Professional Athletes and Professional Hippies

Words by Kirstin Kay & Caroline J. White

Free Spirit Press was sold out of a tour bus. The last issue featured a long article touting the Brotherhood as “the most successful commune in the united states.” See below for full cover image. Beth Hapgood Papers.

Mark H. McCormack Collection

The collection of Mark H. McCormack, legendary pioneer in sport and entertainment management, forms the cornerstone of the innovation and entrepreneurship collecting area for SCUA. McCormack was the founder of IMG Worldwide (now owned by Endeavor), the top, worldwide sport management and marketing company, and was christened the most powerful man in sport by Sports Illustrated. The collection provides an inside look at the last 60 years of the business of professional sport and represents the personal life of Mark H. McCormack and the intertwined corporate records of IMG Worldwide. This collection is also our single largest collection outside of the university archives, at over 3,000 record cartons (and just a fraction of the corporate records at the old U.S. headquarters).

McCormack revolutionized the sporting world by establishing athlete representation as a distinct business discipline and by demonstrating the value of sports as a cost-effective marketing tool.  In that time McCormack and his company managed Arnold Palmer's career from a $500 deal for Heinz ketchup in 1960 to multimillion-dollar television contracts for the Olympics. He capitalized on the growth of televised sport which could now make professional athletes with once modest earnings into superstars. With an auspicious start in signing Arnold Palmer just before his 1960 win at the Masters Tournament, McCormack soon added golfers Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus to his roster of clients, and they became known as the Big Three stable of golfers. He followed with a long succession of notable international sports figures and celebrities, from Formula-1 driver Jackie Stewart, Olympic skier Jean-Claude Killy, tennis stars Billie Jean King and Andre Agassi to classical music artists Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa. He set up tours for Pope John Paul II and events for Margaret Thatcher, signed Pelé and Tiger Woods for endorsement contracts, and dabbled anywhere he thought he could get money for his clients (with a large slice for the company).

Clockwise from top left: Arnold Palmer Heinz ketchup ad, 1960. Very simple $500 contract for Arnold Palmer with Heinz ketchup, ca. 1960. In a year or two, these contracts would grow to tens of thousands of dollars. Marketing piece for Arnold Palmer dry cleaning franchise, ca. 1960s

McCormack quickly added corporations and sporting events such as Wimbledon, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, and Rolex as clients in sponsorship, licensing, event management, and media deals. These clients became the basis of International Management Group (with a name change to IMG Worldwide in the 1980s), forming one of the largest management, media, and marketing companies in the world, with offices in Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Sydney, and other major cities.

The McCormack collection encompasses the records of the company from its founding in 1960 up to the sale of the company in 2003. While the collection is dense with correspondence, memos, contracts, and reports, it also has a good set of photos, publicity materials, and marketing pieces. In a massive digitization project, we digitized 50,000 documents from McCormack’s correspondence file that is available to anyone and gives insight into operations across all facets of the company as well as McCormack’s voice and writing style both in internal memos and external correspondence with business leaders.

One of our favorite sets in the collection is a massive stack of camera-ready art for golfer Gary Player, who appeared in his own newspaper comic strip for ten years. Sadly, the comic is not episodic but focuses on golf tips and instruction each week. In a similar vein we also have a stack of original paintings that were illustrations for Jack Nicklaus’ column in Sports Illustrated during the 1960s.

McCormack became so powerful and well known in the industry that he eventually commanded his own endorsement deals with the likes of United Airlines and Rolex and wrote his own, now classic, business book What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. One big surprise was finding what seemed to be a sack of cash; it turned out to be small amounts of foreign currencies, from McCormack’s international trips, now either not legal tender or so worn as to have little value as a collectible. And while McCormack is most known for his intense personality and almost OCD levels of time and statistics tracking (he tracked not only miles flown each year but also his sleep levels), his quiet bouts of generosity, which included providing space in his home for Monica Seles to recover after her on-court stabbing, were not often publicized.

Clockwise from top left: Foreign “pocket” money found in the collection. McCormack’s ad for Rolex, 1984. McCormack, businessman Shu Ueyama, and actor Sean Connery laughing over McCormack's Rolex ad, 1984.

The Brotherhood of the Spirit

Documented across several collections, the Brotherhood of the Spirit, later called the Renaissance Community, was, for a time in the mid-1970s, the largest commune in the eastern United States. It was founded on spiritual ideals, by 18-year-old Michael Metelica, but finances, business, and profits quickly became central to its functioning, its mission—and its fracturing. The Brotherhood started modestly: in the summer of 1968, in a treehouse in Leyden, Mass., bordering Vermont, where Metelica and several friends lived simply, a group of young people on a spiritual path.

Within two years, the Brotherhood had acquired 25 acres in nearby Warwick, the first of several properties it would own, and was constructing a dormitory to accommodate the growing numbers of residents and visitors flocking there. Under relatively strict rules—no drugs or alcohol—members worked the land, grew their own food, took care of the buildings, and contributed earnings from outside jobs to the commune. Metelica, as leader, was developing his psychic abilities, channeling spirits, and spreading his spiritual message through the commune’s band, Spirit in Flesh. Early forays into business were McCue 2, a pool hall-slash-hangout, and a magazine, Free Spirit Press, selling the image of a spiritually purposeful life, outside of the mainstream, to anyone who might care to join, in spirit or in person.

1. Spirit in Flesh album cover photo of Warwick dorm, December 1970, Daniel A. Brown Photograph Collection. 2. Michael Metelica on his motorcycle.

A burgeoning membership meant more mouths to feed—many of them children’s—and more people flouting the commune’s rules. The Brotherhood attracted attention and controversy, in one instance because 128 members applied for welfare while the commune’s assets included a Cadillac and a Rolls Royce. The charismatic Metelica was at the center of most of the conflict: living like a rock star, he controlled the commune’s finances, most of which went to the band’s increasingly lavish expenses.

In 1974, after a brief turn as a for-profit corporation, the commune was reborn as the Renaissance Community, based in Turner’s Falls. Encompassing the Renaissance Church—open to the public, with Metelica as “ordained minister"(1)—it had tax-exempt status. The commune boasted hundreds of members, and its businesses expanded into an array of commercial enterprises: audiovisual services, retail, eateries, tour buses, greeting cards, painting, construction. Members applied to Metelica for funds for supplies and such, but, as Metelica’s behavior worsened and his ability to lead faltered, they kept things running.

With a move to Gill, Mass., members signed a “vow of poverty,”(2) but as the 1970s became the 1980s, membership declined. In 1988, Metelica was forced out; the once-powerful leader was given a small severance package. Notably, several businesses founded under the auspices of the Renaissance Community outlasted the commune. In addition to Renaissance Greeting Cards (in Maine since 1981), Renaissance Builders, Renaissance Painting, and Silver Screen Designs continue to operate in western Massachusetts.

One of a number of countercultural “intentional communities” (3) represented in SCUA, the Brotherhood stands out for its emphasis on business and making money. These professional “hippies” wanted to do their thing, keep the commune going, and spread its message. Although it was not the only commune to go into business, the extent to which its ventures supported its existence is striking.

Free Spirit Press was sold out of a tour bus. The last issue featured a long article touting the Brotherhood as “the most successful commune in the united states.” Beth Hapgood Papers.

There is no definitive Brotherhood of the Spirit/Renaissance Community set of records. In a sense, the collections that do exist reflect the commune as it was—or aspired to be—highlighting the voices of adherents and allowing them to be heard; Metelica’s voice, though strong, is not dominant. Documentation of the commune’s businesses and finances is scattered. Some records may have gone with the businesses that continue, but much of the surviving evidence comes from news articles, ephemera, flyers, and photographs.

Series I of the Beth Hapgood Papers is devoted to the Brotherhood. A sort of godmother to the commune and to Metelica, with whom she remained close until his death, Hapgood preserved material including correspondence and group journals (usually unsigned), capturing the daily life of the commune and of Metelica. Another important collection is that of former member Bruce Geisler, who assembled material for a documentary film. Other collections, such as those of James Baker and Daniel A. Brown, provide further glimpses, but there is likely plenty of material still held by former members, who still gather, emphasizing spirit, not business.

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