Roller-Coaster Relationship : Running the Bullfrogs Means Very Different Things to Members of the Silver Family

From their third-floor luxury box at the Pond, Stuart and Nelson Silver will gaze down upon Monday night’s opening-round Roller Hockey International playoff game between their Bullfrogs and archrival Blades with two vastly different viewpoints.

It’s no secret the brothers have been squabbling over the future of the club, which RHI officials, industry publications and product manufacturers generally agree has become the linchpin of the four-year-old league.

So divisive are their beliefs, however, that Stuart, the team president, filed suit against his brother, the corporate CEO and chairman of the board, in March, to gain control of the club. The suit has since been dropped, but it points out the degree to which both are willing to go to make a point.

Brash and chatty, Stuart, 38, sees the Bullfrogs as a vital part of the family future. He is the driving force behind the Silvers’ plan to build a 10,000-seat ice/roller hockey arena in the Inland Empire and he raised a few eyebrows when he consulted former King owner Bruce McNall, awaiting sentencing on felony convictions for business fraud, about putting a minor league ice hockey team there.

Stuart has thrown himself into the rapidly growing in-line skating industry with a fury. He’ll soon break ground on his third Orange County roller rink and he recently put his Encino home up for sale to go house-hunting in Orange Hills and Huntington Harbour.

“I love it here,” he said.

Nelson, 35, could “take it or leave it” when it comes to the Bullfrogs, he admitted. Reserved and less flashy than his brother, he runs the family car rental agency in West Hollywood and sees himself as the family bean counter. He has been unhappy with the team’s economic performance and thinks the $1 million the family has spent from its personal coffers during the last four years would have been better spent on an interest-bearing annuity.

He would like to see the family sell the Bullfrogs, and if that doesn’t happen, he’s willing to put his 25% share of the team on the market. He has no plans of moving from his West Los Angeles home and he has visited the Pond far less frequently than in previous seasons.

Despite their differences, the Silvers still hold a unique position in the in-line business, one that they relish.

“Roller hockey is the fastest growing sport ever and the Anaheim Bullfrogs are in the middle of the No. 1 market in the world,” said a former league employee who asked not to be identified. “And whether the manufacturers like it or not, they need the Bullfrogs.”

The Silvers have weathered a few storm clouds this season. Several manufacturers and service providers have complained privately they had not been paid on time. And front-office cost-cutting moves in midseason led to rumors the team is in financial trouble and might move out of the Pond at the end of the season. The team’s booster club president, saying things have changed so much she no longer feels she can do her job, announced Friday that she is resigning.

None of that is true, according to Bullfrog Chairman Emeritus Maury Silver, father of Nelson and Stuart. The team might turn a small profit this year, depending on playoff crowds, he said, though he acknowledged deep concerns about the family’s ability to make money at the Pond. From time to time, he said, the family corporation, Lillypad Inc., has paid off some vendors while holding payment to others until ticket revenues rolled in.

“Everyone has gotten paid. There are no lawsuits against the Bullfrogs. We have a strictly open account,” Maury Silver said. “It’s basically a truck business. We have a lot of money on the streets. Even the big boys take 60 to 90 days to pay sometimes.”

While Maury is the team figurehead, Stuart and Nelson are its most visible representatives, yet they generally stay to themselves during postgame visits to the locker room. “I love my brother, I’d take a bullet for him. I’d give him a kidney if I had to,” Nelson said. “We just disagree on things.”

Strolling up to the Pond from the parking lot last week for the regular-season finale between the Bullfrogs and the San Diego Barracudas, Nelson told Stuart, who was neatly attired in a double-breasted suit, tie and wearing monogrammed cuff-links, that his hair was too long.

“I don’t need a haircut,” Stuart said.

“Yes, you do,” Nelson said.

“No, I don’t. What’s wrong with my hair?”

“It’s too long.

“No, it’s not.

“Yes, it is.

“At least I have hair,” Stuart finally said to his brother, who is slightly bald.

Such exchanges are typical of the banter between them, according to employees, friends and observers.

“I have a conservative son and a son who is willing to take chances,” said their mother, Phyllis, a successful restaurant and apartment owner in Palm Springs. “Maury, he is somewhere in the middle of the two.”

Maury Silver, 62, is generally credited with inventing the in-line skate, a device that has taken street hockey to new heights. A shoe salesman from Montreal, he held a patent on the in-line skate from 1972-1989, profited from the royalties and established a trust fund from which his two sons draw income.

“As a child, Stuart would try to run on his roller skates. He was running everywhere,” Maury said. “I wanted him to have something like a speed skate, so I made this board with wheels from a shopping cart from one of those supermarkets.

“It was a fluke,” he said. “Eight million people had a part in making that skate. It wasn’t just one person’s idea.”

When Maury Silver, who sits on the league’s executive committee, needed heart surgery three years ago, he turned to his sons to manage the team and says he transferred his 50% portion of the club to them. Lately, however, he has been a fixture in the Bullfrogs’ Anaheim office, the result, he said, of major mid-year personnel changes and growing demands on his sons in their businesses.

At least five key office personnel who were with the team at the start of the year have left, including general manager Bob Elder. Reports that Elder was fired were inaccurate, Maury and Nelson Silver said. Elder simply wanted more money and more control of daily operations and the Silvers were unwilling to pay him.

They did fire radio personality Lew Stowers mid-year, but after three games, the Silvers relented to heavy pressure from radio station executives at KPLS-AM. The station renegotiated the broadcast contract and the Silvers rehired Stowers.

“We make the moves that we need to make that allow us to keep in control of our own destiny,” Nelson said.

Stuart and Nelson Silver grew up in West Los Angeles and attended Hamilton High. Both graduated in the mid-1970s. Stuart went to Santa Monica College and Nelson attended Cal State Northridge.

They say life wasn’t always easy for the family. Phyllis said she often worked two jobs to pay the bills and Maury turned to driving a lunch wagon once to make ends meet.

Stuart was 18 when he took a job selling Porches at a Beverly Hills auto dealer and was a top salesman by the time he was 21. Later, he founded Avon Rent a Car and took it public in 1988. He was named entrepreneur of the year by the accounting firm of Ernst and Young two years later.

Nelson has worked more closely in several family businesses, most importantly, the rental car firm. He recently sold a Bel Air deli and has been active in several charities, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The four Silvers gathered in their suite at the Pond last week, as they have on several occasions this season, to plan for the future. As usual, Nelson and Stuart disagreed on many things, repeatedly interrupting each other. Stuart is in the Bullfrogs for the long haul, he said. Nelson wants to sell.

Finally, they settled on a single point on which both could agree: They just don’t see things the same way much of the time.