Donald Dell is a Washington institution.
His resume reads as though it were written for a novel: Washington tennis phenom, student at the elite Landon School, Yale and University of Virginia law school, friend of the Shrivers and Kennedys, political operative, world traveler, undefeated captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team (that’s more tennis), and a revolutionary sports agent who represented legends such as Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith and Jimmy Connors.
The thing that intrigues me about Dell is that he didn’t burn out and loaf around country clubs after his tennis years. He used those skills to build a network, which in turn created business and social opportunities that have sustained his success over his 72 years.
I’ve had an amazing, wonderful life,” said Dell, who has lived on a 49.6-acre farm in Potomac since 1972.
He used his tennis contacts to launch in 1969 what became today’s Legg Mason Tennis Classic, an annual rite of Washington summer that starts in a couple of weeks.
After founding ProServ in the 1970s, he went on to become one of the biggest sports agents of his time. At its height, ProServ had 300 employees and 12 offices and represented about 250 athletes who grossed the firm more than $15 million a year.
ProServ suffered a serious setback when Dell’s assistant, David Falk, departed with a pair of key clients named Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing.
Dell eventually sold ProServ for $25 million, then bought parts of it back, only to sell it again to Lagardere Unlimited, where he now serves as group president in charge of TV deals, events and tennis.
I never tire of hearing about the importance of networking, which I once considered a dirty word. Herewith is some advice from Dell and from his book, “Never Make the First Offer,” regarding the secrets of networking:
-Make friends.
Dell uses Under Armour founder Kevin Plank, another Washington area native, as an example of someone who has “worked at every relationship. What Kevin has done, and what I think is the most basic aspect of achieving business success, is to create opportunities to get to know people out [italics his] of the office, out of the normal parameters of the business relationship, and outside mutual comfort zones.”
- Make friends of their friends.
Dell met FedEx founder Fred Smith through a friend who had owned the Memphis Racquet Club in Tennessee, where FedEx is headquartered. Dell, who was ranked as the top tennis doubles player in the United States for 1961 and 1962, played a doubles match with Smith and two others. They became friends, and Dell later represented FedEx in its $205 million naming rights deal with the Washington Redskins.
-Find mentors.
Dell had two big mentors in his life: tennis great Jack Kramer and the late Sargent Shriver of Potomac, who was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 1972. Shriver called Dell to ask him to coach Shriver’s son Bobby in tennis.
Later, on a visit to the family compound in Hyannisport, Dell, a lawyer at Hogan & Hartson at the time, asked Shriver whether he could take him up on a job offer that Dell had refused a few years earlier.
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