Pat Croce

Pat Croce remains busy. He recently bought another bar in Key West, Fla., and he also finished a new children's book about pirates. His head long ago moved on to other matters, even if part of his heart stayed behind. It's been 10 years since Croce stepped down as the 76ers president, and longer still since he allied with Ed Snider and Comcast-Spectacor to seize control of the franchise from Harold Katz, but he never stopped following the team that he helped push to its last Finals appearance.

Now we know why Pat Croce hurriedly changed his plans Jan. 12 and rushed to Washington, where the 76ers were visiting the Wizards. He felt a deep need to apologize to Allen Iverson. That was the final chapter in a series of events that left Croce, the Sixers' president and part-owner, numb. He was, in no particular order, angry, disappointed, humiliated and discouraged. That was the day Croce learned that his younger brother John, the Sixers' physical conditioning coach, had been caught on videotape taking money from the pants pocket of Iverson.

He's broken his nose five times. Had his front four teeth knocked out. Cracked his heel. Broken his neck. The knuckles on his right hand - which has been broken in seven places - resemble a section of one of those beaded car seats. Pat Croce knows pain, which is probably a good thing if you're going to take over the 76ers. The newly crowned prince of Philadelphia sport is just getting acquainted with the assets that come with his reported $5 million investment - a 13-56 basketball team with a few good men and enough bad habits to fill a wing in the Betty Ford clinic.

Sometimes you carpe the diem, and sometimes the diem carpes you. Pat Croce is gone. And now, for us Philadelphia sports fans looking to identify with the moneyed personages who run our beloved franchises, we have only the zany, madcap antics of Phillies president David Montgomery - whose idea of edginess no doubt consists of eating lobster bisque with a demitasse spoon. The single greatest service Croce gave to fans was his air of treating us all as if we were his partners, and not the powerless herd we really are. He was a regular guy. Yes, a shrewd multimillionaire regular guy . . . but I would rather have an owner who rappels from the rafters to show his gratitude for our money than one who sits in his suite expecting our money while repelled by the notion of gratitude.

Pat Croce doesn't waste time. Over the weekend, the new president and part-owner of the 76ers was flooded with letters from students at his alma mater, St. Charles Borromeo. They congratulated him on his giant business venture and invited him to come home. By Monday, he was on the phone to Sister Mary Hickey, telling her he wanted to meet the students whose letters had touched him. Yesterday, he swept into the Drexel Hill school like a tornado, the students barely having had time to hang the red-and-blue balloons and banners that welcomed him. He arrived early, spoke for 15 minutes about persistence and motivation, then signed a few autographs, posed for pictures, and reminisced with the children of his former classmates.

Johnny Davis, the embattled coach of the Sixers, expressed how he felt yesterday about blistering comments made by a group of season-ticket holders Thursday night. "I don't have time to wallow or engage in self-pity," he said. "I'm too busy for that. " Davis was the object of much criticism by the 210 fans who attended a pregame meeting at the CoreStates Center with team president Pat Croce and general manager Brad Greenberg before the Sixers broke a five-game losing streak by beating the Los Angeles Clippers.

As the strains of Jimi Hendrix's late-'60s acid rock bounced around the Spectrum during a time-out at the 76ers-Nets game, Pat Croce was trying to figure out exactly what kind of purple haze was running through the head of the person choosing the music. Croce, the Sixers' president-to-be, was at Monday's game, critiquing each time-out. Was the music too loud? Yes. Were the songs the type that would help pump up a crowd? No. "It was 70-70," Croce said. "I'm thinking, 'Why Jimi Hendrix?

Vincent J. Croce, brother of Sixers president Pat Croce, was fired from his job at Independence Blue Cross and is under investigation by the FBI for allegedly defrauding the health insurer out of millions of dollars. "An internal review by IBC indicated that Mr. Croce engaged in activities that violated his responsibilities and trust," Blue Cross said in a statement yesterday. A Blue Cross official later clarified the company's statement, saying the reason Croce, 44, was terminated on Friday and the activities now under investigation were not related to health care or insurance.

He always did have a craving for ice and rarely hesitated to indulge it. That ice is melting now. So diamonds, it turns out, really are not forever. A Georgia judge has ordered Allen Ezail Iverson to pay a jeweler about $860,000. But apparently he can't, so his bank account has been commandeered, and his earnings, whatever of them may be left, are to be garnisheed. The King of Bling, it would seem, is about to become the Prince of Pawn. The man who is the best small scorer in the history of the NBA, who lit up Philadelphia nights with his pyrotechnic play, is said to have worked his way through the better part of - big inhale here - $150 million.

It all began as a brief lunch powwow with his buddy, Pat Croce. Fran Cassidy had known Croce for more than 15 years and could sense something was up, because his old pal had a mischievous look about him. "Don't forget to remind me," Croce said between bites, "I have something to tell you on the way home. " There was something, all right. Croce was getting ready to embark on a dream in January of 1996 - and it was finally coming to fruition. Croce was joining a group that would buy the 76ers, and he wanted Cassidy to come along with him. Three years later, Cassidy is the vice president of sales for the Sixers, who set several home attendance records last season, including season (655,417)

He always did have a craving for ice and rarely hesitated to indulge it. That ice is melting now. So diamonds, it turns out, really are not forever. A Georgia judge has ordered Allen Ezail Iverson to pay a jeweler about $860,000. But apparently he can't, so his bank account has been commandeered, and his earnings, whatever of them may be left, are to be garnisheed. The King of Bling, it would seem, is about to become the Prince of Pawn. The man who is the best small scorer in the history of the NBA, who lit up Philadelphia nights with his pyrotechnic play, is said to have worked his way through the better part of - big inhale here - $150 million.

IF JIMMY HOFFA were a pirate, Pat Croce would have found his body by now. What you might not know about Croce, the hard-charging former 76ers president, physical therapist, TV commentator, motivational speaker, writer and entrepreneur, is that he's also a hard-core "pirate aficionado. " And he just discovered Sir Francis Drake's burnt shipwrecks off the coast of Panama - a monumental breakthrough in underwater archaeology that solves a 400-year-old mystery. "Explorers have been trying to do this stuff forever, and here I am, a homeboy from Philadelphia in the Caribbean and we score!"

ON THE DAY that his months-in-the-making sale of the Sixers was finally, officially announced, Ed Snider was in his office at the Wells Fargo Center, working on the Flyers and the building and the catering business and the ticket business and the youth hockey foundation and the entertainment complex being birthed in the parking lot. Among other things. For the last 15 years, and especially in the decade since Pat Croce left as club president, it was always the criticism - that the Sixers were Snider's stepchild.

The following is an excerpt from Ask Gonzo, a weekly chat on Philly.com with columnist John Gonzalez There's nothing like a good old-fashioned beef, even if methods employed aren't exactly traditional. It would be better if the ongoing argument between LeSean McCoy and the New York Giants unfolded in person or on the field, but that will happen soon enough. In the interim, a public Twitter spat - which has since spilled over into the mainstream media - will do just fine.

Pat Croce remains busy. He recently bought another bar in Key West, Fla., and he also finished a new children's book about pirates. His head long ago moved on to other matters, even if part of his heart stayed behind. It's been 10 years since Croce stepped down as the 76ers president, and longer still since he allied with Ed Snider and Comcast-Spectacor to seize control of the franchise from Harold Katz, but he never stopped following the team that he helped push to its last Finals appearance.

Here is a list of the 76ers owners and the man who founded the franchise: April 24, 1996: Comcast-Spectacor, with Ed Snider as team chairman and Pat Croce as team president, purchased the 76ers from Harold Katz. July 1981: Katz bought the 76ers from Fitz Dixon. May 1976: Dixon purchased the 76ers from Irv Kosloff. May 1963: Ike Richman and Kosloff purchased the Syracuse Nationals from Danny Biasone. They moved the team to Philadelphia and changed the name.

Comcast-Spectacor almost sold the 76ers in 2006. In November of that year, Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider said the company could have received a price in excess of the NBA record of $401 million that Robert Sarver paid for the Phoenix Suns and other properties in 2004. As it turned out, the company pulled the Sixers off the market and retained control of the team. Eight parties were believed to have submitted bids initially at that time. The number sunk to four and then a final two, a source said at that time.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. - Pat Croce's biggest success may have been taking the last-place Philadelphia 76ers to the NBA finals as the team's president, but his real passion is pirates. His lifelong fascination with buccaneers has come full circle with the opening of his new Pirate and Treasure Museum here. Showcasing more than 800 pirate-related artifacts that Croce has collected over the years, the new facility fulfills his long-held ambition. "I wanted to expose this [pirate lore]

His closest confidant asked the basketball world to pray for Allen Iverson, as if no one has all these years while seeing this train wreck coming. He acted as if the former 76ers star hadn't needed a significant dose of prayer, luck, and divine intervention until now. And as the rest of us are forced to bear witness to a disintegration, the rapid decline of a career clearly lacking nurturing, the time has arrived for Iverson's inner circle to stand up and be counted, to provide some semblance of tough love - by any means necessary.

When Pat Croce was ready for a vacation in Key West, Fla., several weeks ago, he and his wife, Diane, their son and daughter-in-law and brand-new grandson, Mac, jumped on a private jet at Philadelphia International Airport. They were heading down to join a daughter and son-in-law for 10 days, so they packed a lot of stuff - especially with an infant on board. "On a commercial jet, that would be tough," Croce says. Croce wasn't using his own jet, or even a piece of his own jet. Like many on-the-go execs these days, the motivational guru, movie producer, museum owner, author, physical therapist, fitness master, and former 76ers president was using a card - a card that essentially gives him an airplane when he needs one. For travelers who want to fly upper-tier but don't want the expense of ownership, buying a card that permits exclusive use of a plane on an hourly basis is an alternative.