Bill Daniels Didn't Have to Repay His Debts. He Did Anyway.

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1975, Bill Daniels watched his Utah Stars basketball team collapse into bankruptcy, leaving creditors and season ticket holders unpaid. The law said he owed them nothing, but he never stopped thinking about the promises he had made.

Bill Daniels, the pioneer of cable television whose values inspired the Daniels Fund, and others share the astonishing story of why he spent years tracking down every person he owed money to and paid them back with interest, simply because he believed it was the right thing to do.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American Stories and with our
Do the Right Things series about ethical dilemmas that's sponsored
by the great folks at the Daniels Fund. And by
the way, if you have stories about ethical dilemmas in
your life, for better or for worse, making the right decision,
making the wrong decision about something big and something tough
and complicated, send them to our American Stories dot com.

(00:32):
These are some of our favorite stories as we get
to learn from them, all of us together, and today
Alex Cortez brings us a story about the man who
inspired this series.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
The biggest thing that's lacking in one of the biggest
things in the real world of business today is the
ethical standards and integrity of some business people.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Who are listening to Bill Daniels, late Denver businessman who's
best known as the father of cable TV. But in
nineteen seventy five, before he fully earned that title, he
was the owner of the American Basketball Association's Utah Stars,
which wasn't a profitable team and he was financially struggling.
Here's former Stars coach Tom Nasalki.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
We started the start of the season, but I could
tell you know there was financial problems. He wasn't the
same ambulance guy that he normally was a positive and
we really had some problems, guys not getting paid. So

(01:44):
he ended up bankrupting the team, which absolutely crushed him.
I remember he came to a practice and said, this
is what I'm going to have to do.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I had to take bankruptcy. He was a basketball team
that I owned him the state Utah. It was the
Utah Stars were the league champions. Times were tough and
my bank shut off my credit. So I had to
get all my players together almost to have and said
we got to shut her down. And I was miserable.
Let me tell you, I was crying. And I was

(02:19):
on the tenth floor of the traveling in Salt Lake City, Utah.
And my lawyer is a guy named Bob Nagel represented
me for years with my house consul, and I said, Bob,
I'm so heartbroken, I'm going to jump out the window.
He said, Bill, the lucky you're having you're going to live.

Speaker 5 (02:41):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
The reason I tell you the story is I had
temporarily stipps citizens in Salt Lake City for seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for season tickets that they'd been
paid for, and no more ballgames, and we owed creditors,
and that bothered the hell out of me.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
It's almost two point four million today's dollars, and Bill
couldn't stop thinking about it, even though the debt had
been legally wiped clean in the bankruptcy. Here's his business partner,
John Seamen on Bill's special motivation when they created and
later sold their second company of fifteen cable systems.

Speaker 6 (03:21):
All along in the creation of the second company and
with the incident of filing bankruptcy with the Utah Stars,
had this pressing obligation mentally, morally to satisfy all of
his creditors. So he directed our accounting department to collect

(03:42):
everything that was available at the time of the bankruptcy
in the way of payables and keep track of them
because someday he had to make that right. He often said,
is two objectives in life. One he wanted to go
to heaven, and d he wanted to go without own
anybody any money. You're mad at him, So one of
his compelling reasons to sell was to satisfy those obligations.

(04:09):
In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't a lot
of money. At the time, it was a lot of money,
but now that he's got twenty or twenty five million,
it's not a big amount of money anymore. But almost
before we even closed, Bill is preparing to go back
to Salt Lake to pay off those creditors. He's got

(04:33):
a list of every one of them, how much money
he had defaulted with them on, and what the interest
rate would be to bring it up to current. If
he wrote a check, what would he owe him including interest?
And that was I think one of the most joyful
times in Bill's life. More joyful than having made the

(04:54):
money from having built up the company and sold it
was the satisfaction he got of honoring his lab and
protecting and preserving his name.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
And boy did I feel good about that. I really
felt good.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
And so did those on the receiving end, and mostly
not for financial reasons. Here season ticket holder Jerry.

Speaker 7 (05:14):
Howells, I remember getting a letter and I've tried to
find it. I've tried and tried and tried to find it,
have not been able to find it, And I get
this check for it was it had to be a
couple thousand dollars. I was astounded. Then I've really found

(05:38):
out what Bill Daniels was all about in terms of
his tremendous integrity. It's almost synonymous with Bill.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Here again, it is Tom Nasalke, who at this point
was the coach of what would be the second professional
team in the state of Utah.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
I'm back coaching the Utah ja As and he calls
me from a little American He said, can you come
down and have lunch with me? And I said, can
I bring the sheriff? I thought, I want to arrest you.
I was being a little facetious, and he said, well,
things are going to turn out okay. And I came down.

(06:19):
He had some guy with him. I don't know the
guy's name this day, but he had a ledger with him,
and Bill started going over the names. He said, you
know this guy and this was like guys that were
owed ten dollars, much less season ticket holders. But he
had like everything. I don't know where he got all
the names, but I mean there were guys that were

(06:43):
owed like and I mean very little money, much less
a season ticket holder or whatever. And then he said,
are you getting fidgety about what I might owe you?
And I said anymore? And he gave me a check,

(07:05):
which is worth I mean, it would be nice to
have today, but then with at that time a young
wife and two young kids, it was astronomical.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
In Some of those less astronomical checks that Tom mentioned
might have resulted from the unusual newspaper ads that Bill
placed that asked for anybody that he owed money to
to reach out to him. Here's former Stars coach Lidel
Anderson in twenty thirteen.

Speaker 5 (07:35):
And he you know, he could have not done that,
but he did it. That's just the kind of guy
he was. You know, how many how many people would
do that, you know, but he did it. He made
a promise to person, he carried it out. You could
take it to the bank. I love I love Bill Daniels,

(07:57):
and I'll never forget him, of course, but my day
is remember I'm eighty two years old, and I won't
be wrong much, but he should never be forgotten. And
it just helps a little bit.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
WI good and all this love for Bill unexpectedly helped
all of his future business ventures. Here's former Stars general
manager Vince Barrilla.

Speaker 8 (08:19):
My personal feelings were that you know, he couldn't if
if God had told him to do it, or he
probably did. He couldn't have done anything better because the
money said that he took and paid back whatever the
amount was. I always said to myself, I said, those

(08:39):
were the cheapest dollars he's ever spent for pr in
my life that I've ever seen it. And he didn't
do it for that purpose. He was competing in the
cable world with you multi cable people. But if the
Bill met any of those people head out in any
city that they were competing for, I guarantee you Bill

(09:02):
got it because they knew of the caliber or person
that they were dealing with.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
And to conclude, here's the late Bill Daniel speaking to
students in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Now the moral of that story is today, some eighteen
years later, I meet people in all over the country
that say, aren't you the guy that paid off the
season ticket holders it's all Lake City? And I say, yes,
it's me. Now, what I'm saying to you is I
did not think that was such a big deal at
the time. I just didn't want to have to live

(09:36):
with myself. That's the case of examples of ethnics and
integrty that come back to you that you never dream
would come back to you. Damn sure is the reason
I went over there. I went over there because I
had to look in the mirror in the morning when
to shame.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
And a special thanks to Alex for the work on
this piece. And a special thanks is always to the
great folks at the Daniels Fund and the foundation of
this ethical legend is sponsoring this great series. He's right
about business. What is lacking there too often is ethical
standards and integrity. Strong ethics, by the way, equals strong business.
That's the thing Bill learned our Do the Right Thing

(10:16):
series sponsored by the Daniels Fund. Here on our American
story