Mark Cuban Isn’t the Only Clear-Thinking NBA Owner in Texas

An article in the current Sports Illustrated about the underappreciated San Antonio Spurs, by Jack McCallum, includes a brief profile of the Spurs’ principal owner, Peter Holt. A son of privilege, he was a drinker and a hell-raiser who joined the Army to straighten himself out and was sent to Vietnam in 1967. He tells McCallum about walking through the jungle, hacking away with a machete, when he came upon a hidden grenade — “but the trip wire,” Holt says, “went the opposite way from where I swung my machete. Had it gone the other way, it would’ve blown my brains out.”

He has obviously never forgotten this incident; better yet, he took from it a couple of very good lessons: “I came out of Vietnam with two things: a grasp of how the collective good keeps people alive, and the fact that luck can play a big part in everything you do.”