On the heels of my little screed about my family friend Andy, and his adventures with DeBeers, in the Lourve thread, thought it would be a cool idea to share the most interesting of the varied and diverse people this board has encountered or been privileged to know.
While not the same as chasing rough diamonds across Africa and fighting to prevent conflict diamonds from being a useful tool for warlords, my Grandfather would be a secondary choice. On the surface, an insurance broker who spent 95% of his life in Sheboygan wouldn't move the needle. But he used his network to seed countless businesses in the area, started a golf course, hosted foreign students through his active involvement in Rotary, and follow through on his steadfast belief in education by send his 7 kids to private universities and then further supporting/empowering them that they ended up setting out in 10 different states and multiple countries as they started their lives and families.
Then, once 25+ years of raising kids was done, he made up for never traveling abroad (besides his time in the Navy in WW2) by visiting close to 40 countries with my grandma and filling every visit, until they were in their mid 80s and longer able to travel, with pictures, artifacts, and educational tidbits from wherever they just were to inspiring wonder, curiosity, and a love for travel.
Incredibly well read, always curious, definitely passed along my core trait of "I hate to not know" leading to research whenever I read or hear about something unfamiliar, and most important of all to some here, started the legacy of Marquette attendance and affiliation within the family that goes strong. And even so, I remember making the extremely difficult college choice to head elsewhere, instead of Marquette, at their condo during Spring Break and he couldn't have been more supportive, proud, and wise about it.
Marv Dunphy. Was the head coach for the 1988 men's indoor volleyball Olympic gold medal team, is the only men's indoor coach to win the 4 major tournaments in the same quad ever (85 World Cup, 86 World Championships, 87 Pan Am games, 88 Olympics), and has been on the coaching staff of all 4 USA indoor volleyball gold medal winning teams (assistant coach for the 1984 and 2008 men's indoor teams and 2020 women's indoor team). The only coach to win NCAA men's volleyball championships in 4 different decades. We visited him at Pepperdine about a decade ago. You walk into his office and an entire wall of the office is covered in pictures with him and world figures. From Fidel Castro to Bill Clinton to LeBron James and everything in between. Spent at least one full year while getting his PHD following John Wooden and has some awesome stories from that.
My cousin who left his teaching job in suburban Chicago, slept on my couch for two weeks to get trained to teach yoga, and moved to Morocco to surf and teach classes on the beach.
Now a minor level youtube celeb (enough to pay Morocco rent) and travels the world with his two young kids and european wife he met there to put on yoga festivals.
Our road trip across Morocco was one of the best two weeks of my adult life!
The most interesting person I've ever known is Sam Zell. My dad went to grade school and high school with him and they were very close friends. My dad passed away when I was 7, but Mr.Zell remained close to my family until he passed away a couple of years ago. My grandma, mom, and sister went to the funeral.
Mr. Zell had these incredible parties, with big name celebs, and would often travel spontaneously whether it be to his many homes or somewhere on a whim. On Sept 11th 2001, my older sister was stranded in Dublin for 3 days. She was actually in the air when the planes hit, and about an our hour into her flight to JFK. She wound up diverting to Heathrow and was stranded 3 days before she could get back to Chicago.
My mom called Sam because she knew he was in Geneva after talking to his wife at the time. He assured my mom and grandparents that he would get my sister home ASAP on his plane and would meet her in London. Funny enough, commercial flights were able to get out before private planes! My sister was stranded 3 days while I believe Mr.Zell was there for a week! We joked about it often and my sister was always a little bitter she wasn't able to fly on his jet. Anyway he was a fun dude, a little eccentric, but always extremely kind to my family.
Do former playboy playmates count? Thanks to one of them, I got to attend a party at the Playboy mansion many years back.
Not sure if you guys have ever heard of the monkey selfie trial. It was where a photographer in Asia set up cameras so that Macaque monkeys could take selfies. A lawsuit against Wikipedia founder by the human photographer claimed copyright infringement. Wikipedia along with PETA claimed the monkeys owned the copyright. A friend was the lawyer for the human photographer. Another friend quipped that this was a case of monkey see, monkey sue. The lawyer used that phrase in opening arguments. ;D
The human photographer won. The US copyright office created a rule saying humans can only hold copyrights. That is important because of that little invention called AI. Many are saying that ruling and trial will be used in future cases around AI generated content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute
The lawyer graduated from that second rate community college in Madison. One day he offhandedly mentioned his roommates there started a little underground paper named after some root vegetable. Wait, what? Your roommates started The Onion??? That's way more interesting than being the monkey selfie lawyer.
One of my career mentors is a guy who grew up in the old money part of Philadelphia. He lived next door to Dick Clark and was a fraternity brother of Donald Trump - whom he hated long before he was president.
His wife and him live in a non-descript house on Tosa's west side. They were going to leave their entire estate to Penn State (where he got one of his three masters degrees), but after Joe Paterno, decided to leave it all to the Wisconsin Human Society instead.
sadly, my dad passed away three years ago, so I don't have such an individual in my life anymore.
a brilliant but humble man. A small town kid who grew up on a farm in northern MI, he finished undergrad in three years and went to med school with the goal of being "a humble, country doctor." When he graduated med school it was a huge deal in his town - a community celebration was held and even promoted in the local paper with over 175 people showing up. 39 years as a family physician. He wasn't into flaunting his success - he drove a Chevy S10 with an AM radio and power nothing, parking next to his colleagues who drove Corvettes, Porsches, and other sports cars. It didn't bother him at all; he knew who he was. "You can't haul rocks and wood or a deer in a Porsche."
He took all of us kids on mission trips to Mexico, where he was part of a medical clinic in a Mayan village. He also did volunteer medical work in the Ukraine shortly after it gained independence, as well as in Benin. He retired and three months later was working at his hospital's urgent care clinic until his body broke down and he couldn't do it anymore.
He supported my decision to leave the state and attend MU...begrudingly. In fact, he still held out hope I would change my mind and attend Michigan State, but when he brought me out for MU Preview and he heard about how important the service component was for MU, he said "this is the place for you."
The day of his retirement my family was out to dinner (it was the first time it had been just the five of us since my sister had gotten married), and multiple patients approached him to thank him for all he had done for them and he would respond "I was just doing what I set out to do."
Quote from: MuggsyB on October 27, 2025, 07:18:05 PMThe most interesting person I've ever known is Sam Zell. My dad went to grade school and high school with him and they were very close friends. My dad passed away when I was 7, but Mr.Zell remained close to my family until he passed away a couple of years ago. My grandma, mom, and sister went to the funeral.
Mr. Zell had these incredible parties, with big name celebs, and would often travel spontaneously whether it be to his many homes or somewhere on a whim. On Sept 11th 2001, my older sister was stranded in Dublin for 3 days. She was actually in the air when the planes hit, and about an our hour into her flight to JFK. She wound up diverting to Heathrow and was stranded 3 days before she could get back to Chicago.
My mom called Sam because she knew he was in Geneva after talking to his wife at the time. He assured my mom and grandparents that he would get my sister home ASAP on his plane and would meet her in London. Funny enough, commercial flights were able to get out before private planes! My sister was stranded 3 days while I believe Mr.Zell was there for a week! We joked about it often and my sister was always a little bitter she wasn't able to fly on his jet. Anyway he was a fun dude, a little eccentric, but always extremely kind to my family.
The parties were legendary in part for the entertainment - start level for the time, like Bette Midler - and in part because the invite did not reveal the location. You'd go to a pick up spot, and then be taken by coach or boat to a spectacular setting. He also was known for his annual holiday "card," or, more accurately, automatons: not so little moving sculputures which played a parody song/message in Sam's voice or a broadway star's voice (much better) on the state of the economy. My partner was Sam's lawyer for Sam's entire working life.
Quote from: Billy Hoyle on October 28, 2025, 10:07:54 AMsadly, my dad passed away three years ago, so I don't have such an individual in my life anymore.
a brilliant but humble man. A small town kid who grew up on a farm in northern MI, he finished undergrad in three years and went to med school with the goal of being "a humble, country doctor." When he graduated med school it was a huge deal in his town - a community celebration was held and even promoted in the local paper with over 175 people showing up. 39 years as a family physician. He wasn't into flaunting his success - he drove a Chevy S10 with an AM radio and power nothing, parking next to his colleagues who drove Corvettes, Porsches, and other sports cars. It didn't bother him at all; he knew who he was. "You can't haul rocks and wood or a deer in a Porsche."
He took all of us kids on mission trips to Mexico, where he was part of a medical clinic in a Mayan village. He also did volunteer medical work in the Ukraine shortly after it gained independence, as well as in Benin. He retired and three months later was working at his hospital's urgent care clinic until his body broke down and he couldn't do it anymore.
He supported my decision to leave the state and attend MU...begrudingly. In fact, he still held out hope I would change my mind and attend Michigan State, but when he brought me out for MU Preview and he heard about how important the service component was for MU, he said "this is the place for you."
The day of his retirement my family was out to dinner (it was the first time it had been just the five of us since my sister had gotten married), and multiple patients approached him to thank him for all he had done for them and he would respond "I was just doing what I set out to do."
Wow, that's a terrific read, Billy. I think your dad and my dad - my hero - would have been great friends.
Quote from: LloydsLegs on October 29, 2025, 02:08:20 PMThe parties were legendary in part for the entertainment - start level for the time, like Bette Midler - and in part because the invite did not reveal the location. You'd go to a pick up spot, and then be taken by coach or boat to a spectacular setting. He also was known for his annual holiday "card," or, more accurately, automatons: not so little moving sculputures which played a parody song/message in Sam's voice or a broadway star's voice (much better) on the state of the economy. My partner was Sam's lawyer for Sam's entire working life.
In my decade plus in Chicago, I heard a bunch of ancedotes about Zell from various people, from his parties to quirks, etc... what stood out to me was I never heard anything remotely bad or negative. Granted, none of this was in a direct business negotiation sense, where I'm sure he was a shark and not always loved. But other than comments sometimes about eccentricities, it was pretty uniformly glowing. A friend of mine was from an old money Lake Forest family and his Grandma didn't care for Zell, cause she said he was "awfully crass". But she also further said that he was an otherwise kind man.
And obviously his partner Robert Lurie is a legend in Chicago philanthropic circles and Lurie Children's is an indescribably fantastic institution
Quote from: LloydsLegs on October 29, 2025, 02:08:20 PMThe parties were legendary in part for the entertainment - start level for the time, like Bette Midler - and in part because the invite did not reveal the location. You'd go to a pick up spot, and then be taken by coach or boat to a spectacular setting. He also was known for his annual holiday "card," or, more accurately, automatons: not so little moving sculputures which played a parody song/message in Sam's voice or a broadway star's voice (much better) on the state of the economy. My partner was Sam's lawyer for Sam's entire working life.
Yes. Everything you have described about those parties is exactly what I remember. I know my mom and grandma were blown away when Elton John was there. I would assume he had many lawyers. His estate lawyer?
Quote from: JWags85 on October 29, 2025, 04:58:13 PMIn my decade plus in Chicago, I heard a bunch of ancedotes about Zell from various people, from his parties to quirks, etc... what stood out to me was I never heard anything remotely bad or negative. Granted, none of this was in a direct business negotiation sense, where I'm sure he was a shark and not always loved. But other than comments sometimes about eccentricities, it was pretty uniformly glowing. A friend of mine was from an old money Lake Forest family and his Grandma didn't care for Zell, cause she said he was "awfully crass". But she also further said that he was an otherwise kind man.
And obviously his partner Robert Lurie is a legend in Chicago philanthropic circles and Lurie Children's is an indescribably fantastic institution
I think your sentiments are accurate. And yes, Lurie has had an enormous positive impact with all of his philanthropy.