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NEW YORK, April 13, 2017 – LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan played up the benefits of unselfish team work and praised the “incredible people” around him after being honored as sports executive of the year at the sixth annual Cynopsis Sports Media Awards in New York on Thursday
Whan followed in the footsteps of National Hockey League supremo Gary Bettman and Major League Soccer head Don Garber when he received the prestigious Vision Award during a sold-out breakfast function on the ninth floor of the New York Athletic Club.
After being introduced by Tom Quinlan, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Governors for LSC Communications, Whan told the audience how he had established his own ‘team-focused’ leadership style as a young boy.
"When I was nine, all I wanted to be was a football player,” said Whan, who took over as the eighth commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golf Association on January 4, 2010. However, the head football coach at his school did not initially have the most encouraging words to say to the young Whan’s father.
"Your son is not very fast, so we're probably not going to have him as a receiver,” Whan recalled the coach saying. “He's not very big so he won't be able to handle the line of scrimmage. And I'm not sure he's got the frame to take the beating of a running back.”
When Whan’s father suggested to the coach that he and his son should probably give it another try for the football team in a year’s time, the coach replied: “I tell you what, the kid's pretty comfortable with the offense and he seems to order people around pretty easily. We're going to try him at quarterback.”
But the young Whan had only heard the initial criticism and that night he started crying when he and his father reviewed the events of that day.
Right away, his father set him straight, saying: "That coach said that we need somebody on this team who is smart enough and unselfish enough to realise that he is surrounded by better athletes than you and if you're really good and you get the ball out of your hands and into a better athlete's hands as fast as possible, this team can win.”
As laughter erupted around the New York Athletic Club room, Whan continued: “That's my leadership style, and it's been my leadership style since I was nine.
"When you look at the team we have at the LPGA today, I've surrounded myself with incredible people, and I rarely have the ball in my hands. This is a team award."
Whan was given the Vision Award in recognition of his seven years at the helm of the LPGA, where he has expertly guided the organization past the end of a global economic downturn and put the LPGA Tour on a solid financial footing by enhancing business relationships, growing the tournament schedule worldwide, maximizing fan experience and increasing exposure for the entire membership.
With his big-picture thinking, strong marketing skills and bold risk-taking, Whan has increased the number of LPGA events from 23 to 34 since 2011 while television ratings have steadily risen and, for the first time, coverage hours surpassed 400 hours last year.
Impressive growth has been achieved over the past 12 months with the total LPGA Tour purse up $4.4 million over 2016 and four new tournaments have been added for this season -- in New Zealand, Scotland, Green Bay and Indianapolis.
The Cynopsis Sports Media Awards cover the intersection of sports, media, marketing, technology and fans and they honor the top sports-related programming, advertising, public relations and marketing campaigns, as well as the individuals who drive the industry's success.
Past winners of the Vision Award include NASCAR CEO and Chairman Brian France (2014), NHL Commissioner Bettman (2015) and MLS Commissioner Garber (2016).
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