Captain comeback leads field of pros

Real Estate Weekly, Feb 16, 2005 by Daniel Geiger

During his legendary football career throughout the 70s, Roger Staubach helped make the Dallas Cowboys "America's Team," leading them to two Super Bowl wins in four appearances.

A Heisman Trophy winner at Navy before posting nine seasons as the Cowboys' quarter back, Staubach's pro career achievements include his six-time selection to the pro-bowl, a Super Bowl MVP award, and the 1971 league MVP award, just to name a few. His last second completion to receiver, Drew Pearson, in a playoff victory over the Vikings coined the "Hail Mary Pass" and was the type of never-say-die style of play that earned him the nickname "Captain Comeback."

So after completing one of the all-time great football careers in the NFL--he has been ranked with Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas as one of the best passers to ever play the game--what post-football career could possibly compare? According to Staubach, the answer was simple: real estate.

Displaying great prescience even at the start of his pro career Staubach knew that he wanted to lay the groundwork for a career after football. That desire was perhaps made particularly pressing by the extremely physical nature of football and the consequent cold reality that no player can ever be assured of the length of their playing career. Plus in the 70s, football, and sports in general, weren't the mega salary professions they've become today. Staubach, who as a rookie was married with a wife and three children, needed to supplement his income.

Starting in 1970 with the Henry Miller Co. during the NFL off-season, Staubach entered the real estate business having to go through the same initiation as anyone else, a difficult daily regimen of cold calls and canvassing.

He made impressive progress and, by the time he was ready to hang up his cleats in 1979, he was in position to start his own firm. The Staubach Company, which he started in 1982 has since grown into one of the most successful commercial real estate services firms in the country, specializing in tenant representation.

Reflecting back, Staubach draws parallels between athletics and the real estate business and said that his second career was, in many ways, a natural extension of the things he learned in football.

"Just like in football, real estate is highly competitive," Staubach said. "And that competitive spirit that I had when I played has been one of my greatest assets in the business. Another big similarity is that you have to have a game plan and follow it and use a team effort in both. That's something that I've stressed at Staubach is the concept of a team effort, we don't have our people competing against one another, we've invested a lot in enabling our different offices to share info and work together for our clients. Obviously in football, teamwork is also paramount."

Staubach, while one of the most prominent former pro athletes in real estate, is one of many to make the successful transition.

Former New York Giants center, Bart Oates, who won two Super Bowls, one with the Giants in 1991 and another with San Francisco in 1995, has had a successful post sports career in real estate as well. With fellow sports stars Ken Daneyco of the New Jersey Devils, and Rick Cerone, a former all star catcher with the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves and Toronto Blue Jays, Oates recently formed the Stellar Real Estate Group which will offer advisory services.

Like Staubach, Oates got his start in real estate, while, his playing career was still very much his central occupation. A five time pro-bowl selection at center, Oates shared Staubach's assessment of the game's transience and prepared himself for life after football by earning a law degree in the off-seasons. Brokering leasing and development deals proved more appealing to Oates than spending weeks in a courtroom however, and so he used his legal knowledge to break into real estate soon after retiring from the game.

A graduate of Brigham Young University and a self-described bookworm in high school, Oates displays the kind of soaring intellect that some may be surprised to find in an NFL lineman. But Oates asserted that football demands a high level of intelligence and continually fulfilled his voracious appetite for intellectual stimulation.

"It's a thinking man's game," Oates said. "I really feel it prepared me for a career in real estate because it honed my ability to focus on strategy while continually working hard to improve my physical attributes."

Oates found a good business partner in Cerone, who after retiring from baseball in the early 90s organized the development of Riverfront Stadium in Newark, New Jersey.

Cerone attests that the feeling he gets from his second career is equal to even the most exhilarating moments he's had in pro sports. "I really love what I do," Cerone said.

"In sports, you work so hard in the off-season honing your skills and practicing just so that you can realize success in the regular season. That's the way it is in developing real estate. You have to do a lot of preparation, but the results are very tangible, you have a building right there in front of you."