THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
INTERVIEW WITH: B. J. (Red) McCombs
DATE: May 27, 1994
PLACE: Mr. McCombs' Office
INTERVIEWER: Sterlin Holmesly
TAPE I, Side 1
M: My name is "Red" McCombs. I was born in Spur, Texas in
1927. I came to San Antonio in January 1958. I got involved
immediately through Chamber of Commerce type work and became
head of the Chamber in '65. As head of the Chamber I was
very much intertwined with the Executive Committee of the
planning of HemisFair. And after I left the head of the
Chamber ah in '66, then I became a member of the Executive
Committee of HemisFair and was involved in the planning
process and the execution of the Fair.
H: A lot of people call HemisFair a watershed for San
Antonio. The town has never been the same . What are your
views on that?
M: I think that's a fair assessment. I really credit
Marshall Steves and a group of people, like him and Tom
Frost, who had the idea that the underwriting of this Fair
should encompass the entire community and although I looked
at it at the time as something that was a bit unrealistic,
they really had a plan that would involve every business,
regardless of size. And having been experienced with work
in the United Way and other fund drives in San Antonio. I
M: personally thought that was unrealistic that we had
many small, small, small businesses that had not
participated in community-wide activities, and I seriously
doubted that they would. I was wrong. Ah, we had the
broadest-base participation, at that time, in the
underwriting of the Fair of anything that has happened
since. We've never had it again. But I think that that is
accurate to say that.
H: The general scope of this oral history are the
political, social, and economic changes in san Antonio,
roughly since HemisFair. We're not limited to that, but I
would like for you to review that. And HemisFair is a
starting point because I believe it brought not only
economic change but also political and social change, And
other factors have certainly entered into it. But, how has
San Antonio changed since '68, say?
M: Well, I would say that when you look at political,
social and economical you really can't; there's no way you
can, you can tear those apart.
H: Uh huh.
M: And, ah, you could ... you could .•. you could get on any
one of the issues, but they really are so intertwined, not
only in San Antonio but in my judgment almost anywhere, to a
degree of course. I would just say that, when I came to San
Antonio in 1958, one of the things that I was advised of by
people that ... that were fairly well placed, was that San
Antonio was "a closed town"; that it M: really was a town
McCOMBS
M: that was ... ah, that was, run on all of those areas­political,
social and economic - by old families, and, it
was a closed city.
H: Old families, old money.
3
M: Old families, old money. I found that to be absolutely
erroneous. Ah, I can't say what happened before 1958, but I
found San Antonio to be a very open city.
H: Huh.
M: I certainly didn't have anything to offer, anymore than
anyone else coming here, but I found it very open, and I
found it really a city where you were interested in being
involved in something, you could you could do that. Now as
far as ... as what the Fair did specifically, I think, the
Fair took the first step, in causing, all those areas of San
Antonio to, feel like that San Antonio was capable of being
a great city. A major league city is what I like to refer
to. We're not there yet. We certainly didn't get there
during the Fair, but it caused a lot of people to - in San
Antonio - to change their thinking, toward that.
H: The .. . the city could do something and do it fairly
well.
M: Right.
H: Or quite well.
M: We had no idea what the scope of that Fair would be, as
the planning started, and as we got into it, things that we
had just taken for granted were virtually insurmountable.
McCOMBS
M: And when I say we, I just talk in general of the
leadership of the Fair.
H: Uh huh.
4
M: Such things as as federal participation. At a time
when Ralph Yarborough was a U. s. Senator, John Connally was
Governor, and they really didn't get in the same room
together. The requirements that, that we had to have both a
State participation in the Fair and federal became almost
impossible to achieve, and John connelly stepped forward in
those issues, both state and national. In every instance to
where the ox was in the ditch, theoretically, John was a
figurehead as Commissioner General of the Fair, but in
reality, every time we reached the stage that we just
couldn't get across the line, John picked up the ball and
got it across the line. He handled the rift between him and
Yarborough in such a way that we did get federal funding.
He handled the state legislature in such a way that we did
get state funding, and they were critical. But also, we had
a requirement in the Fair that we had to have some twenty­three
or twenty-six industrial exhibits that would be
thematic to the Fair. That was quite an expensive item.
You would look at the Fortune 500 Company types to do this.
We felt like that that would be no problem whatsoever. The
scheme was, that these corporations would lease land from
the Fair Corporation, and then they were required to build a
building, then they were required to put an exhibit in that
McCOMBS 5
M: building that would be acceptable to the leaders of the
Fair, that would be thematic to the Fair and then, of
course, they had to staff it for the entire six months of
the fair. We got three committed mmediately: GE, because of
the connection that Jim Gaines had had over the years, and
IBM, because of a local connection at the time, and
Southwestern Bell. After we got those three, which came in
immediately, we hit a dry spell, and we didn't get any. And
when that particular ox fell in the ditch, we were about to
run out of time, and the time line it would take to build a
building and to meet these requirements. These requirements
were amongst the requirements that the Bureau of
International Expositions imposed on a world's fair of this
category, and we couldn't be sanctioned as a world's fair
without them. None of us expected this would be that big a
problem. I had very close relationships, then, with Ford
Motor Company and had struck out. Lee Iacocca was president
of Ford at the time; had a very close relationship with him.
It strained our relationship. Ford had committed $250,000
to be sent to the governor, for him to pick an art object of
his choosing, and that would be Ford's contribution to the
Fair, but in no way were they considering a building
thematic to the Fair, and it was in a, just a chance
conversation one day, that we unlocked that. I am bitching
at Iacocca about Ford not committing and coming along, and
he was tired of listening to me. And M: we got into a
McCOMBS 6
cuss fight on the phone which ended up with him saying,
"Red, some day you will realize that, that little dusty
south Texas town down there, that you think is the greatest
in the world, in fact, in the scope of things, this Fair you
are planning has no economic and no political significance
whatsoever." And when he said that, a light came on, and I
knew that we had unlocked it, because I called Governor
Connally and said, "What do you think?" And I said, "John,
we have been so stupid". And he said, "Well, you call Lee
back and tell him that he'll be getting, that Mr. Ford will
be getting a call from Lyndon [President Johnson] within
forty-eight hours, and Lyndon will explain to him the
political significance of the Fair." I d i d that, with great
gusto and pleasure, and at which time Mr. Iacocca very
wisely said, "No, you're pulling my chain". And I said,
"Just relax and watch it happen", at which time he said,
"Well, have the President call me", or words to this effect
at any rate. So, again, John Connally, with his
relationship with the President, unlocked all that. And
suddenly, they started coming in and clicking like domi noes.
H: Not only with Ford, but a lot of the others too .
M: once we realized that card, and up to that time I think
none of us had really been aware that you could do this.
But virtually all of the industrial exhibi tors had no
i nterest in coming here; it was a very expensive item to
them.
McCOMBS 7
H: Uh-huh.
M: And they would not have been here without Governor
Connally's involvement with President Johnson, and them
being made aware of the political significance. And it was
interesting that whenever we dedicated the Ford Pavilion -
as well as the others - Mr. Ford and three corporate
aircraft came down, and they made their great speeches about
how important Texas was to them and how important San
Antonio was to Texas and all.
H: How glad they were to be here.
M: How glad they were to be here. But in San Antonio we
found that, that we became a much more open city,
politically and socially. You know, in my judgment the
city's always been a fairly open city, and I think,
economically, we began to tell our story of what I call our
product here, our city.
H: Uh-huh.
M: And, it was a giant step forward. It's a story that we
still have to tell. America has not recognized it yet. Ah,
but we've come a long way since 1968.
H: Well, the story's getting out somewhere, with all the
people that have been coming to town.
M: Well, the other thing we learned was that ... that we
should have known; I guess we did but we really hadn't
played it up ... but we learned that people loved visiting San
Antonio, and we learned that we could build a great industry
McCOMBS 8
M: in the visitor business. And, of course, now we sort
of take that for granted. But at the time we did HemisFair,
that certainly was not the case. That has happened since
1968, and we learned that people that carne here, enjoyed
their stay, and that San Antonio was very good at providing
hospitality and that opened, that opened a lot of doors
that, that, that still are, are opening wider, even today.
H: There was another significant event about that same
time, and that was the establishment of a county teaching
hospital to attract a medical school. Did you have some
roles in that?
M: Yes. Uh huh.
H: And which is, we now have about eighteen-thousand jobs
at that location.
M: Well, both the Health Science Center, as we now have
it, of course, started out with the i dea that we would get a
medical school.
H: Uh-huh.
M: And people like John Connally had a bigger vision than
what we had here. At the same time we ' re working on the
University of Texas, San Antonio, and they kind of carne
along, kind of hand in glove, although not at exactly the
same time. But I can tell you that I was very close friends
at that time, through the State Longhorn Association, with
Frank Erwin in Austin, who was chairman of the Board of
Regents.
McCOMBS 9
H: Uh-huh.
M: And Frank and I spent many hours over a bottle of
scotch, with his message always being the same, that, that
there's not gonna be a University of Texas component in San
Antonio, because those needs can be served by the people
corning to Austin, and it's seventy miles, and that is not
gonna happen. And certainly with his leadership on the
Board of Regents, which was a ... he was a very strong leader,
and a great leader for the state of Texas and for the
University of Texas system. But when we fell in the ditch
on that and weren't getting anywhere - although a lot of
people had a lot of work done in it - I was involved in
working in all those . But in my judgment, none of those
even had a chance to be real - a reality - without John
Connally. John Connally delivered that. John Connally felt
that san Antonio could be the hub for all of south Texas in
providing these services to the people of Texas.
H: That's both the Health Science Center and UTSA?
M: Correct. Absolutely.
H: And at the HernisFair, the Institute of Texan Cultures,
which is also a part of the UT system.
M: Absolutely. You know, if it sounds like I'm singing
the praises of John Connally, I am, because i t just happens
to be the truth. And John was always, for a politician
particularly, John was a very modest person. He wasn't
looking for credit. John really believed that Texas could
McCOMBS
M: grow as a state in tourism, and he felt like that the
HemisFair would be a big, a big move to awaken the rest of
the country, not only for San Antonio, but in the state.
10
one of the biggest emotional issues that we had at the time
was liquor by the drink. John personally was virtually a
teetotaler. But John recognized that we couldn't have a
World's Fair and have people bringing brown bags, and try to
build a tourist base for San Antonio in the State of Texas.
And it was John's leadership. A lot of us worked on that.
It was a very emotional issue at the time. The Chamber, as
I was head of the Chamber, the Chamber Board really wanted
to stonewall it and just not be involved in that issue. And
I, I, I brow beat and twisted arms and everythi ng else to
get the Chamber Board to come out early on, i n support of
the State enacting legislation that would allow liquor by
the drink. But when that would have happened in Texas
without HemisFair being the impetus ...
H: Uh-huh.
M; I can't say. It would have happened in time, but
certainly wouldn't have happened in 1967, and it wouldn't
have happened even in '67 without John's leadership in
Austin.
H: Well, Bexar County, as I recall, was the first county
H: in the State to vote for the local option for liquor by
the drink. It's (both talking).
M: I don't know whether we were first or not, but if
McCOMBS 11
M: we weren't first it's just because we didn't get the,
didn't get on the ballot first, because it was obvious that
the vast majority of the citizens of San Antonio preferred
that. But that was a very, very emotional issue.
H: Uh-huh.
M: Uh (both talking).
H: Locally and legislators?
M: Yes.
H: Which was much more rural then than it is now.
M: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we didn't have the
votes because of that. Because of the preponderance of the
people being rural. And I don't know what all John had to
do to convince the legislators from mule shoe and other
remote areas in Texas to support this, because they had to
their districts uh to get re-elected, having voted for this.
So, I suspect that ... that John found a way to ...
H: Well, their out was local option. They just s i mply ...
(both talking).
M: Well, that was an out, but that wasn't good enough,
Sterlin. That was not good enough, you know. If we could
have made that fly, you know, that's a logical out anywhere.
H: Uh-huh.
M: But, to the people who were adamantly against it, that
was not an out. I mean, that was ... that was a cop out, not
an out.
H: Do you think some of those old West Texas boys lost
McCOMBS
H:
M:
their seats because of that?
Well I'm sure that they did.
12
Do you remember?
Although I knew a lot of
them a personally and what I think they did was get
some •.. some advance commitments for farm to market roads and
some other things. I think there was a lot of trading took
place on that, and I think there was quid pro quo. And I
think they could go back and ! ... but there out was .. . and
what ... what we concocted for them ... and ... and it .•. it went a
long way toward getting it done was, "Hey it's gonna pass
anyway." Which, in fact, was not true.
H: Uh-huh.
M: "It's gonna pass anyway, so I might as well get on it
and, and at the same time get a little plus for my district
in some other manner which I couldn't get otherwise, because
it's gonna pass anyway." Well of course the people back
home in those districts didn't know that it was or wasn't.
H: Uh-huh.
M: But that was essentially what ... what the trade-off was.
H: Back to the ... the medical school which is now the
Health Science Center ..• were you involved i n the
Commissioner's Court vote on creation of teaching hospitals?
M: I very much was involved, and I was with the group
that was visiting with one on one. Maybe there were half a
dozen of us so involved - Commissi oner Ploch - and those
that were opposed to it could not be changed ..• could not be
changed. Bruzzie Reeves •.. for a while no one knew where
McCOMBS
M: that vote was and then ...
H: He was the county judge?
M: He was the county judge, but in that vote he had one
vote, the same as those four commissioners.
H: Yeah.
13
M: He was the one that unlocked ... he was the vote, and was
a "stand up" man when he did it. It looked as if when he
did it, it was a great political risk to him. And that was
early in his political career. It was a very brave thing
for him to do. And I have never forgotten in a meeting with
him, with that beautiful little pixie smile of his, he said,
"Well, politically it ... it is not ... it's not too good for
me. But it's the right thing to do. And so I'm gonna go
for it." But that was critical.
H: Did . . . did that group you were with, talking to the
judge, did you pledge political support to him?
M: Yes.
H: Yeah.
M: Without a doubt.
H: Yeah.
M: And I don't know about the others, but I never wavered
in that pledge. Another offshoot out of this, with all of
the community coming together, which came on not long after
this, was Roy Barrera's race for ... for mayor.
H: Huh.
M: And we got ... Roy was ... was very much in favor with
McCOMBS
M: Governor Connally. As you will recall, he had ap­pointed
him Secretary of State.
H: Right .
14
M: During a portion of his terms as governor and ••. there
were some of us that felt like that ... that it was time, and
we really needed ... we really needed an Hispanic as mayor.
Roy was not successful, but I've always applauded him for
for running. It really was difficult for him at the time
because he had a law practice that was him and his partner.
H: Uh-huh.
M: And him taking his time away from that to serve was .. .
was that ..• a great personal loss. But I was very much in­volved
in that, and it was very . . . it was hopeful that he
would get elected. But that was kind of an ofshoot of
HemisFair, when we felt like the entire community was ... had
come together and that we no longer had to be concerned.
H: Was that the beginning of the end of the Good Govern­ment
League? or had it just run its course?
M: Yeah. I think that, you know, I think the Good
Government League had kind of run its course pretty well.
And whether that would have been one of the critical issues
or not, but it was. After having been in a position to
nominate people who were elected, for as long ... as long as
they had, that syndrome of ... of everything that's wrong is
"this machine . " I thought the Good Government M: League was
very good for San Antonio .
McCOMBS 15
H: Well, that was ... began as a reform movement.
M: For sure. And that's how they got started was, "Let's
get rid of these guys that are in here", and, of course,
they got they ended up getting them moved out of the ... that
role for the same thing, the same emotions.
H: Yeah. Been here long enough. Two areas that you have
special knowledge of are the changes in the automobile
business in San Antonio, since you came to town, and
professional sports - basketball, pro basketball. I'd like
for you to cover the one of your choice. Talk about how the
Spurs came to town.
M: Well, I love talking about that because although I am a
self-professed jock and have been all my life and make
no ... I'm proud of that. My thought of San Antonio having
major league sports team actually came in place while we
were trying to get those Fortune 500 companies to commit
to ... participate in the Fair. And it came to my mind,
during that time, that with the image that San Antonio had
across the U. s ... that that, in my judgment , was not a fair
image, but perception as reality, as we know ... that one of
the ways that we could be identified as a major league city
and probably the fastest way was to have a major league
sports team. And it was because of that that I started in
making talks, after the Fair, to different groups and all
about, you know, "Now where are we going and
such" ... that ... that San Antonio had to get a major league
McCOMBS 16
M: professional team. My first thought was the NFL, and I
made a deal with the leadership of the Board of the San
Antonio Independent School District to double-deck Alamo
stadium. And we had some schematics and some architectural
estimates on it and •.. and I went in '68 to New York and
talked to Commissioner Rozelle about that. Of course, that
didn't go anywhere. But from that, I kept looking, you
know. "What could we do?" Because in my judgment, in the
mid '60s to late '60s suddenly there were cities in America
that were becoming household names that never before had
been. And coming to mind, to me, in my judgment, was
Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Diego, Oakland. And in my ... in my
views, I looked at those cities, "What was it that suddenly
made them a household name to people in America?" Of course
they've all grown to be great cities. But rightly or
wrongly, I attributed a big degree of that to the fact that
they had major league sports teams.
H: Uh-huh.
M: So, as I was thumping around about "Where could we go
and what could we do?", I became aware that Dallas was not
supporting the Chaparrals in the American Basketball
Association. And the bringing of the Spurs to San Antonio
in '72, four years after the Fair ended, really was just a
step in place after the Fair from an idea that took place
from the cause of the Fair.
H: And the Chaparrals came here in '72 as the from the
McCOMBS 17
H: ABA, and I've forgotten exactly what year it became an
NBA team when the ... the merger of the ... [both talking].
M: Four years later. We played in the ABA for four years,
and then we were very fortunate to get into the NBA. At the
time, our only access was the ABA.
H: Uh-huh.
M: And it served its purpose. And, of course, then we got
into the NBA. But ... but actually the thought of even having
a major league sports team and feeling like that ... that we
could do it and it would work, came off of the Fair
operation.
H: Right. But you were a partner in bringing the Dallas
team here, were you not?
M: Well, I was. I originated that and ... [both talking]
. .. at the time I had ... at the time I had known Bobby Folsom
casually, and he was .•. he was mayor at that time and he was
one of the handful of principals in the Chaparrals. And I
knew a couple of the other . .. two, three of the five, I knew;
and I knew that they were struggling with the thing in
Dallas. So it was my idea to bring the Spurs here. And
then after we just about had a deal made with the ... with the
owners of the Chaparrals, I began to get cold feet, because
I was realizing it was a big expenditure and already had
drawn together a group of businessmen in San Antonio. And I
indicated to them that why we need this, and M: what it
would do, and the fact that it would be a money loser. and
McCOMBS 18
M: I, at the time, had budgeted this to lose about
$600,000d a year. And my plan in the ownership at that time
was that I take about thirty percent of it, which I did.
And we would cut up the other seventy per-cent .•.
H: Uh-huh.
M: ... through about twenty to thirty people, so that
nobody •.. I would take the big end. I'd try to show my
confidence in it, in that I would take the big end, but that
I couldn't take it all, because I couldn't stand that much
loss. And that was the way we were structured. When I got
cold feet, there were two things that really persuaded me
then to go ahead. One was, my wife Charlene had no interest
in basketball at that time whatsoever, but she felt like
that •.. that my gut feeling was correct and that ... that I
should do it. And then the other compelling reason was
Angelo Drossos. Angelo had worked for me in the car
business and then had ... had left after a number of years
working with me and was in the investment banking business
and he really pleaded with me to go ahead and ...
END OF TAPE I, Side 1
TAPE I, Side 2
M: •.. that he would expend whatever time and energies were
involved to learn the business and would operate the club as
a general manager at no pay - no compensation whatsoever -
until we could get the club operating in the black. And
Angelo was a very big role in me deciding. I was all gung-
McCOMBS 19
M: ho for doing it, and then when it got up real close to
the time for doing it, I got a little bit nervous and really
was getting on the fence and getting to the side of maybe
not doing it. And Charlene's persuasion and and Angelo's .• .
You know, that was a big commitment. Angelo was not a
wealthy man, but he wanted to do this so badly and believed
in it so strong that his commitment that that he would
expend whatever time and energy was necessary to learn the
business and manage the business for no compen-sation until
we could get it in the black was ... was a big factor. And I
decided to go ahead and do it.
H: Could you, or would you, have been able to bring the
team without the arena that was built for HemisFair?
M: No. I shouldn't have passed over that. Of course,
that was an obvious. The only facility we had in town that
would meet the requirements was the arena that had been
built as a part of the Fair.
H: Uh huh.
M: So we had the facility. And without the Fair we could
not have ... we wouldn't even have had a chance. It would
have been expectative as trying the NFL. And looking
at •.• at double-decking Alamo stadium to where we could get
forty-five thousand people in there was what we were trying
to do at the time. But all that was speculative, you know,
whereas with the Fair we had the arena sitting there and
available.
McCOMBS 20
H: Right. And then did the Chaparrals lose as much money
as you predicted?
M: No, we got ... we got lucky. Angelo was true to his
word; he did learn the business. And not only did he learn
it, he learned it quickly and he became very good at it.
H: Yeah. The franchise name was to be the Spurs when
it •..
M: Immediately. Yes, immediately. We had a contest. And
although my home town is Spur, Texas, as I indicated at the
outset, that really had nothing to do with naming the team
the Spurs. I knew that we needed a short name; we needed a
name that maybe would somehow identify our area.
H: Uh huh.
M: And a kind of a catchy name. And we had a contest and
local sports personalities selected the name. Dan Cook
probably had more to do with naming it than I did. I had
nothing to do with naming it. We had a lot of people enter
the contest, and then local sports - sports media, sports
people - at the time did the selection.
H: Uh huh. And Spurs fits nicely in the headline as
compared to the Cavaliers or ...
M: Right. And, you know, we were advised of that by the
media, "Get a short name and we'll be able to use it more.
And get a name, if you can, that will identify the area."
So, no, we changed the name immediately.
H: Then at some point, as I recall, you sold out your
McCOMBS 21
H: interest in the Spurs; bought the Denver basketball
team; and then, later, came back to San Antonio and were the
owner of the Spurs.
M: Well, I never left San Antonio.
H: Yeah, but . . .
M: But as far as ownership, we did very well with the
Spurs under Angelo's leadership, and we were profitable -
barely - but we were profitable really, I guess, from the
second year on. And we rewarded Angelo for his services by
awarding him stock in the club each year. And then he built
that up to where his ownership was about the same as mine.
But we were successful; we'd gotten into the NBA. Angelo
was doing a great job of managing the program, and in the
mid eighties I began to turn my interest toward some other
things in my business. Although I was an avi d Spurs fan and
a thirty percent owner, I began, as far as my personal
interest and drive ... ! began to turn my interest toward some
other things. And I was at my ranch at Johnson city in '82
and I got a call from Jane Moe, whose husband, Doug Moe,
had coached for us here at the Spur s, been very successful
and had since gone on to coach the Denver Nuggets. And she
informed me that the Denver team was in a f inancial mess and
that why didn't I come and buy the Denver team? And Doug,
her husband, thought so little of that he wouldn't even call
me.
H: Uh huh.
McCOMBS 22
M: But Jane called, and I was a bit intrigued when ...
because I knew that they had large ownership base like we
did in San Antonio - some twenty or twenty-five share
holders, and many of them with considerable wealth. So I
knew that really there was money enough within that group,
and they had been a very successful operation in the earlier
years when we competed against them, and I really didn't ... !
hadn't really followed it that closely for a couple of
years. And I didn't understand why they would be having
these problems. But I had some business in the West Coast
some week or so later ... I was going to San Francisco and I
agreed to meet Carl Shear, who was their managing partner,
and Doug Moe at the airport. And when I left, I met with
them. I got some basics on where they were and why they
weren't pursuing it. And the reason they weren't pursuing
it was that they had lost a considerable amount of money
there, and although their owners had money, they had k i nd of
lost interest in it.
H: Uh huh .
M: They hadn't competed well for several years and they
were playing such second f i ddle to the Broncos that they had
just kind of lost interest in it. But at that time, it was
really ... had been offered to the people in Denver at a very
distressed price. And I got very interested because I
thought the franchise was worth more money than what they
were offering it for. So I suggested to Carl that if I
McCOMBS 23
M: could get me information on ... in five different areas,
that I would seriously consider it. And a couple of weeks
later, we were able to do that. So I bought all of the
Denver Club myself, and then I sold my shares [in the Spurs)
back to Angelo.
H: Uh huh.
M: ••. In the Spurs. And I never lived in Denver; I
commuted. But I designed a five year program for Denver and
we were very fortunate; we rebuilt the club a lot more
quickly than that. And by the third year, we were playing
in the conference finals. We had the ... the house sold out;
we were doing great. And I had already accomplished what my
goals were, although I had absolutely no thought of selling
it. And one day I get a call ... in '86 I get a call from a
friend of mine in Houston who had just sold some television
interest for a lot of money, and he told me that he wanted
to buy the Nuggets. And I indicated they weren't for sale,
but there were a couple of clubs that were, and he asked me
what my long term plan was for the Nuggets. And I told him
I probably plan to sell it a couple years out, and he asked
me what I thought they'd bring. And I told him and he said,
"Well, I'll give you that today." So I sold it over the
telephone; and then I was out of basketball for a year.
During the time I was in Denver, the Spurs had begun to slip
on the floor and at the gate, and I was out of basketball
during a year.
McCOMBS 24
H: What year was that?
M: That would have been '86 or '87. And, of course, I was
going to all the Spurs games, and attendance was down to
nothing. The team wasn't performing well and then Angelo
asked me the following year, '87, if I would buy my shares
back from him that I had sold him.
H: That was your thirty percent?
M: That was my thirty percent.
H: Uh huh.
M: And help him. And I did that and that would that would
be the season of '88, end of '88. But we really weren't
going anywhere much, and Angelo and I had different ideas as
to what it would take to get that done, so in June of '88 I
decided to make an offer to buy Angelo and all the other
shareholders out. So then I'm back again. So I had
done ... in my mind I had done the Spurs once, I had done the
Nuggets .
H: Uh huh.
M: And I was back doing the spurs again. So that was
really my ...
H: What was your incentive to do it again, other than the
poor performance?
M: Well, I ... my biggest incentive was that the
commissioner had come to the conclusion that Angelo was
considered by everyone to be a very good operator.
H: Uh huh.
McCOMBS
M: And he had about come to the conclusion that we had
good operations here and that this market was too small to
support an NBA team. And I was concerned that this team
wouldn't survive in San Antonio. And I was convinced that
San Antonio not only could, but would, support it.
H: Yeah. Had Angelo's health begun to fail then?
25
M: As it looks now, it had, although we were not aware of
it at that time .
H: Uh huh.
M: But in hindsight, it looks as if it probably had begun
to fail a couple of years prior to that.
H: Yeah.
M: So in the Summer of '88, I called Angelo one morning
and asked him to come by the house on the way to work
and ... which was not unusual. And he stopped by, and I said,
essentially, "Angelo, I really don't want to proceed the way
we are. We have some different ideas; you're my best
friend; and I want you to ... I want that always to last and
be that way. But I really don't want to continue in the
Spurs the way they're going. And I want to offer you this
proposal." This was all just verbal. Sitting out on my
patio I said, "I will buy all of the shareholders out at a
value of forty-seven million, number one option." Number
two option, "I will sell you my shares on the basis of
forty-four million. If you don't want to sell me yours,
I'll give you a bonus." I don't know why ... how I arrived at
McCOMBS 26
M: the forty-seven or the forty-four, but those were the
numbers. And I said, "The third option is, if you don't
want to do either of the above", which obviously he did not
have to do ... "
H: Huh.
M: "If you don't want to do either of the above, then you
step aside and give me fourteen days, without any inter­ference,
to sell this club to somebody that will operate
what I think is a more positive fashion." And Angelo said,
"Well, you know, that's very fair ... you know, three, three
alternatives", I ..• and he said, "How much time have I got?"
And by this time it was eight thirty, and I said "Till
noon." And he said, "Plenty of time. I'll call you." I
frankly had no idea what he was gonna do . He really didn't
have to do any of the three, but I really leaned on him
heavily to do one of the three.
H: ~.
M: Just out of fairness and out of friendship. But he
called me back at about eleven-thirty, and he said, " I'm
gonna sell to you, and I've talked to some of the other
shareholders." So that was how I ended up back with all of
them.
H: You wound up with a hundred percent.
M: Virtually. I had a couple shareholders in there for
small shares that just didn't ... really didn't want to get
out, but that was virtually all of it.
McCOMBS 27
H: I remember ... I've forgotten how, I think maybe it was
at the Spurs Foundation function, you said you liked ... you
were glad you were there, that was the only time you got to
see all your money together.
M: Right.
H: All the players were there.
M: [Laughs) That's right. And, of course, we were
fortunate the community accepted a new vision that we
produced. We had a lot of media support in the five years
before I sold it to the group that has it now. We had
increased revenues to five, more than five times what they
were, and we proved that that team or any other professional
team could operate in this market and do very well. We did
very well. I want to say this common perception that's
forced teams' owners or ... or any ... for ego ... Certainly,
there is ego involved; there is no question about that. But
I have made a lot of money out of sports in my life and and
I made, I made a lot of money out of basketball.
H: Uh huh.
M: In San Antonio and in Denver.
H: Yeah.
M: So, it was not an ego trip for me. So, I was pleased
because, again, I had satisfied what my original desire was.
And that was to have San Antonio a very competitive team in
the NBA. On the national scale, we had a major league team,
and, of course, the fact that I made a lot of money out of
McCOMBS
M: it pleased me the more.
H: Right.
M: But that was not my goal when I went in .
H: But you didn't set out to lose a lot of money.
M: No; I didn't set out to lose a lot. No.
H: How much does the impact of the appearance of David
Robinson on the team have on the attendance, performance,
uh •••
28
M: It had a tremendous impact on both areas. But before
David got here, I knew I knew that I would meet all our
goals, because the year before David came, we only won
twenty-one games on the floor (twenty-one out of eighty­two)
.
H: That was Larry Brown's year?
M: That was Larry Brown's year. And ... but I knew that San
Antonio would again earn its place and prove beyond any
doubt that this market was a major league market. Because
in that year, with only twenty-one wins and before David
Robinson, our graphs were going right straight up. And you
take the last eight or ten games of that season, where we
were play ing for nothing except pride as far as playing on
the floor, our fan base continued to increase every game and
our sponsorships increased.
H: Huh.
M: So our revenue stream was growing dramatically the year
before David got here .
McCOMBS
H: And you were marketing a bad team?
M: Yes.
H: And doing it well.
M: And doing well.
H: Yeah.
M: And doing very well.
H: Yeah.
29
M: So, we knew that that was going to work. And, of
course, it did. And that is what we set out to do. San
Antonio is a major league city. You know, I am concerned
that we don't have enough of our leadership in San Antonio
that in my opinion really believes that this is quote a
great city and just in relation to the national picture.
But I am convinced that San Antonio, in any of the
categories, is a great city and that we will see it
recognized as such by people outside of San Antonio, as well
as people in San Antonio.
H: Do you think it will take a National Football League
team to make the sports major league perception?
M: Well, it won't take an NFL team to do that, but an NFL
team would do it overnight.
H: Yeah.
M: Overnight you would do it. If we don't get the NFL
team for a while, we'll get there anyway.
H: Let's move back to your special knowledge of the
automotive business in San Antonio. I'm a consumer.
McCOMBS 30
M: Everybody, almost everybody, has a car, and to me it
seems just on the surface that it's changed enormously -
that a relatively small number of dealers now have a lot of
dealerships and compete with themselves and with each other.
What do you have, six or seven here in town?
M: (Can't understand]. We ... we have eleven franchises
that we're involved with here. We have about twenty-five in
Houston and twelve in Corpus Christi we're involved with.
H: And you came here as a ... was it a partner in Hemphill
McCombs?
M: No, I came here as a partner in a Ford deal, one
franchise.
H: One franchise. And now it's ... How do you feel about
the expansion. Do you feel you're still able to keep in
touch with your customers? You're obviously quite
successful, that you had another great year last year. But
what changed this is that the small dealer is not able to
make it in a big town anymore?
M: No, a small dealer can make i t in a big town. We will
always have what we call single line dealers .
H: Right.
M: But there are some economies of scale, as it were, both
from a personnel standpoint and from a market cover age
standpoint ... with multiple franchises. And what we're doing
in San Antonio is not unique; that's being done in every
area of the United States. Each manufacturer, given a
McCOMBS 31
M: perfect world, would not want their dealer to have any
more than one franchise, and that would be theirs.
H: Uh huh.
M: But it not being a perfect world in that respect, we
have continued to be aggressive about what I perceive as
opportunities in this business; and we will continue to be.
From 1994 we have an acquisition and a building budget of
fifteen million dollars. We had a good year in '92. We had
the best year we ever had in '93. Our first quarter in '94
was twenty-six percent better than our first quarter of '93.
It is a cyclical business, insofar as the new vehicles are
concerned.
H: Uh huh.
M: You do have some measure to offset that, when you're
operating multiple franchises, because where one manu­facturer
might not have a product that appeals to the public
for one reason or another, another manufacturer might have a
product that appeals.
H: Well, we're on the location of four different fran­chises.
Do these franchises compete with each other?
M: They do. Every franchise I have competes with every
other franchise. There is no question about that. They do.
[Coughs] But on the other hand, the consumer knows that he
can go to our place or one of the Gunn's places or one of
Benson's places and shop for a number of different fran­chises
if he wants to.
McCOMBS 32
H: Uh huh.
M: So that cuts both ways, but here we're talking in the
Ford office where I office. But a person comes up here like
yourself, our guys here will do their best to convince you
that you should buy a Ford and buy it from me. But our guys
next door at Mazda and Toyota Lexus, given the opportunity,
will do the same thing.
H: Right.
M: That is a fact of the business and I don't see that
changing.
H: Do people do more comparison buying? Will they come
and check out your Ford - what's on it and prices - and go
to another Ford dealer and compare it. And then come back
to you and say, "So-and-so offered me the same car for this
or that?"
M: Yes; but as far as whatever defines the interest, we
find more and more that people are pretty pre-sold on the
manufacturer and model of the type of car they want, whether
it be a Ford or whether it be a Cadillac . [Clears throat].
So, what we would have when people would come to look at a
Ford here are people who probably would look at that same
product at other Ford dealers.
H: Uh huh.
M: We don't find so much people would say, "Well, I want
to look at a Ford and I want to look at a Toyota. I want to
look at a Chevrolet, and I want to look at a Chrysler, and
McCOMBS 33
M: then I'll decide what I want." Because either use or
media or whatever, people have a pretty good notion of what
they want ...
H: Uh huh.
M: ... when they set out to visit a dealer.
H: Let's move away from business and back to the city.
What do you regard as your single most valuable
accomplishment for San Antonion since you came to town?
Anything in particular you are really pleased with?
M: Well, (both talking) I would say (can't understand] I
don't think I have personally accomplished anything, because
everything that I've been involved with here that I think
ultimately was good for San Antonio, that a lot of other
people ...
H: Uh huh.
M: ... involved in. But in the areas of things that I have
been involved in, certainly HemisFair, certainly our highway
... our highway growth and interchanges, which is the envy of
every city in America. Certainly, the Health Science Center
and UTSA. All of those things I've been involved in. But
so were a lot of others.
H: Uh huh.
M: The freeway ... from the McAlister Freeway that was
stopped for so many years is a very very big achievement
with a lot of people involved in it.
H: Uh huh.
McCOMBS 34
M: But I don't know where we'd be today without it.
Finally getting a thousand room hotel downtown was almost ...
it looked as if we ... it just never was gonna happen. All of
those are, I think. great economic generators to San
Antonio. I wouldn't consider any of those my achievement,
in any sense of the word, but I was involved in them.
H: You were involved and a lot of the people you were
involved with have either died, have retired or the ... What
do you see on the rise in the way of leadership, particular­ly
among business people of the sort that have been around
for the last thirty years?
M: Well, I think we're gonna be well served there. We
have •.. I've seen leadership all over this city now. We have
grown to the point to where we have many, many activities
that are community-wide and I see a lot of leadership in
the thirties range and in the forties range and the fifties
range, as far as age ...
H: Uh huh.
M: ... is concerned. I still see San Antonio as a very
open city, easy to be involved in. And one of the things
that we've learned in San Antonio that is so significant,
and when we get a new industry we ... you know, we ... the
obvious new jobs, buildings and such, those are all obvious.
H: Uh huh.
M: But what was not so obvious was the talent that we get
that comes with those companies.
McCOMBS 35
H: Uh huh.
M: When we get a Sea World, and we think we already are
very, very good at hospitality, but when we get a Sea World
and we have management come in to Sea World that had been in
that business for their whole career, we learned a lot from
those people that came in here. They were very generous in
sharing their thoughts and ideas. When we get a DLSI, when
we get a Sony, we not only get those jobs and those
buildings, but we get new management blood and new idea.
H: Uh huh.
M: And that is very, very, very important. When
Southwestern Bell comes in here, with an original
headquarters group of say two-hundred employees ... And of
course, that was a signal event for San Antonio because that
shot was heard around the world by the Fortune 500 types.
But, in my mind, what we really got were two-hundred
executive types.
H: Uh huh.
M: That filters out to the symphony, to the rest of the
arts, into our education programs and that is where we
really grow. You know, no one has all of the vision tied up
for any city. If I were to look at the strengths of San
Antonio ... and I just mentioned I have a lot of business in
Houston and ...
H: Uh huh.
M: And some in Corpus Christi. But if I were to look at
McCOMBS
the strengths of San Antonio, even going back to the Fair,
the leaders involved were the people who could say yes or
say no.
H: Uh uh.
36
M: You didn't get the number four man in personnel and
public relations or such; you got people who could make
decisions. We still have that going on in San Antonio. For
any issue that comes up that I see that people are involved
in, you get the people there who can make decisions.
H: And can carry .•. [both talking].
M: That's not true in most of the other cities in America.
I'm involved in some programs in Houston, and I think
Houston will ... I think Houston is now. really, on the
threshold of taking another giant leap forward, because just
within the past ten years I've seen that change take place
in Houston to where now we're getting the CEOs ...
H: Uh huh.
M: ... involved in issues in Houston. And I saw f or twenty
years where that was not the case, but now we are. So those
are the things that ... that create jobs and ... and create
opportunities for people. And I see that as still being the
case in San Antonio. I think we have ... I think we have a
lot of leadership in San Antoni o.
H: You have about another another minute or two. if you ' d
like •..
M: Sure.
McCOMBS 37
H: ... to wrap up further on your thoughts.
M: Well, you know, since we started talking about the
Fair, I think that what the Fair did was - even with all the
things we didn't know and all the surprises we had - one of
the things that . . . that came out of the Fair was that we
ended up with approximately a hundred acres in the downtown
of San Antonio, and although a lot of criticism was leveled
after the Fair and really up until recently, about, you guys
planned the Fair, which you didn't plan what to do
afterwards. I was never uncomfortable with the fact that we
didn't have a plan in place to utilize all that space. I
felt like that . . • that as San Antonio grew and aged, that big
and better and great uses would come to pass. And now I see
that we're getting to the point where we've pretty well
utilized all that space down there, and I think very well
and very effectively. So I think what we have to do in San
Antonio today is to gather the same kind of community
leadership envision and look at the issues of crime, that I
really don't think we've addressed, and I thi nk those are
economic issues.
H: Uh huh.
M: We've got a lot of work do. But I think, also. that we
have a lot of opportunities, and that people will f eel good
about playing a role in it. I know that I do. Yes. at
sixty and now I'm sixty-six years old. I go to sessions, and
I'm one of the o l der ones there. I don't thi nk l i ke that,
McCOMBS
M: but I think I still have the same kind of visions for
jobs and a better life, as it were, for the people of San
Antonio that I always had.
38
H: I appreciate your time, Red. And maybe some other time
we can get back together and go into some more details if ...
END OF TAPE I, Side 2