had that tooth — I’d put it on eBay.”

“He was friends with everybody,” McAneney said. “As long he was on the team and part of the crowd, he was happy. He was the kind of kid you need on a team.”

Wesley attended Brandywine College, now known as Widener, for a year.

He was better known in the area for his job at a local shoe store, Pro Shoes, where he sold the hottest sneakers to local athletes. He mingled with coaches, college players and professional athletes.

“It wasn’t just a sneaker store,” said Billy Thompson, who starred at Camden High and the University of Louisville, and later played in the N.B.A. “It was the sneaker store.”

As the local stars he met through high school and Pro Shoes went off to college, he would visit them. Two incubators of Wesley’s connections were the University of Miami football program and the Louisville basketball program.

Wesley met Jimmy Johnson, Miami’s coach at the time, when Johnson traveled to Pennsauken to recruit Greg Mark and Jason Hicks.

Johnson said Wesley tipped him off about Mark, who was the only white player on the floor during a basketball game. Mark played the game of his life, and Johnson said Wesley offered him help in recruiting Mark in exchange for some sideline passes. When Wesley would visit Miami, Johnson said, he brought Nike gear for the players.

“He is such a good person,” Johnson said. “He is extremely friendly, and you can trust him right away.”

As the years went on, Wesley’s involvement with the Hurricanes increased. Irvin recalled how Wesley traveled with the team and stayed up all night gambling and playing cards. Irvin said he once won the Nikes off Wesley’s feet the night before a game.

Wesley also became close to the Louisville basketball program. He is as much a part of the Cardinals’ famed Camden Connection as Milt Wagner and Thompson, two close friends.

Wesley’s emergence in the recruiting world coincided with the recruitment of Dajuan Wagner, Milt’s son and Wesley’s godson, by Louisville’s rival Memphis in 2001.

When Louisville made the 1986 Final Four in Dallas, Wesley and Vespe, who was still in high school, celebrated the Cardinals’ title on the floor. Vespe even ended up behind Coach Denny Crum in a Sports Illustrated picture. “Everyone knew Wes, because he was with us,” Thompson said. “He was part of the team, man.”

So how did a college dropout in his 20s from New Jersey end up allied with two of the most powerful college sports programs in the country in the 1980s?

“If you have the gift of gab, the gift of likability, it can take you a long way if people trust you,” Hicks said. “In his business, it’s all about trust.”

A Glamorous Life

An important move for Wesley came in the early 1990s, when the N.B.A. star Rick Mahorn hired him as a doorman at his club in Cherry Hill, N.J. Wesley worked his way up at the club, Mahorn’s, becoming the manager and a magnet for important clientele.

At Mahorn’s, Wesley developed connections that helped change his nickname from Fresh Wes to World Wide Wes.

One night when the club was packed, the teenage rap act Kriss Kross, the kids known for wearing their pants backward, serenaded Wesley on stage. “Daddy Wes will make you jump, jump,” they sang, leaping around Wesley.

His music connections blossomed, and two of his closest friends today are Jay-Z and Beyoncé. The club also sent limos to Philadelphia, to the hotels where visiting teams stayed.

“Everything that Wes has done for me is wonderful,” Mahorn said. “It’s not only that he works hard. It’s his aura.”

Wesley moved to Chicago when one of Mahorn’s business partners took him there in the mid-90s to open another nightclub. Wesley used his time in Chicago to strengthen his relationship with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and others during the Bulls’ championship era. Wesley still owns a condo in Chicago and a house in suburban Detroit, property records show. He splits time between the cities but prefers a hectic travel schedule.

In one of the numerous “Where’s Waldo?” moments for Wesley, Mahorn said he saw Wesley on television on the sideline after a Cowboys Super Bowl victory. He was photographed breaking up the brawl between the Pistons and the Pacers in 2004. And he was on the floor in Houston last week, crying tears of joy when Memphis clinched its Final Four berth.

Will he be on the floor Monday if the Tigers win the national title? Do not bet against him.

“I don’t have any clue what he does or how financially he benefits from this,” Boeheim said. “I don’t know. But he’s just there. He’s around. He knows all the pro guys, their agents, the sneaker people, the coaches, general managers, media people. There’s no one he doesn’t know.”

Jack Begg contributed research, Thayer Evans contributed reporting and Nate Schweber contributed reporting from Pennsauken, N.J.