Plan-o naive...

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ABARedWhiteBlue
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Plan-o naive...

Post by ABARedWhiteBlue » Sun Jun 18, 2017 6:26 pm

http://starlocalmedia.com/planocourier/ ... 79d25.html
A 10-year dream finally became a reality for Doc and Mary Murphy when they officially became professional basketball team owners. Their team, the Plano Mighty Kings, will be the amalgamation of the Murphys’ two greatest passions: basketball and business.

Doc and his wife Mary have their hands in a lot of things. Ministry. Education. Publishing. To the mere mortal, expanding into professional team ownership seems like a hefty undertaking. But the Murphys talk about this endeavor with a calm, assured confidence.

“We’re just combining years of experience through the churches and the business we started,” Doc said.

Back in 2007, Doc first told Mary about his idea to own a basketball team.

“I knew I couldn’t play, not professionally, but I would love to own a team,” he said. “I figured I’ll own the team and we’ll give some other guys a chance and open up some realities for some guys that have dreams to play professionally.”

Unfortunately, investment prices were too high. Still, he and Mary never forgot.

“We just kept the dream alive for all of these years,” he said.

That year, they had their first foray into team management when Doc led the Longview Mighty Kings to a local recreation basketball championship. It was just a recreation team, but still, they made it different than every other team, Mary said.

And from that experience, Doc and Mary learned team ownership was within their abilities. “What I saw was that it was possible,” he said. “We were able to build a great team with the best talent around, so we saw that we could pull in talent.”

With basketball on the backburner, Doc and Mary nursed their business passion by Mary’s educational tutoring service; Creative Apostle, a book publishing business; as well as planting three churches – The Place Church of Longview, North City Church of Plano and the newest addition D3 Church of Oklahoma City.

All the while, Doc routinely checked the American Basketball Association (ABA) website for the right moment, until the investment was in reach. A $20,000 investment later, he and Mary are the owners of the Plano Mighty Kings.

Doc said he felt attached to the ABA because of its long legacy of providing athletes with a chance to play professionally.

“The reason why I like the ABA is because it was the league of Dr. J, Rick Barry and a lot of those guys. It has such a great history. When I found them, I thought it would be a great opportunity to hook up with them and be a part of that history,” he said.

For many athletes, the ABA can be a steppingstone to play in the D League, play overseas, or possibly get scouted by the NBA. So starting in November, the Plano Mighty Kings will be in the Southwest Conference, playing fellow ABA teams in Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Laredo.



Ministry

Doc claims ministry as his passion and profession, and he plans to use his leadership skills from behind the pulpit and apply them to the court.

“I’m big on leadership. Being a minister, it’s not just preaching on Sundays. You’re leading a staff. You’re doing staff meetings. You’re doing leadership meetings and training with teams to become leaders. I’m going to bring that over to the team,” he said.

“I want my team to always have the mindset and the attitude that ‘we’re winners and we’re victorious in everything that we do.’ And I want that to be their mindset and character on the court and off the court. In life we’re victorious.”

Even when they lose, he said he never wants his team to lose that confidence and know that they’re winners. He wants a team environment of positive energy and swagger so every team can see they’re different.

“We want to go in the league and have that expectation. I don’t care who you’re facing. We’re going to overcome this giant and we’re going to win this game,” he said.



What’s next

Between now and the start of the season – Nov. 5 – the Murphys will be holding tryouts to find players, hiring a coach and attracting sponsors. They’ll be leaning on their family motto as a guide through the craziness ahead.

“When most people say Ready, Set, Go, he says, ‘go, you’ll get ready on the way, and once you get there everything will be set.’ So we live like that,” Mary said, laughing.

Balancing multiple businesses with their passion project will require lots of time management, Mary said, but they have not doubt they can do it all.

“We’re crowned in victory,” Doc said.
Proud to be "Mean-spirited blogger #10K" ;)
And we believe it is better to have critics and people who care than not to have interest at all. Joe Newman 6/30/05
I never said the ABA had the greatest numbers regarding retention of teams. OldSchoolBaller (neither did we :rolleyes: )
The ABA has tarnished minor league professional basketball throughout this country Ed Krinsky 2/15/06
We are now making some adjustments to our schedule - Joe Newman 10/9/08 in perpetuity

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Sam Hill
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Post by Sam Hill » Sun Jun 18, 2017 10:57 pm

“The reason why I like the ABA is because it was the league of Dr. J, Rick Barry and a lot of those guys. It has such a great history. When I found them, I thought it would be a great opportunity to hook up with them and be a part of that history,” he said.
Except this league isn't that league, as all of you here know.

I can't believe it's like 17 years later and we're still talking about this bs league and Joe Newman is still alive.
Old enough to remember when bashing the ABA was fun.

suge night
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Post by suge night » Mon Jun 19, 2017 4:20 pm

Yes,sir the good pastor will find that his flock won't be as happy as he is about losing that $20k on a bad investment like the ABA.

The one thing that stood out in his statement is the fact he based his decision upon the past history of an ABA that has been buried since the 70"s

This current ABA has never reached its potential under Joe's leadership and he has never been able to remove himself from holding it back, oh it had it's opportunity in the late 90's early 2000's to be what we know today as the D-League, but Joe was there standing firmly in the way of his opportunity :(

Well pastor good luck you will need more than a prayer to pull this off.
This is not the Y

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