'We've Taken the Greed out of Sports'

Dean Jernigan, 55
Memphis Redbirds
Memphis Tennessee

It is Saturday, April 1. An overcast spring day in Memphis, and the man who surpassed Roger Maris's home-run record, a guy accustomed to inspiring awe and astonishment, has stumbled onto a sports achievement that impresses even him. Mark McGwire and the St. Louis Cardinals have come to town for an exhibition game against the Memphis Redbirds, their Triple-A minor-league affiliate. It is, frankly, the kind of game that most major leaguers would rather blow off. The night before, the Cardinals played an exhibition game in Texas. Monday, they would embark on the exhausting grind that is a 162-game regular season. McGwire has a bad back and can't even play. If it weren't for this Memphis stop, the Cardinals players would be home, resting in St. Louis.

But Memphis was opening AutoZone Park, the most expensive baseball complex ($72 million) ever built below the major-league level. Cardinals management thought it was obligated to help put on a good Opening Day show. So the team flew into Memphis, boarded two buses, and headed toward downtown.

That's when Redbirds employees dropped a videotape into the VCR at the front of each bus. The mood of the Cardinals players began to change. The videotape told the story of a team, a business, and an owner, Dean Jernigan, that was unlike any story in professional sports. In a business in which the only thing anyone seems to have in common is greed -- $10 million salaries; $400 million, publicly financed stadiums; $40-a-seat tickets -- Jernigan seemed different. He was a businessman, certainly: chairman, president, CEO, and founder of Storage USA Inc., the country's second-largest self-storage operation. And he was a man who seemed to have no problem charging $2 for Cokes and $4.50 for beers at his stadium. But he wouldn't pocket a dime's worth of profit from those Cokes and beers. Neither he nor his wife and partner, Kristi Jernigan, 37, would ever draw a salary for running the team. Every cent earned by the organization would go to one of two local charities, designated in advance, working to bring baseball back to youngsters in the inner city.

It was a breathtaking notion -- and it got the attention of two buses of professional ballplayers, who are as cynical about baseball ownership as anyone is. By the time that McGwire made it to the pregame press conference, he was quiet, in awe. "A lot of guys were like, 'You've got to be kidding me,' " McGwire said, stroking his red beard. "Why can't everybody do that?"

(I) It's a New Ball Game

During a game in July, a Redbirds employee noticed a young girl leaving the team souvenir store, looking downcast. The employee asked what was wrong. The girl's mother had given her $3, but there was nothing in the store for her to buy at that price. At the team's next monthly operations meeting, Kristi Jernigan instructed the team's retail manager, over his protests, to stock some items for less than $3.

Play Ball! (But Play By Different Rules)

Dean Jernigan is up front: He says that he "despises" the traditional role of sports owner. You don't have to watch him for long to see that this is true. Anywhere else, if an owner built a new ballpark, if he built it in a place where everybody said it couldn't be built, financed by a business plan that had been rejected by one of the biggest banks in America -- and if that ballpark turned out to be a city's glory, a steel-and-brick dream that conjured the best parts of Camden Yards and Turner Field -- you'd expect the owner to be front and center on the day that it opens, right? Taking batting practice. Throwing out the first ball. On April 1, Opening Day in Memphis, Jernigan, 55, took the opposite approach. At the celebration that featured McGwire, Jernigan actually retreated from the happy tumult to write the copy introducing the 46 men and women who would throw out first balls. Then he concluded that there was a better, more efficient way to do it. "I'm going to announce all these guys for today's first pitch,'' he said.

Jernigan slipped into the press box at just the right time. He made all 46 introductions, from memory, pointing out how each person had been instrumental to the Redbirds or to the creation of the stadium. He never let the fans know that the man most responsible for the park was playing PA announcer, that he was the man. "That's just not Dean," said Kristi Jernigan. "He doesn't want the spotlight."

Jernigan never wanted to be an owner. What he wanted was a chance to reimagine what sports ownership could be. In his vision, a sports franchise isn't just another rich man's trophy, something to put on display. It's an essential part of the texture of the town to which it belongs. Jernigan wanted a team that would flourish to the benefit -- not at the expense -- of its community. He wanted a team that could never threaten to leave. What he got, in the end, was a baseball team with the same corporate structure as the American Red Cross and the United Way -- a 501(c)(3) nonprofit enterprise, the only one of its kind in professional sports.