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One of the best sitcom episodes ever!(I had a friend whose dad played for this softball team. This was the inspiration for the Turkeys Away! episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.)
Worst owner ever, but he certainly provided some entertainment.
http://www.ohio.com/sports/9705887.html
TED STEPIEN 1925-2007
Former Cavs owner, 82, dies Businessman at center of controversial years
Published on Tuesday, Sep 11, 2007
Beacon Journal staff report
Ted Stepien, who owned the Cavaliers from 1980 to 1983 and was at the center of some of the franchise's most controversial and tumultuous years, died Monday at his home in Willoughby Hills. He was 82.
Before becoming involved in professional sports, Stepien built the business recruitment company Nationwide Advertising Services Inc. into a Cleveland success story starting in 1947.
In April 1980, he bought controlling interest in the Cavaliers as a publicly traded stock at the time.
Stepien hired college basketball coach Bill Musselman, a Wooster native who had winning records at Ashland and Minnesota, as his key advisor. Musselman served two stints as Cavs coach for Stepien between 1980 and 1982, compiling records of 25-46 and 2-21 in parts of two seasons.
Stepien involved himself in key basketball decisions such as coaching changes and player trades.
At one point under Commissioner Larry O'Brien, the NBA ruled that it would have to approve Cavs trades because the team had given away No. 1 draft picks from 1984 to 1986.
In between Musselman's tenures as coach, Stepien turned the team over for a time to his friend Don Delaney, who had coached at Lakeland Community College in suburban Cleveland.
Later, Stepien went in a different direction, giving Chuck Daly his first NBA head coaching job in 1981. Daly lasted only half a season, compiling a 9-32 record, before being fired. Daly would later go on to win two NBA les as coach of the Detroit Pistons.
Stepien also weighed in on off-the-court matters, including changing the team's uniforms, having a polka composed to be the team fight song, severing its ties with Joe Tait as radio play-by-play announcer, and pulling the games off flagship radio station WWWE (now known as WTAM). He attempted to form a Northeast Ohio cable television sports channel that was called TEN TV.
Later, with the Cavaliers struggling financially and attendance sagging, Stepien investigated the idea of moving the team to Toronto for a fresh start.
Stepien also had business interests in a pro softball association and in 1980 took part in a publicity stunt by throwing five balls from the 52nd floor of Cleveland's Terminal Tower skyscraper to the ground below. One hit a car, another broke a woman's wrist, one grazed a watcher's shoulder, one bounced off the street and the fifth was finally caught. (I had a friend whose dad played for this softball team. This was the inspiration for the Turkeys Away! episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.)
Stepien was a Pittsburgh native who had been a star athlete in the early 1940s at Schenley High School. He served during World War II in the U.S. Army Air Force.
He enjoyed the spotlight as owner of a professional sports franchise, saying, ''Before I bought the Cavaliers, I was just another anonymous millionaire. Now, when I walk down the street, people say, 'There goes the president of the Cavaliers.'
''They may say other things about me,'' Stepien added, pausing for laughter, ''but they know who I am.''
After three years of owning the team that posted records of 28-54, 15-67 and 23-59, Stepien sold his advertising business and the Cavaliers to brothers George and Gordon Gund, who had also taken over ownership of the Coliseum in Richfield.
One of the best sitcom episodes ever!(I had a friend whose dad played for this softball team. This was the inspiration for the Turkeys Away! episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.)
Stepien was certainly a one-of-a-kind sort of owner. His past makes Mark Cuban look like Albert Einstein.
RIP.
Didn't that show have Tawny Kitaen on it when she was hot, or was it Loni Anderson? Either way, dude sounds wacked out.
Loni Anderson. But Tawny was WAYYYYY hotter.
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