Former President of the NBA Philadelphia 76ers

Program Title: An Evening With Pat Croce

Pat Croce graced the cover of Success magazine as the first person to ascend from the training room to the boardroom of a professional sports team. His remarkable success as a physical therapist and pioneer in the sports medicine field to the colorful leader responsible for the resurrection of the Philadelphia 76ers as a NBA championship contender has been defined as one of the most amazing stories in sports history. Through his business savvy, dynamic personality, and emphasis on customer service, Croce created Sports Physical Therapists, a sports medicine empire of 40 centers in 11 states, into a top-ten finalist for the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Following the sale of his company, Pat Croce focused his entrepreneurial spirit and indestructible positive attitude to the purchase of the NBA’s last place team, the Philadelphia 76ers in 1996. During his 5-year tenure as President, the team rose from worse to first in the NBA standings and broke franchise attendance, revenue, merchandise, and consecutive win records on the way to the NBA Championships against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2001.

Pat Croce next tackled television as a lively commentator on the NBA on NBC show, a tae kwon do commentator for the Summer Olympic Games 2004 in Greece, and hosted a nationally syndicated daily TV show Pat Croce: Moving In for Sony Pictures Television. He continues to fill requests as a nationally-renown motivational speaker and pens a monthly column for Fortune Small Business magazine. Croce is the author of the New York Times bestseller, I Feel Great and You Will Too!, 110%, and Lead or Get Off the Pot!

In addition to being the proud recipient of the “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award and Sales & Marketing Management magazine’s “Best Motivator” Award, Pat Croce was featured on the cover of Inc magazine as “The Dale Carnegie of the 21st Century.”

From the medical world to the NBA to Hollywood to Key West, where Pat Croce recently created the world’s most outrageous pirate museum called Pirate Soul, his entrepreneurial spirit continues to flourish with no bounds in sight.