Setting Sporting Sights : Lindquist Looking to Cap Disney Career With a Title Game

With his round belly and eyes that turn to happy slivers when he smiles, Jack Lindquist looks the part of president of the Happiest Place on Earth.

But in recent years, the former ad man whose success has been built on a lively intelligence and disarmingly friendly nature has emerged in a far more unlikely role--as one of the prominent sports figures in Orange County.

Lindquist is chairman of Disney Sports Enterprises, which operates the Mighty Ducks, and he has played a large part in the entertainment giant’s creeping reach into the world of sports, from college football and basketball to professional tennis and now the NHL, though his title with the Ducks is somewhat honorary.

Now, at 66, he would like to cap his 38-year Disney career by seeing the Walt Disney Co. give the final thumbs-up or down on Westcot and--this one’s much more of a longshot--bringing a national championship college football game to Anaheim.

If Disney gives the final go-ahead to the $3-billion Disneyland Resort that would include the Westcot theme park, the project would not open before 1998. The kickoff for the proposed NCAA championship game could not come before 1995, if at all. Lindquist is laying the plans but will leave it to someone else to carry them out. He does not intend to lead Disneyland into the Tomorrowland of the 21st Century.

“Somewhere not in the too-far-distant future it will be time to wrap it up,” said Lindquist, who arrived at Disneyland as the park’s first advertising manager when it opened in 1955 and has been president since 1990. “I think the time is getting near when it will be time to turn it over to a new generation, new management. I’ve had 38 wonderful years. I want to get the Westcot project to that point where it’s a yes or a no. After that, I might ride off into the sunset.”

The Westcot decision could come this fall, paving the way for Lindquist to choose to retire in early 1994 and turn his attention to his bevy of causes and grandchildren--there are 16 of the latter.

“That will keep you busy,” he said. “I might want to go back to work to relax.”

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There will be nothing relaxing about trying to persuade the huge, lumbering NCAA to adopt a national championship game for football over the objections of the established bowl games and university presidents already distraught over the insatiable appetite for college sports.

In recent weeks, a playoff proposal by Nike Inc. and Creative Artists Agency was met lukewarmly by the NCAA Presidents Commission, which declined to put a proposal exploring the concept of a playoff up for a vote at the next NCAA convention.

But Lindquist, who has been the driving force behind Disney’s foray into college sports--particularly with the Disneyland Pigskin Classic football game--believes he and Don Andersen, executive director of the Orange County Sports Assn., have an approach that could catch the presidents’ ears.

“We’re working on what we believe is a very broad and innovative concept, which we will be taking to university presidents and NCAA people within the next four to six weeks,” said Lindquist, who calls the project “much broader than any football game.”

“It’s really a salute to the American university and a celebration of excellence in academics, arts and athletics,” he said. “It’s a very broad program that would be almost totally countywide. It involves a major network. They’re partners (with us). Other partners would be the state of California, the county of Orange, the city of Anaheim.”

The idea for a game that ends the college season, rather than one that celebrates its opening, stems from Lindquist’s frustration over the relatively low profile and disappointing attendance for the Pigskin Classic--as well as the rejection of invitations by some schools last year.

“I guess, very frankly, I’m not sure a preseason game will ever attract the attention or grow in importance to be a major thing,” he said. “And that was what we set out to do.”

The concept of determining an official national champion in football has always been controversial, and only last year was there progress to the point of creating an elaborate bowl coalition designed to produce a de facto national championship game whenever possible.

“The football coaches’ attitude has been they want to protect the bowl games,” said Charles McClendon, executive director of the American Football Coaches Assn. “If anybody’s talking about a system or national playoff that would do away with the bowls, I don’t think the coaches would go for it.”

But Disney is talking about one game and already has an in with football coaches--one of the beneficiaries of the Pigskin Classic is the AFCA’s retirement fund.

Disney also has ties to the NCAA athletic directors group, as the financial sponsor of a postgraduate scholarship program that distributes $50,000 a year among 10 athletes who have succeeded in competition and in the classroom.

The idea Lindquist and Andersen have is to pitch the game as part of a tribute to the well-rounded student.

“Probably overall there’s more opposition from the administrations than the athletic departments, with the whole idea of the overemphasis of college athletics,” Lindquist said. “People always say, ‘How many athletes graduate?’ or ‘What’s their GPA?’ There’s great controversy about what part athletics should play in American universities. We believe we have a concept that addresses all these questions and can provide universities with a platform from which they can be portrayed in a very positive light, that will give them a position to talk to the American public about the whole system.”

It is a delicate time to discuss enhancing football, particularly at public universities caught in a bind between shrinking budgets and gender-equity concerns.

“From the (NCAA membership’s) point of view, whether it’s a one-game playoff or something more, it’s a really complicated question,” said University of Nevada President Joseph N. Crowley, president of the NCAA and a former member of the Presidents Commission. “It involves issues of finance, the impact on existing bowls, the question of whether it’s appropriate for the college game to be undertaking a project such as this for principally financial reasons. The question of extending the season has been raised, as well as the effect not just on the bowls, but the concerns of the institutions and conferences that participate in bowl games.

“I would guess if there is someday a playoff game--or two or four--that that’s a ways down the road. It would only happen with support from the membership, and I know the membership has a lot of questions.”

Talk of a playoff or title game was renewed when Dick Schultz, the NCAA’s executive director, suggested it was worth considering in a speech at the last convention. Since then, Schultz has announced his resignation after an investigation into his knowledge of NCAA rules violations while he was the athletic director at Virginia. Crowley said the cause would need not only a leader within the NCAA, but also broad support throughout the organization.

“It can’t be a top-down type of decision,” he said. “There are too many questions, too many issues and too much important about the playoff idea to suggest it could be done quickly, if it can be done at all. I’m not sure it can be.”

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Disney’s involvement in sports can be traced to the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, when Disneyland helped with the opening ceremonies. Lindquist has been the key figure in the company’s involvement in Orange County sports in recent years, first through the Freedom Bowl and more with the Pigskin Classic and the Freedom Bowl college basketball tournament, which is expected to become more ambitious as it moves from the Bren Center to Anaheim Arena this winter.

Before this year, Lindquist served as president of Andersen’s group, the OCSA, for three years. In fact, Andersen says, it was Lindquist who urged the organization to take on a broader purpose than the bowl game and personally hired Andersen to direct it.

Lindquist is less central to the Mighty Ducks, a pet project of Disney Chairman Michael Eisner. But Eisner chose to name him chairman, seeking to link the team with Lindquist’s corporate and community expertise.

Lindquist says he leaves the running of the team to President Tony Tavares, General Manager Jack Ferreira and Pierre Gauthier, the assistant GM.

“Tony and Jack and Pierre and the other people, it’s their thing,” he said. “I’d only get in there and make my ignorance more obvious. I let all the people at the Mighty Ducks know I’m here when we can be of help.”

That help has translated into assistance with Disneyfied training manuals for arena employees and will be in evidence in the pregame and between-period festivities when the team begins playing this fall.

“I think you’ll see a rather spectacular opening night,” Lindquist said. “Whether that will be the first exhibition or the first league game--or it might be for both. We’re looking toward giving the Mighty Ducks a real Disneyland send-off. There will be pregame activities, but they will end in time so we can still get the ice ready and get down to what people are there to see in the first place--the first real ice hockey game in Anaheim Arena.

“We’d like to add some color and excitement, but we don’t want to destroy the integrity of hockey. There may be things we can do that would add a little Disney touch. But by Disney touch, I don’t mean Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. We know the Zamboni has to come out.”

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Disney’s venture into hockey has heightened the curiosity about where else the entertainment conglomerate might turn. Walt Disney was a friend of Gene Autry’s, and there has often been speculation about whether Disney might someday seek to expand its Anaheim base by acquiring the Angels or Rams.

“Six months ago, I wouldn’t have believed we’d have a National Hockey League franchise,” Lindquist said. “I never say never about this company. As far as I know there are no firm plans to expand our professional sports involvement in Anaheim.

“I don’t know if there are any puffs (of ideas) in the air. It wouldn’t surprise me. I knew about the NHL about 48 hours before it was announced.

“This is a very interesting company. Michael Eisner is a very creative CEO. We’re in the entertainment business, and a lot of people say today, ‘Where does sports stop and entertainment begin?’ It’s all part of attracting people in their leisure time.”

Lindquist’s own leisure time could increase during the next year. But perhaps not by much. He says that even after he retires he looks forward to staying involved in the OCSA, the Anaheim area Visitor and Convention Bureau and the Volunteer Center of Greater Orange County, and that he might stay on with Disney as a consultant.

“I’d like to be able to wake up and do exactly what I’d like to do, not have to go to this meeting or that meeting.”

Though he has made no announcement about formal retirement plans, tributes from some of the organizations he has supported are piling up as Lindquist’s career winds down. The Volunteer Center held a lavish gala in June, honoring Lindquist for his leadership and hands-on work. On July 25, the Newport Beach Dukes, the TeamTennis franchise Lindquist has lent Disney’s support to, will hold the Jack Lindquist Gala at Le Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach. The auction of such items as trips to the French Open, Wimbledon and EuroDisney at the $125-a-plate dinner, with Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda as host, will benefit the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame and The Times Fund for underprivileged children.

Lindquist can probably expect to be roasted. At the Volunteer Center gala, Andersen told stories about how an earnest young Lindquist went out for USC’s football freshman football team, only to break both ankles after tripping over a ditch in the Coliseum while trying to field a punt before the workout even started.

“He also made a hole-in-one once and never saw it,” Andersen said. “He had turned away in disgust at his shot, and the ball trickled in the hole. We call him the Goofy of sports.”

On the Angels’ opening day this season, Lindquist threw out the first pitch.

“It bounced about 10 feet in front of the plate,” Lindquist said. “But it bounced straight and came back over the plate. I think it was a strike.

“When (Dukes owner) Fred Lieberman told me they wanted to recognize and honor me as a great Orange County sportsman, I said, ‘This could set sports in Orange County back 50 years.’ ”