Every business professional has learned the benefits of leadership, competitiveness, desire, vision, goal setting, teamwork, time management, chemistry, selflessness, work ethic, discipline and focus – qualities that can build a path toward great success, both individually and collectively.

But the same can be said for every great athlete. And among those who have been successful in both endeavors, most say the correlation is undeniable. Some of the skills that made them successful in athletics, they say, also played a part in making them successful in business.

“I don’t think there’s any way that anyone can underestimate the value athletics plays in terms of developing a person’s character and their values system and work ethic,” said Al Lorenzen, senior vice president of Fidelity Bank in West Des Moines and a former University of Iowa basketball player. “They’ve had a huge impact on me, and a lot of folks would say the same thing.”

But these professionals aren’t “has-beens” who spend their days basking in the glory of big victories, national championships and personal awards. They savor those memories while focusing on their professional accomplishments. And most of them are keenly aware that the intangible skills they picked up on the playing field have played a major role in reaching those achievements.

“The beauty of sports is that you have to have a certain inherent talent,” said Mark Poole, managing partner of The Real Estate Book of Greater Des Moines and a former three-sport athlete at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. “But if you work hard, you can make yourself better. And that applies to business. If you’re willing to put in the hours and pay your dues, I think you’re going to be successful.”



RICK WANAMAKER

As a collegiate athlete, Rick Wanamaker competed against his Drake University teammates for a starting spot on the basketball team and for individual medals in track and field competitions. But he and those teammates had to come together to win games and meets and achieve great things.

Some things never change.

“Real estate is really competitive, and it has the same relationships as team sports and individual sports,” said Wanamaker, a real estate agent for Iowa Realty in West Des Moines. “By cooperating with fellow Realtors, you can help sell their (properties) and they can help you sell yours. But at the same time, they’re the same Realtors you’re competing with for the same buyers.”

Wanamaker, a Marengo native, is like many other athletes-turned-business professionals, comparing the intricacies of his profession to those of athletics, and vice versa. In his case, he compares the team focus of basketball and the individuality of track and field to “working for an employer rather than being self-employed.”

But he managed to do both equally well.

Drake achieved some of its greatest basketball successes during Wanamaker’s tenure as the team’s starting center. The highlight was the team’s 1969 NCAA Final Four appearance that pitted it against national powerhouse UCLA. The Bulldogs’ scrappy play against the heavily favored Bruins – they scored eight straight points to cut the UCLA lead to one point with 9 seconds left before losing 85-82 – brought a sense of pride to the Drake campus and elevated Wanamaker and his teammates to hero status.

He admits track and field was his favorite of the two sports, particularly because of the individuality that is fundamental in competition. He became one of the top collegiate decathletes, winning the event at the 1970 NCAA national championship meet before going on to win at the 1971 Pan American Games and 1971 National AAU competition. He was drafted by the NBA but passed up tryout camp to compete for a spot on the 1972 Olympic team in the decathlon.

Wanamaker sprained his ankle four days before the Olympic trials, however, an injury that still haunts him. Having been familiar with the field of competitors, he believes he would not only have made the Olympic team but would have gone on to finish second or third.

Wanamaker competed internationally for two more years, but took two weeks off in 1974 and never went back, feeling he’d lost his edge and desire in a sport that wasn’t financially rewarding. He returned to Iowa and began his career in real estate.

The benefits of athletic competition have never escaped him. Though academics were important to him in college, it was the lessons learned through sports that gave him a swift dose of reality at a young age, teaching him time management and the value of a strong work ethic.

“There’s a lot of correlation,” Wanamaker said, “things you wouldn’t learn in the classroom.”

AL LORENZEN

Al Lorenzen picked up on that correlation following his basketball career, first as an employee and now as an executive. In fact, he believes many employers actively seek out former athletes because of the combination of skills they bring to the workplace, particularly their competitiveness and teamwork approach.

“People I talk to who have been involved in athletics understand the value of a team approach, understand roles, understand that the team has to work together to accomplish a task or goal,” he said. “But you also have to step up and do what it takes to help the organization.”

In fact, it was his past work experience, not his athletic background, that allowed him to rise to the rank of bank executive. Lorenzen and many other former athletes who have been successful in business picked up many intangible benefits through sports, but they place equal importance on their college education.

Lorenzen, began to draw attention from college basketball coaches as a high school freshman. When all was said and done, he had scholarship offers from dozens of schools across the country. But the McDonald’s All-American from Cedar Rapids, facing immense pressure from in-state fans, headed to Iowa City. And the pressure didn’t stop there.

“Pressure in terms of living up to fans’ expectations is immense and something you can’t get away from, and nothing prepares you for it,” he said. “There’s no profession that’s going to stack up to that.”

From 1984 to 1988, Lorenzen, a forward and center, and the Hawkeyes competed in four straight NCAA post-season tournaments and experienced great success in the Big 10 Conference. His junior year, the team went 30-5 and made it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament.

His senior season was cut short by back surgery, and his doctors said he would never play basketball again. So when he was given the opportunity to play professionally in Europe, he looked at it as “a new lease on life.” He spent six seasons in France, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey and Belgium.

Lorenzen left professional basketball in 1995 and entered the business world, landing positions with several companies. He later accepted a job in the Drake University Athletic Department, which he left earlier this year to join Fidelity Bank.

Now a decade into his post-basketball career, he’s seen his competitiveness, discipline, focus and team approach take on a different shape and propel him to a higher level of performance.

“There are so many things that you learn about yourself and about what you can achieve and what’s possible by competing in that world,” Lorenzen said. “I’m a firm believer that so much more good than what the public is aware of, in terms of character development and so many other intangibles, is accomplished through athletics.”

FRANK SANTANA

As a high school sophomore in Chicago, Frank Santana was dragged out of homeroom one day by the wrestling coach and asked to fill in for an injured wrestler in a match that evening.

“I actually got disqualified for cold-cocking a guy,” he said.

But that was one of only two matches Santana would lose during the remainder of his high school career, with undefeated records and state championships in his junior and senior seasons.

“I hated to lose,” said Santana, now owner of 7 Flags Fitness & Racquet Club in Clive. “I was willing to pay whatever price was required not to lose, and I think that’s what makes a great athlete and what makes a great business person. There’s a price you pay to win, and it requires the same attributes you learned in athletics.”

His successes in high school drew attention from countless college wrestling coaches, including his idol, legendary University of Iowa coach Dan Gable. During a tournament, Santana had an opportunity to go through a workout with Gable, who was less than complimentary about his wrestling abilities.

All the more reason to go to Iowa State, Santana decided. And in four seasons with the Cyclones, from 1973 to 1978, he never lost a match to Gable’s Hawkeyes.

He was a runner-up at the NCAA national championship meet in 1976 and 1978. In 1977, Santana won NCAA gold and was captain of the Iowa State team as it won the NCAA team championship.

But of equal importance to Santana during his time at Iowa State were academics.

“I think it’s really important if you’re going to get an education for your God-given athletic ability, you have a responsibility to take advantage of it, and I did,” said Santana, a business major and academic all-American.

He worked toward an M.B.A. while training to compete in the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, which the United States boycotted because of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

“I left it behind me,” Santana said of wrestling. “It wasn’t the last accomplishment I wanted in my quiver.”

His accomplishments on the wrestling mat and in the classroom attracted the attention of companies across the country, and landed him in jobs in New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

“When you win an NCAA championship and you’re the captain, you win numerous leadership awards and they’re on your resume and you’re able to describe how you impacted those around you to perform at a higher level,” Santana said. “That’s a pervasive reason to hire you.”

But like Lorenzen, he acknowledges that “once you’re in the door, those attributes have to be demonstrated over and over.”

Now as a business owner – he bought 7 Flags in January – the discipline, determination and work ethic that made him successful on the mat are leading him to success in a new arena. But it also doesn’t take an athlete to realize what it takes.

“I can’t emphasize enough that in order to be good at something, you have to devote a lot of time and energy to it,” Santana said.

RANDY DUNCAN

Randy Duncan is one former athlete who fails to see the carryover value from athletics to business that so many of his compatriots are quick to cite. Athletes learn the value of the preparation to win rather than the will to win, he said, but that’s where it ends.

“I think it’s greatly overrated,” said Duncan, an attorney with Duncan, Green, Brown & Langeness who played football for the Iowa Hawkeyes from 1956 to 1959. “A lot of that other stuff just doesn’t carry over into the professional business world, I think. And I see too many ex-jocks who still bask in the glory of the old days. That doesn’t work.”

A standout quarterback at Roosevelt High School, he, too, felt pressure to go to an in-state school. He passed on several other scholarship offers to attend Iowa.

He led the team through one of its most successful periods in team history, capturing Rose Bowl victories in 1957 and 1959. Following the 1958-59 season, Duncan was named the Big 10’s most valuable player, finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy and was the No. 1 draft pick in the National Football League.

Duncan, however, did not see the next step up in his sport as a final stopping point. Instead, he used his professional football salary – he played in Canada and then in Dallas – to put himself through law school.

After three seasons and a law degree in hand, he left football and began his legal career.

Duncan fondly recalls his days with the Hawkeyes, but chooses to focus on his professional accomplishments. And he’s thankful he never let academics take a back seat to football. Sure, the fame gained on the playing field can help former athletes get their foot in the door with an employer, but sports won’t get them ahead in life, he said.

MAUREEN ROUSHAR

For Maureen Roushar, golf was as much about business as it was about sheer athletic ability. To survive on a professional tour, she had to work with investors, network, draw up proposals and market herself and her athletic abilities.

“That was really my first experience with business and how to start your own business,” said Roushar, public relations director for Krause Gentle Corp.

But learning the skills that have helped her succeed in business started at a much younger age. In fifth grade, as she scribbled onto paper all of her goals for her golf career, she soon realized how important it was to set goals, whether in business or in sports.

A Clinton native, she began to play golf at age 5 and said she “caught the bug” at 11. Her performance in junior golf and at tournaments and camps garnered attention from college coaches early in her high school career.

She accepted a scholarship to Iowa State and joined the school’s golf team in 1989. The highlight came in 1993 when, as a junior, her team captured the Big 8 Conference championship.

“It was fun to execute what our dream was,” Roushar said. “That’s why you hit balls for hours and hours and go home with bloody hands, because that’s what you dream about and that’s the discipline it takes to play and execute at a higher level.”

After college, she took a job as an assistant golf professional at Glen Oaks Country Club, where she met several people, including her current boss, Bill Krause, who made financial investments that allowed her to play on two professional golf tours, the fulfillment of one of the goals she outlined as a fifth-grader.

“Most people work all their lives so they can live their dream,” Roushar said. “I lived my dream, and now I’m going to work for the rest of my life.”

MARK POOLE

Participating in three sports at the University of Nebraska-Omaha was a struggle for Mark Poole, but that was merely a precursor to life as a business professional. Poole now splits his time between Des Moines and Lincoln, Neb., and three businesses: GTG Golf Inc., Discovery Research Group and The Real Estate Book of Greater Des Moines.

“I think the hardest thing for me was learning how to budget my time,” Poole said of his college years. “Having all that freedom (of being away from home) and being able to balance a full class load and three sports was difficult. Moving forward to today, budgeting my time has been very paramount to any success that I have in business.”

In fact many former athletes say time management was one of the most important skills they learned through their involvement in collegiate athletics. Like all students, there were classes, exams, papers and study sessions. But they also had to fit in hours of practices, game preparation, individual training and travel. That was especially true for Poole, who competed in football, basketball and track.

Poole reneged on his decision to play at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln when eventual Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers made a late commitment to join the Cornhuskers and play Poole’s position.

But by playing at NCAA Division II UNO, he had the opportunity to not only be a difference-maker on the football team, but also could continue to play basketball and run track.

Poole’s career in business took him to a railroad manufacturing company, a pharmaceutical company, a software company and then a survey research company in Nebraska.

He later started his own survey research company, Discovery Research, and co-founded GTG Golf, which designs and manufactures golf equipment. He recently became managing partner of The Real Estate Book of Greater Des Moines.

Sports, Poole said, forced him to operate under a team mentality that is focused around trust. He also came to realize the importance of coaches and mentors, and has found several mentors who have played an important role in his growth as a business professional.

“In sports,” he said, “everybody’s trying to win. But you can’t win all the time, and it’s the same in business. In sports, when you lose, what you try to do is take away the positive things and learn from the mistakes you made.”

TOM RANDALL

Tom Randall didn’t grow up wanting to be a football player.

“The mindset of being able to do it, being able to mold myself physically and mentally was proof to me that there are a lot of things you can do if you set your mind to it and are determined,” he said.

That attitude not only earned him a three-year starting spot on an Iowa State football team that went 8-3 in each of his last two seasons, all-conference honors and two years in the NFL, but has also made him a successful Ames real estate agent and helped give him courage to open his own office in April.

Randall, who played for the Cyclones from 1974 to 1977, learned early in his college career the value of time management, with each hour of the day structured around class and football, whether that was training table, study table, practice, films or meetings. He usually had about two hours to himself each day, if that.

“Even to this day, that was the toughest schedule I ever had,” he said.

But that schedule didn’t keep Randall from staying focused on academics. The standout defensive tackle earned academic all-conference honors his junior and senior years.

“Football was a vehicle to go to school,” he said. “I didn’t have any illusions that football was the end.”

Randall spent one year with Dallas Cowboys and one with the Houston Oilers, then quit the NFL before his third season, saying the risk wasn’t worth the reward. He returned to Iowa one year later and went into real estate.

After 24 years of working for large agencies, he opened Tom Randall Real Estate on April 1, a major step that he said was possible, in part, because of his ability to visualize, a skill he learned from some of his coaches at Iowa State.

“We do some of the same things in business where we try to picture where we want to be and what we want to do and what it’s going to take to get there,” Randall said. “We have pictures for the next few years of where we’re headed and what it’s going to take to get there.”

NOT THEIR FINAL STOP

For Wanamaker, it was competitiveness and leadership. Lorenzen learned the importance of teamwork and the value of roles. Santana still possesses the raw determination that made him an instant success in wrestling.

Roushar learned the value of setting goals, and even the intricacies of running a small business. Duncan discovered the difference between the will to win and the preparation needed to win. Poole was quickly forced to budget his time, and Randall learned the power of visualization.

Most of them found all of that and then some. It also took years for them to realize just what athletics had brought them, beyond the medals and trophies and championship rings.

But each of these business professionals is quick to point out that athletics were not the primary focus of his or her college careers. Many earned academic awards in addition to awards for their athletic performance. Sports were not the be-all and end-all for them.

“I think too many kids today are in there because they want to go on to the pro level,” Duncan said of college athletes.

Now in business, they realize that “team captain” or “national champion” might get their foot in the door, but they have to continually prove themselves, while using leadership, teamwork, competitiveness and other skills learned on the playing field.

“There are athletes who set bad examples and do things they should be chastised for,” Lorenzen said. “But there’s a whole group of people who are better contributors because of their association with sports.”