If The New Sixers Owners Do Plan On Reaching Out to Pat Croce, They're Going to Have to Wait Until He's Done Searching For The Body of Sir Francis Drake
Really.
During Tuesday’s press conference, one reporter asked new Sixers owner Joshua Harris and CEO Adam Aron if they would be reaching out to Pat Croce to get his thoughts on improving the team and the atmosphere at The Well. The answer was of the friendly variety, somewhere between “yeah absolutely” and “fuck that this is our team.”
Well… if they do want to try to contact Croce, they’re not going to have much success for a little while. According to Philly Sports Daily’s Facebook page (are you a fan yet? you should be), Croce is in Panama searching for the body of Sir Francis Drake.
For realsies.
I thought perhaps they were joking, so I threw it into Google and found this on Croce's pirate museum website: [PirateSoul.com]
Every time, Pat Croce looks out across the veranda of his St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum—past the Spanish’s 17th century Castillo de San Marcos built because of one too many pirate raids—there was the very bay where the pirate El Draque sailed in and plundered and burned St. Augustine to the ground. Somewhere off of Portobello, Panama, Croce knew, the ships that brought Drake’s havoc to St. Augustine now rest at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.
And now, the adventure begins.
Yep. He’s writing a daily blog on PirateSoul.com about his search for a pirate who's been dead for over 400 years. My first reaction was to make fun of this, but then I realized that Croce is trolling around Caribbean waters, with his millions of dollars, on a real-life adventure. The joke is very much on us, folks. Croce is awesome.
So, Josh Harris, if you’re looking for some advice from the former Sixers owner, you’re going to have to wait a little while– he’s hunting dead pirates. And, really, perhaps that’s all you need to know about why Croce was successful during his brief stint as owner: like most things, he had fun with it. Remember, you’re running a basketball team, not a holding company or bank or Wall Street conglomerate. Just a basketball team. Make it fun again. I’m sure that’s what our old friend would tell you… just as soon as he’s done bartering with the natives.