Mark McCormack
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Mark Hume McCormack (November 6, 1930 – May 16, 2003), was Founder and Chairman of International Management Group, now IMG, an international management organization that handles the commercial affairs for sports figures and celebrities. He was the only son of a Chicago publisher named Ned McCormack. A graduate of the College of William and Mary (1951) and Yale Law School, he briefly served in the United States Army. He was an accomplished athlete in his youth and qualified for the 1958 U.S. Open Golf Championship (though he missed the cut). After his Army discharge, he worked for a few years as an attorney at the Cleveland law firm Arter and Hadden. In 1960, after realizing the potential of sports marketing in the television age, he signed golfer Arnold Palmer as IMG's first client.
McCormack was described as one of the most powerful men in sports. His clients included sports figures Tiger Woods, Pete Sampras, Michael Schumacher, Derek Jeter, Charles Barkley and models Kate Moss and Elizabeth Hurley. He published numerous books, including the bestselling What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. His annual publication The World of Professional Golf, first published in 1967, became an equivalent to Wisden for golf fans, and included in its pages the first (unofficial) world ranking system. The system used to calculate McCormack's World Golf Rankings was adapted in 1986 to become the Official World Golf Rankings system - with McCormack chairing the rankings committee made up of representatives from all the major golf tours.
McCormack and his wife Betsy Nagelsen-McCormack founded the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center at the College of William & Mary, which houses the ITA Women's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame.
McCormack died at a New York hospital on May 16, 2003 after suffering a cardiac event four months earlier that left him in a coma. His wife, their daughter and three children from an earlier marriage later shared $750 million when the family's shares in IMG were sold.
In July 2006 McCormack was selected for induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame in the lifetime achievement category, and he was inducted in October 2006. On January 23, 2008 McCormack was also inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
The movie Wimbledon is dedicated to him.
[edit] Publications
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- What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School: Notes From A Street-Smart Executive, New York: Bantam, 1984
- What They Still Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School, New York: Bantam Books, 1989
- Never Wrestle with a Pig: and Ninety Other Ideas to Build Your Business and Career, Penguin, 2002
- The Terrible Truth About Lawyers
- Success Secrets
- The 110% Solution
- Hit the Ground Running
- What you'll Never Learn on the Internet
- Staying Street Smart in the Internet Age
- Mark McCormack on Negotiating, Century (June 1995)
- Mark McCormack on Selling, Random House Business Books (June 15, 1995)
- Mark McCormack on Managing, Random House Business Books (October 1995)
- Mark McCormack on Communicating, Dove Entertainment (February 1999)
