Executives Spotlight stories appeared on this website starting in 2001. Some of the executive's professional experience may have changed since they were published.

Executive Spotlight - October 20, 2008

Steve DeLay

Executive Vice President / Chief Marketing Officer, Mandalay Baseball Properties

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

Not too surprisingly, at a recent women's conference at my former college, Indiana University, professors of television and new media said that human beings absorb a story through pictures about 500 x faster than words. Do you think that's why face-to-face meetings of candidates for jobs often supersede a candidate's experience when hired?

Years ago, I helped start a quasi-Olympic games competition for residents of the state of Ohio, the Ohio Sports Festival. We were a part of a number of state games competitions meant to boost amateur athletic participation and promote the Olympic movement. We were hosting a press conference to announce our Festival and the staff of the Ohio Sports Festival attended.

Towering over the crowd was a young intern, Steve DeLay. He had a maturity and confidence plus an easy laugh. That picture of him standing there stayed in my mind. When I was thinking of hiring an intern for my own business, I immediately thought of him. Steve knew little about my business.

He had graduated with a marketing degree from Miami of Ohio, had had about 4 internships with the Browns, Indians and Sports Festival and was looking for a job. I asked him to come down to my basement office and began interviewing him for a job with me. He was working part-time for the Indians in ticket sales and parking cars in the evening for a nightclub down in the Flats. He was even thinking about going back to graduate school.

I explained to him that if he worked for me for just a few months, he would be able to get to know important people in the sports business. I was building an electronic database of the resumes of people I knew. I had purchased a MAC computer and I needed his typing/data entry skills.

To fully appreciate his next response, I ought to better describe the setting. We were in the basement of my home in a suburb of Cleveland, Shaker Heights. My 4 year old son was running around and screaming upstairs playing with friends while a Sesame Street video was blaring away. A baby-sitter who substituted for part-time help in my office was with him, sort of. The backdoor would make a "thunk" when closing. Downstairs, we had wall to wall carpeting, one computer and a few desks. The humidifier was sucking air in the background. Steve, at over 6' tall, had to duck to walk around in the basement. And a huge furnace was in the middle of the room.

While seated on the couch, I offered him a job to come work for me. And his response was, "How does a woman, like you, working in her basement in Shaker Heights, Ohio have anything to do with the sports business?"

Wow! This was a stab to my heart. I swallowed, collected myself and calmly said, "You will learn. Join us."

Steve worked for us the odd-hours between telemarketing tickets for the Cleveland Indians and parking cars downtown. In the course of his daily 3-4 hours of typing in resumes of people in the sports business into our database, he devoured the histories of people who would become his heroes and mentors. He saw that sports business people could make six figure incomes, a view not widely known by parents, and he began to appreciate the role of salespeople.

I received a call from one of my clients, the New Jersey Nets. They were seeking a young person with a year's worth of ticket sales to join their team as a ticket sales representative. Reluctantly but enthusiastically, I said their candidate, albeit with only 3 months of sales, was sitting right in my office-Steve DeLay.

On his last day with TeamWork, the staff and my son who contributed plastic coins gave Steve a check for $50.00 as bus money to get to New Jersey. Steve had never been there before. It's there Steve met face to face with his ultimate mentor, Jon Spoelstra. Their friendship and relationship has been growing ever since.

How a picture is worth a thousand words. And thousands of friends. And thousands of dollars. Make sure you are memorable.

- Buffy Filippell