JAN/FEB 2007
'Smelling the roses...'

Craig Leipold

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig isn’t the only local boy who has made good on the national sports scene.  

As owner of the small-market Nashville Predators of the NHL, Racine’s Craig Leipold played an important role in reshaping the league’s economic structure while running a model franchise on and off the ice.

Born and raised in Neenah, Leipold took up golf at age 8, playing regularly at Ridgeway CC, where his father was a member. After graduating from the University of Arkansas he returned home to work in sales and marketing for Kimberly-Clark. Leipold eventually started his own telemarketing firm, before selling it and relocating to Racine, where his wife Helen (CEO of Johnson Outdoors, Inc.) resided.  Next, he bought Rainfair Corporation, a 125-year-old manufacturer of protective clothing and footwear, before being awarded the Nashville NHL expansion franchise in 1997. The Predators are now his only business interest.

Leipold has no trouble mixing golfing pleasure with business negotiations. 

 “When you’re on a golf course, there’s a lot of time to talk with customers,” he says. “The sun is out and the birds are chirping; it doesn’t get any better than that. And if your client has just made a birdie, he’s going to be in a receptive mood.”

Leipold plays to an 11 handicap (up from 7 when he practiced more often) thanks to his driver – and his golfing partners.

“I’m fairly long off the tee, but my friends think putting is the best part of my game,” he says. “It’s not, but I won’t tell them otherwise because I want them to keep conceding my short putts.”

Though his golf bag is filled with high-tech wonders, Leipold speaks longingly of his old persimmon 4-wood, which he used off the tee and refinished every few years.

“I love a persimmon golf club,” he says.  “I think it’s one of the most beautiful things in the world.”

With five kids – all boys – and less need for on-course deal-making, Leipold now plays golf mostly to be with family and to release tension. He is a longtime member of Racine CC and has taken a liking to public courses in the Hayward and Cable area of the state, where he vacations often during the summer.  

“The beauty of golf is that all of the things you strive for in life – being outside, smelling the roses on a beautiful day, walking with family and friends – you can do on the course.  Plus, you’re getting a physical workout.”

After getting a different kind of workout during negotiations to bring competitive balance to the NHL through its new labor agreement, Leipold appreciates a level playing field.

“Thanks to the handicap system, you can play golf with people of any skill level and still have a very competitive and exciting game.”

Especially if you don’t concede his short putts.  — Thomas D. Saler

Of all the numbers encountered by Federal Judge Terence Evans during his distinguished career on the bench, one stands out for special mention: 082292.

“It was Aug. 22, 1992,” explains Evans, a Milwaukee native who now sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. “I had a 12-foot downhill, left-to-right putt to break 80 at Lawsonia for the first time in about 300 tries. I drained it.”    

The framed scorecard from that memorable round – attested by playing partners Thomas Bailey and Michael Guolee – now hangs on a wall in Evans’ Milwaukee office. The judge, it seems, keeps very good records.

“He’s recorded every score on every course we’ve played over the last 40-plus years,” says Bailey, a lifelong friend and former Milwaukee County supervisor. “For years, he kept his score on every hole.”

There have been plenty of those since Evans booked his first round as a teenager at Milwaukee’s Lake Park GC, equipped only with a rented 9-iron and putter. He once crammed 63 holes into a June day at Lawsonia, and now belongs to the Brown Deer Seniors Golf Club, whose members tee it up every Tuesday at public courses within an hour’s drive of Milwaukee.

“I always feel great when I’m playing golf, and it’s great escape from my work,” Evans says.

Actually, golf literally became Evans’ work in 2000, when he wrote an opinion for the Seventh Circuit which ruled against Indiana club professional Ford Olinger, who sued the United States Golf Association to allow him to use a cart in a qualifying tournament for the U.S. Open. Around the same time, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a contradictory ruling siding with Casey Martin in a similar legal skirmish with the PGA Tour. The issue eventually went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which backed the Ninth Circuit in a decision that Evans says has been roundly criticized.

Though she doesn’t play the game, Evans’ best partner is his wife of 41 years, Joan.

“I love her dearly, and I have no other vices except golf,” he says. “As much as I want to play is fine with her.”

A typical Evans foursome might include Bailey, former Milwaukee Journal reporters Dave Begel and Richard Kenyon, and Guolee, a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge who exchanged best man duties with Evans.  

“Many of my best friends I’ve known for 30 or 40 years, and these are people I play golf with,” Evans says. “When we get on the course, it’s like we’re 21 years old again, clowning around and giving each other the business.”

According to Guolee, “the business” might include turning their backs on Evans when he’s chipping, a chronically weak area of his game.

“But at least we’re all on the right side of the grass,” quipped Guolee.  

At least for now, that is.

“If you notice a new hump on the 17th green at Brown Deer, it will probably be Terry,” Bailey said. “And it wouldn’t be the first time he’s been buried there.” — Thomas D. Saler