Pat Williams is the senior vice president of the NBA’s Orlando Magic. Also one of America’s top motivational, inspirational, and humorous speakers, he has addressed employees from many of the Fortune 500 companies and the Million Dollar Round Table. He has been a featured speaker at two Billy Graham Crusades and two Peter Lowe Success Seminars. He has also spoken on many university campuses.
After serving for seven years in the United States Army, Pat spent seven years in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, two as a minor league catcher and five in the front office. He then spent three years in the Minnesota Twins organization before moving to the National Basketball Association. Since 1968, he has been affiliated with teams in Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, including the 1983 World Champion 76ers, and now the Orlando Magic which he co-founded in 1987 and helped lead to the NBA finals in 1995. Twenty-three of his teams have gone to the NBA play-offs and five of them have made the NBA finals. In 1996, Pat was named as one of the 50 most influential people in NBA history by a national publication.
In his NBA career, he has traded Pete Maravich, traded for Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Penny Hardaway, and won four NBA draft lotteries, including back-to-back winners in 1992 and 1993 and most recently in 2004. He also drafted Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney and Darryl Dawkins and signed Billy Cunningham, Chuck Daly, and Matt Guokas to their first professional coaching contracts. Twelve of his former players have become NBA Head Coaches and seventeen have become assistant coaches.
Pat and his wife Ruth are the parents of 19 children, including 14 adopted from four nations, ranging in age from 20 to 34. For one year, 16 of his children were all teenagers at the same time. Pat and his family have been featured in Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, The Wall Street Journal, Focus on the Family, New Man Magazine, plus all of the major television networks, The Maury Povich Show and Dr. Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power.
Pat helps teach an adult Sunday school class at First Baptist Church of Orlando and hosts a weekly sports radio show. In the last 10 years he has completed thirty eight marathons, including the Boston Marathon 10 times and also climbed Mt. Rainier. He is a weight lifter, Civil War buff, and serious baseball fan. Every winter he plays in Major League Fantasy Camps and has caught Hall of Famers Bob Feller, Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Rollie Fingers, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro and Tom Seaver.
Pat was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, earned his bachelors degree at Wake Forest University, and his master’s degree at Indiana University. He has a doctorate in Humane Letters from Flagler University. He is a member of the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame after catching for the Deacons baseball team, including the 1962 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship team. He is also a member of the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame.
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• Practical and proven techniques for immediately increasing your productivity in a leadership capacity
• The importance of developing core values and leading by example
• Principles for building a winning team in your business or organization
• Practical steps that can transform any person into a champion
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Pat Williams is the senior vice president of the NBA’s Orlando Magic. Also one of America’s top motivational, inspirational, and humorous speakers, he has addressed employees from many of the Fortune 500 companies and the Million Dollar Round Table. He has been a featured speaker at two Billy Graham Crusades and two Peter Lowe Success Seminars. He has also spoken on many university campuses.
After serving for seven years in the United States Army, Pat spent seven years in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, two as a minor league catcher and five in the front office. He then spent three years in the Minnesota Twins organization before moving to the National Basketball Association. Since 1968, he has been affiliated with teams in Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, including the 1983 World Champion 76ers, and now the Orlando Magic which he co-founded in 1987 and helped lead to the NBA finals in 1995. Twenty-three of his teams have gone to the NBA play-offs and five of them have made the NBA finals. In 1996, Pat was named as one of the 50 most influential people in NBA history by a national publication.
In his NBA career, he has traded Pete Maravich, traded for Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Penny Hardaway, and won four NBA draft lotteries, including back-to-back winners in 1992 and 1993 and most recently in 2004. He also drafted Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney and Darryl Dawkins and signed Billy Cunningham, Chuck Daly, and Matt Guokas to their first professional coaching contracts. Twelve of his former players have become NBA Head Coaches and seventeen have become assistant coaches.
Pat and his wife Ruth are the parents of 19 children, including 14 adopted from four nations, ranging in age from 20 to 34. For one year, 16 of his children were all teenagers at the same time. Pat and his family have been featured in Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, The Wall Street Journal, Focus on the Family, New Man Magazine, plus all of the major television networks, The Maury Povich Show and Dr. Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power.
Pat helps teach an adult Sunday school class at First Baptist Church of Orlando and hosts a weekly sports radio show. In the last 10 years he has completed thirty eight marathons, including the Boston Marathon 10 times and also climbed Mt. Rainier. He is a weight lifter, Civil War buff, and serious baseball fan. Every winter he plays in Major League Fantasy Camps and has caught Hall of Famers Bob Feller, Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Rollie Fingers, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro and Tom Seaver.
Pat was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, earned his bachelors degree at Wake Forest University, and his master’s degree at Indiana University. He has a doctorate in Humane Letters from Flagler University. He is a member of the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame after catching for the Deacons baseball team, including the 1962 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship team. He is also a member of the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame.
Leadership: The Seven Keys to Leadership in the 21st Century
Pat gives managers practical and proven techniques for immediately increasing your productivity in a leadership capacity.
Souls of Steel
In his realistic approach, Pat teaches how you can achieve great success while maintaining your values and integrity.
The Magic of Teamwork
As his 1983 World Championship confirms, Pat is a master at building successful teams. Based on what he has learned from his experience in building sports teams for over 40 years, Pat offers proven principles for building a winning team in your business or organization.
Finding the Will to Win
How have “The Greats” achieved such extraordinary success? How can you achieve the same results? In this speech, Pat discusses the qualities that the winners in life possess.
The Six Wisdom Principles to Achieving Your Dreams
Don’t drift through your world; seize it! In this fast-paced, in-your-face presentation, Williams challenges the audience to not only plan your ideal future but to achieve it, as well.
As the keynote speaker, you surpassed our expectations. You inspired, enlightened, and challenged the audience with your stories on your life experiences. Your wisdom in regards to the "Keys to Quality Success" was inspirational. You captured the minds and hearts of the audience with stories regarding your family. Please accept my personal thanks for helping the Coca-Cola Company bring added value to our customers. — The Coca-Cola Company
On behalf of the Greater Houston Restaurant Association I want to express my sincere gratitude to you for being our guest speaker at our general membership meeting held at the King Fish Market. The evening is being talked about by many as one of the best meetings in recent memory. Your observations about quality were insightful. We all need to be reminded from time to time about why we do what we do and what it takes to do it well. — Greater Houston Restaurant Association
I want to thank you for your gracious support and presence at our Food & Beverage Conference. Your remarks were an inspiration for all of us and will have a positive impact on making a difference in our lives. Many leaders have come up to me and said how much they have enjoyed your book and I want to thank you for staying to sign them. — Walt Disney World Resorts
I want to thank you for awaking the senses and the desire of the entire staff and management team of Crown Marketing Group through thought, experiences and laughter. The messages you delivered transcended every level, culture and creed, and made all of us completely enthralled throughout. Nobody wanted the presentation to end. As you are aware, your presentation inspired our company's president to purchase 320 copies of your book, The Magic of Teamwork, which we presented as a gift to each of our employees. — Crown Marketing Group
