Coaching skills have paid off

Gary Stokan, who began his career as an assistant basketball coach at North Carolina State University, still thinks like a coach. Now president of the Atlanta Sports Council and the Chick-fil-A Bowl, Stokan refers to his staff as his team and said he manages employees the way he once coached players.

“You recruit people who have an expertise in a role, you make sure they understand their role on the team, you let them play that role,” he said. “You win more than you lose that way.”

Stokan in essence holds three jobs in one. In addition to his roles with the Chick-fil-A Bowl and the sports council, he is president of the Atlanta Tipoff Club. He said his job is the “epitome of multi-tasking,” and he joked that he is a “walking conflict of interest” because he tends to work with the same people and organizations through all three roles.

“Sports is a very small fraternity, and it is built on relationships,” he said.

Q: Can you tell me about your career path and how you got here?

A: I have had an interesting life, having been in sports my whole career. I attended North Carolina State on a basketball scholarship. After I graduated, I was going to go back to Pittsburgh, where I grew up, (to) probably teach and coach high school basketball. My coach at the time, Norm Sloan, said, “Why don’t you stay with me? It is easier to coach in college and go down to high school if you don’t like college than it is to start in high school and try to get back up to college.” I was blessed enough to stay there for three years and coach under Coach Sloan. I had other opportunities to stay in coaching, but I also had an opportunity to move to Atlanta in 1980 and open the Adidas office for the Southeast. I made that decision and got out of coaching.

Q: Why did you decide to leave coaching?

A: It was a good opportunity. Adidas was a great brand that was just getting started in the United States. It was also the opportunity to move to Atlanta, which was a big city, somewhat similar to Pittsburgh. The job was something new and different, which would keep me in sports —- and that was important to me —- but also broaden my horizons in sports beyond just basketball.

So I went to Adidas, and I signed Mike Krzyzewski at Duke to an Adidas contract and Herschel Walker to an Adidas contract. I have been blessed to be able to work with a tremendous number of high-profile athletes and coaches in my career.

I stayed at Adidas for seven years. Then, I had the opportunity to go to Converse and be in a national basketball position at Converse. I got a chance to extend the contracts of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

Q: Did you stay in Atlanta?

A: I did. I had an office here but commuted to Reading, Mass., where Converse was located, for meetings and things.

I was with Converse for three years. Then, I started my own sports marketing company, and merged that with another firm, and we grew it to about a $7 million company with 25 people. We sold it to a company in London right before the Olympics in 1996. Then I went back to Adidas, around the time they signed Kobe Bryant. I became the global positioning manager for basketball for Adidas. I stayed in Atlanta and commuted to Portland and Europe. We had a lot of success that first year, and then after that, they wanted me to move to Portland. I didn’t want to do that.

Q: It sounds like you have been committed to living in Atlanta.

A: I have been blessed. If you think about it, in this day and time, for someone to spend 29 years in one city and get to do all the things I have been able to do, it is quite remarkable. And that affected my decision to take this job. My kids were at Marist, in high school, I wanted to stay in Atlanta because that is a great education and we loved Atlanta. This job allowed me an opportunity to get back to Atlanta, to get off the road. It gave me an opportunity to stay in sports, to thrive in sports, and also to give back to the city that has been so important to me and to my family.

Q: When you recruit events here, what are Atlanta’s best selling points?

A: Number one, you have transportation. Our airport is the most effective and efficient in the world. You have three interstates that intersect in downtown, so regionally, people can drive here relatively easily. Once they are in town, you have MARTA and it is easy to get around. Then, there are the hotels. There are 92,000 hotels rooms in Atlanta, including some four- and five-star hotels that are downtown within walking distance of our facilities. And then, you’ve got the facilities, which are state of the art and in close proximity to hotels and downtown restaurants. So that is what I mean when I talk about the infrastructure being here to host mega-sports in Atlanta. Then you’ve got the corporate support. It is in Atlanta’s DNA, led by Coca-Cola, to give back. The CEOs do a miraculous job of supporting not only sports but the arts, Grady Hospital, major initiatives in this town. And finally, you’ve got the volunteers. It is in Atlanta’s DNA to really want to provide southern hospitality. We genuinely enjoy hosting people.

Q: What does Atlanta not have?

A: The most difficult thing we are missing in competing for mega sports events is a financial support system. The sports council doesn’t receive any financial support from the state or the city or the CVB [convention and visitor’s bureau] or any taxes. So we have to go out and raise every dollar for bringing these events here.

Q: A lot of other sports councils are funded with government money?

A: Yes.

Q: What can we look for in the future?

A: We are putting in a bid for the World Cup, which would be on par with the Olympics from an international standpoint. Then there are things like the Georgia-Florida game, which we are out there trying to recruit one of the four years from Jacksonville. Atlanta is a mecca for college sports, so are really delving down deep into the opportunities that exist there.

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