By the Books

Pat Williams is a busy man. A husband, father to 19 children and a grandfather to 19, at 81, he has written or contributed to more than 100 books and is himself a voracious reader (four to five hours a day). As the first general manager of the Orlando Magic, Williams is credited with bringing the NBA to the city 32 years ago and landing first overall draft pick Shaquille O’Neal in the Magic’s sixth season.

AVAIL had an opportunity to sit down with Williams and mine his insights on faith and leadership—and his optimism about the next generation. The octogenarian has a zeal for life and is praying God gives him 30 more years to live and learn.

‘HANDS OFF’

Although a lifelong student of leadership, Williams acknowledges that he has done very little to orchestrate the path of his colorful career. He was 28 years old and the general manager of a minor league baseball team in North Carolina when he accepted Christ as his savior.

“At that precise moment, operating that minor league ball club in Spartanburg, I said, ‘Lord, I’m yours. I’m surrendering. I’ve tried to maneuver my life, and make my life work, and I’m just giving it up. I’m just totally putting my life in your hands, and I’m taking my hands off it.’ And I really meant it,” he recalls. “When you accept Christ, duck. Because you never know what’s going to happen.”

At the time, Williams’ biggest concern was that God would call him to be a missionary.

“‘Lord, I don’t want to become a missionary,’” he recalls praying. “‘I don’t want to be under a thatched roof hut in Africa with a pith helmet on. I like my life in sports,’ The Lord said, ‘I’ve got a ministry for you. It’s in the sports world. You’re not going to Africa. I don’t have a pith helmet for you. But I’m going to give you a platform through the world of sports.’”

Five months later, Williams was invited to manage the Philadelphia 76ers, beginning a 50-year career in the NBA. He is best known for his part in launching the Orlando Magic—a team that made its debut in 1989 and, by its sixth season, landed in the NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets. In his 30 years with the Magic, Williams served as general manager and senior vice president for the franchise, retiring in 2019. Since then, he stays active writing, speaking and—most recently—heading up a campaign to bring a Major League Baseball team to Orlando.

“You need to set long-term goals. Because when you stop setting long-term goals, the dying process begins,” he says. “Our best years, if our heath is good, should be in our 80s and 90s. Our kids are raised, our grandkids usually are. You’re no longer climbing the ladder of success. You can now really focus it on what your best strengths are and what you enjoy the most.”

FAMILY MAN

As he notes, all this is predicated on health—something Williams does not take for granted.

“Years ago, I had a desire to live to 100, and as I read, I discovered that, if I want to do that, I better not smoke, I better not drink, I better work out and I better be excited about life,” Williams says. “I’ve since lengthened that to 112. For some reason, God let me have that number of 112. So, if that’s the case, that’s 30 years more. I came to Orlando 35 years ago. But when you get past 112 years old, you’re starting to set some records.”

He is religious about his annual physicals, a practice that likely saved his life when in 2011 he was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma­—a form of blood cancer with a life expectancy of two to three years.

“My biggest message is to men primarily, and that is do not neglect your yearly physical,” he says. “That was key in my case. It was in the yearly physical that they spotted something in my bloodwork. I didn’t feel anything, but they spotted something.”

Williams recovered and has since received clean bills of health.

“I’m now at year 12, so God’s been very good to me. I had a good medical team. I’ve reacted well to all forms of chemo and I had a lot of people praying for me,” he says. “For some reason, God has more on my platter—more books to write, more speeches to give. I’m trying to bring Major League Baseball to Orlando. That’s the next big adventure.”

Williams and his first wife, Jill, had 18 children together—14 adopted from overseas and four biological. He and his current wife, Ruth, share a child. Although he was at first reluctant to explore international adoption, Williams says he “got the bug” after they adopted two girls from South Korea. More children followed from the Philippines, Romania and Brazil.

“They’re all interconnected, they are all in touch with each other and they all relate to each other. It’s fascinating to watch. And now the next generation is coming. The oldest is 17, and the youngest is two,” he explains. “Many of them are in the sports business. We were at a grandson’s basketball game last night, and there are soccer matches this weekend and T-ball on Saturday afternoon. So, we’re doing the same thing we were years ago, except with grandkids.”

THE GAME OF LEADERSHIP

For Williams, his life has been built around sports from an early age—baseball, football and basketball.

“I played all three sports in high school, and I played a leadership position: a quarterback in football, a catcher in baseball, a point guard in basketball. I went to college, and I was a catcher at Wake Forest—a leadership position—and then became the youngest general manager in baseball when I was 24,” he recalls. “So, I had leadership positions thrust at me at a very young age.”

Although he was frequently tapped for leadership roles, Williams notes that there were few resources on the topic when he was getting started.

“I was doing leadership stuff before I even knew there was a name for it. Back in my day, we never heard the word leadership,” he says. “There certainly were no books written about it like today, no leadership seminars or leadership retreats. You couldn’t study it or read about it. Today, you can go to college and major in leadership. You can get a Ph.D. in it.”

Williams arguably has read more books on leadership than most of those who have doctorates in the subject.

“I’ve got well over a thousand leadership books in my personal collection. I’ve saved them all. I’ve read them all. I’m immersed in a couple of them right now. I never tire of studying the great ingredients it takes, because everything rises and falls on leadership in this world,” he argues. “It always has, it always will. It will always be a topic of intense discussion.”

PASS IT ON

His interests go beyond personal enrichment, however. Whether through his sports leadership, writing books or his Power Hour with Pat Williams, an interview show he hosts on Orlando radio station WTLN, Williams is passionate about sharing what he’s learned with others.

“I want to be on the cutting edge of leadership and learn all I can, and above all, to pass on to the next generations what I’ve learned about leadership because the future of our country hinges on this next generation of young leaders—in all fields, far beyond sports: government, church, education,” he notes. “We have a big job to do to get this next generation ready. So, I’d like to pass down all the leadership that people have invested in me as a young guy. I want to pass that on to the next generation.”

Much of the insight Williams shares is drawn from his love of history. He’s an avid reader of presidential biographies, as well as Civil War and World War II history. This passion led him to write his latest book, Revolutionary Leadership: Essential Lessons From the Men and Women of the American Revolution. His research attempted to answer the question, How did we ever win that war?

“Great Britain was the most powerful force on earth,” he notes. “They had the largest navy in the world. We had no navy. We had no boats. We had nothing. And yet, for eight years that war raged on, and eventually, the United States prevailed, and the British surrendered at Yorktown.”

The difference, Williams contends, was that, whereas the British had better weapons, equipment, food and so on, there was one area in which the American colonists excelled: leadership. In Revolutionary Leadership, he explores the lives of heroes of the American Revolution—from the well-known, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, to the more obscure, such as the African-American victim of the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks, and Sarah Bradlee Fulton, the “Mother of the Boston Tea Party.”

Williams links the success of the Revolution to the “all hands on deck” attitude of the colonists, in which both leaders and everyday people embraced the responsibility of fighting for freedom. Although separated by 250 years of history, he cites the similarities of the Revolutionary War period with the present cultural context. The colonists were fighting a smallpox pandemic, there was severe division between the pro-revolutionary patriots and loyalists and political discourse was often even more vicious than it is today.

“We think things are harsh today and criticism is intense,” he says. “It’s nothing compared to what was going on back then. Awful. They went after each other like wild animals. Tore into them. Just attacked them. If that went on today, we just couldn’t imagine it. My point is I think we’ve made enormous progress in our civil conversation. Although people would say today, ‘Civil?’ I’m saying compared to then, we’re much more civil.”

Williams acknowledges that the people he highlights in his book were far from perfect and that the country they birthed has its share of flaws and problems. However, he contends that God was at work and used people with deep faults to create the nation we live in today.

“For some reason, in that little eight-year period, God raised up these leaders in that period, and we’ve never seen that again in any period of American history,” he notes. “So, that’s why I say this country is a God thing. God had reasons to have it prevail, and it’s become the most important nation on earth, and we continue to hold that role.”

Williams draws particular insight from the example of George Washington, who was reluctant in his role as the first President. Although he could have assumed the powers of a king or dictator, he only stayed in power for two terms and returned to his life as a farmer, forever setting an ideal of limited presidential power.

“Without George Washington, we don’t really have a country,” Williams says. “I think all Americans need to study Washington, learn about him. Learn about his weaknesses and strengths, what made him a great leader. We don’t want to be ashamed of these people.”

LEADERS AS READERS

Although Williams is inspired by the figures of the past, he is increasingly optimistic about the future and the young leaders who are poised to take the baton from him and others.

“I’m really encouraged—I’m greatly encouraged—about the future of our country,” he says. “The young people have never been sharper, more intense. They want to be difference makers, and I’m seeing this.”

His concern, however, is that he doesn’t see the next generation of leaders sharing his passion for reading books—something to which he attributes so much of his leadership journey.

“Young people today are addicted to screens. That concerns me,” he notes. “Computer screens. Phone screens. TV screens. Movie screens. Video game screens. What I’m seeing has happened as a result of all this is that they’re losing an interest in reading. Back in the [Revolutionary] day, those old timers were all readers. They all talked about it. Here’s my favorite Jefferson quote: ‘I cannot live without books.’ They had no other option to learn. They didn’t have computers or the internet, so they read.”

Williams recommends a regimen of 52 books a year—in other words, a book a week, broken down into at least an hour a day. Although he now reads between four and five hours a day, he wishes he had read even more earlier in his life.

“The average man, upon finishing high school, will not read a book the rest of his life, and 85 percent of all the books purchased in this country are purchased by women. So, I am intensely advocating the best leaders are the best readers. Reading and leading go together.”

Williams is the first to emphasize the importance of developing oneself as a leader, but he is quick to point out the tension between preparation, training and planning and the often-unpredictable paths that God takes us on in our journeys with Him.

“My point is that when you turn your life over to the Lord, you trust Him totally. I think that’s my main message. Trust him for your future. Trust him for your career. Trust him for your mate. Trust him for every aspect of your life,” Williams says. “For me it was scary, because I said, ‘I’m maneuvering my career, I’m doing all this,’ and I heard the Lord say, ‘Back off. Remove your hands. I’ll take it from here.’”

“When you come to the Lord, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Be ready, he knows the big picture of your life. And that’s hard to do, but I think the key word is trust. Trust God enough to turn your life over to Him. And do it in a way that you don’t keep one hand on it. Take them both off.”