Party Time for Bill Davidson, Pistons

Bill Davidson and son found a neutral corner and just watched. There were tall men everywhere, surrounded by shorter people who suddenly had another reason to live. Every square foot of floor space was occupied in the Detroit Pistons’ locker room--guests and press and wives and kiddies packing the place like the Marx Brothers’ stateroom--but you could easily pick out the basketball players as they squeezed by, because their heads bobbed above the mob. It was party time, Piston style. Hi, ho, Silverdome. How does that car commercial go? We build excitement--Pontiac! Yeah, this was exciting, all right. Detroit was going to the NBA dance at last. The Pistons had just won their first conference championship. The Pistons had just won their first anything. They were among professional basketball’s Final Two. Only four National Basketball Assn. teams--Lakers, Celtics, 76ers and Rockets--had reached the finals in the 1980s, but the Pistons finally crashed the party.

Now, they were having one of their own. Dennis (Worm) Rodman was laughing. John (Spider) Salley was singing. Rick Mahorn, a man built like the Matterhorn, tapped Salley on the shoulder. “Hey, Ugly,” Mahorn said. “We need four more, man. Four more.”

“OK, Fat Man,” Salley said.

Mahorn gave him a look.

“I may be fat,” he said, “but I’m going to the finals.”

From the other side of the room, the semi-quiet side, Bill Davidson and son kept watching and kept smiling. They stood off pretty much by themselves, shaking an occasional hand, patting an occasional back. They let the players play, let them have their day. Ethan Davidson, 18, who theoretically could be the players’ boss someday, the guy who signs their paychecks, leaned over and told his dad: “I think I’ll go check out the scoreboard again. See if this is all really happening.”

As pro owners go, Bill Davidson is practically a wallflower. He has neither George Steinbrenner’s volume nor Jerry Buss’s little black book nor Donald Carter’s tip-of-the-Stetson, top-of-the-mornin’ country charm. Yet, Davidson is hardly the invisible man. He is right there at courtside, night after night, just as he has been for nearly 15 years, sometimes alongside his only son, sometimes alongside singer Bob Seger, the Jack Nicholson of suburban Detroit.

Anybody who cannot locate the Pistons’ majority owner on the sidelines could always try him at his ritzy Bloomfield Hills home, where he might be shooting baskets in his indoor gym. Davidson has half a basketball court at his home, complete with regulation-distance three-point shooting arc, and Isiah Thomas used to drop by all the time to shoot some hoops. Isiah’s boss had his own “home” court, his buddy Magic Johnson also had one, so eventually he broke down and built one for himself. It’s the rage these days, replacing rec rooms.

Davidson, 63, purchased the Pistons in 1974 from Fred Zollner, who had founded the team in Fort Wayne, Ind., in the ‘40s. A manufacturer who had specialized in rescuing bankrupt companies, including his own family’s glass business, Davidson had been a busy jock in his school days, mostly football and track, and later became adept at table tennis and squash. It wasn’t enough, though.

“I’ve always participated in sports,” he said, “but when you basically are done with that part of your life, you get the urge to take a part in professional sports --own a team, if possible. Have a say. I was looking at both football and basketball at first. At the time, they were bringing out the Tampa franchise for pro football, and I was friendly with Joe Schmidt, who played for the Lions. We talked about buying in. Then, the prices escalated, and that took care of that.

“But, I also had gotten to know Fred Zollner, because he lived three doors down from me. We started talking. Next thing I knew, I’d bought the team.”

It was at this point in the otherwise noisy locker room that Davidson found himself in the middle of an Abbott and Costello dialogue, with an ill-prepared Los Angeles sportswriter inadvertently playing Costello.

The writer asked: Where’d Zollner’s money come from?

“Pistons,” Davidson said.

No, what was Zollner’s business?

“Pistons,” Davidson said.

Oh, the ballclub was his business.

“No, no! Pistons!” Davidson said. “Real pistons. That was his business in Fort Wayne. You know, pistons were big there for 30 or 40 years.”

The only big Pistons the new owner cared about were the ones such as Bob Lanier, who knew how to dribble. Owning a team was satisfying, at first. Detroit’s 1973-74 team was a tough one, 52-30. Little did Davidson know that the next time his club would win 50 games in a season, the year would be 1987. Just in the last few seasons have the Pistons become a power, and not until Friday did Detroit win a conference championship.

“You buy into professional sports, it’s like a dream, and after you’re in it, it becomes a bit of a nightmare,” Davidson said. “And today, it’s turned back into a dream.”

The Pistons mean the world to Bill Davidson. He is divorced, and Ethan, a high school senior, is his only immediate family. There is an affectionate joke behind Davidson’s back that, considering the people he’s closest to, he actually has three sons: Ethan, Piston chief executive officer Tom Wilson and Isiah Thomas. These people mean a great deal to Davidson. They can come over and shoot in his gym anytime.

Technically, Davidson’s title is “managing partner,” because the Pistons have an ownership group and advisory board that includes 11 others. He is undoubtedly Detroit’s least known sports executive. Far more familiar to the average fans are the pizza men, Tom Monaghan of Domino’s and Mike Ilitch of Little Caesar’s, who own the baseball-playing Tigers and hockey’s Red Wings, respectively. There’s also William Clay Ford, of the automobile Fords, who owns the pro football Lions, and probably has sent out a servant or two for pizza in his day.

Davidson took business courses at Michigan and Wayne State, took over a wholesale drug company, saved it from bankruptcy and made it profitable within three years. He promptly did the same with a surgical supply company. The next task was Guardian Glass, the family business, which was deeply in debt. Not any more, it isn’t. Guardian Industries is now the hub of Davidson’s business interests.

Not counting the Pistons, naturally. Davidson and his associates have spared little expense in improving their team. They bought a team airplane, which is rare in pro sports. They went after players who made big money, Adrian Dantley and James Edwards and even Darryl Dawkins. And, although the Pistons lead the league in attendance, they will move next season to a new, state-of-the-art arena, the Palace of Auburn Hills, which will have luxury suites galore.

In the meantime, Detroit has an NBA championship series to play--and may need someplace to play it. A scheduling conflict with a Silverdome rock concert could force one game of the finals to be switched to downtown Joe Louis Arena. If Davidson is worried, he doesn’t show it. “We’ll play here,” he said Friday, pointing to the Silverdome floor.

Is he sure?

“If we don’t,” Davidson said, gesturing toward the mob by which he was engulfed, “they’ll string up the whole board.”

He laughed. There were no worries tonight, not in this building or any Detroit building. Davidson was beaming. His son returned and reported that the final score hadn’t changed. Rick Mahorn was prowling around the room, announcing: “Practice tomorrow! Practice tomorrow at my crib!” Maybe Mahorn had his own gym at home, too. Davidson stood off to the side, looking on like a proud father, as happy as a fat man in a final.