For a man who never played basketball, AZA #2 alumnus Philip Klutznick certainly had a remarkable relationship with the game.

Basketball was woven into the earliest years of Phil’s life as a Two’s Aleph. In March 1925, AZA #2 traveled to Omaha for the first-ever AZA National Basketball and Debate Tournament. Two’s returned home as champions in both events. The basketball team defeated Gary, Indiana, 31–24, while the debate team of Phil Klutznick and William Horowitz defeated Council Bluffs in the finals. While Phil wasn’t on the basketball court, he was there cheering on his teammates.

That love of the game followed Phil throughout his life. And decades later, it took him all the way to the ownership box of an NBA franchise.

In 1972, Klutznick became part of an ownership group of the Chicago Bulls known as the “Magnificent Seven.” For Kansas Citians, there was a particularly familiar name among the group: Lamar Hunt, the legendary sports entrepreneur who would go on to become the founder and owner of the Kansas City Chiefs. The other investors were George Steinbrenner, Lester Crown, Jonathan Kovler, Arthur Wirtz, Walter Shorenstein and Klutznick.

The Bulls, however, were not exactly the investment success story one might imagine.

By the early 1980s, the franchise was losing money, and the owners were growing frustrated. Phil had apparently had enough. In February 1983, while testifying in a federal court case involving the ownership of the Bulls, Klutznick was asked about his investment. His answer was remarkably blunt: “I’ve lost money on it.” He also said he would be willing to sell his interest and that the shares were worth considerably less than what he had paid.

Other owners felt much the same way. In March 1983, co-owner Lester Crown described the Bulls as a “very substantial-cost drain,” while another owner testified that the team had required an additional $1.2 million from the owners simply to meet operating expenses.

During the early 1980s, according to SportsBusiness Journal, three of the owners – Crown, Hunt and Klutznick  – shared control of the franchise. “Nothing happened until they discussed it and agreed.”

And then came the 1984 NBA Draft. 

Klutznick believed in big men and the team desperately needed a center. However, General Manager Rod Thorn was strongly in favor of a 21-year-old guard from the University of North Carolina with the third pick in the draft.

His name was Michael Jordan. 

At the time, nobody could have known exactly what Jordan would mean to Chicago basketball. The Bulls had averaged only a little over 6,000 fans per game during the 1983–84 season. Within a few years, Jordan would turn the Bulls into one of the most recognizable sports franchises in the world.

Klutznick was still part of the ownership group when Jordan was drafted. By March 1985, Jerry Reinsdorf’s group had purchased control of the Bulls from the existing ownership group, including Klutznick. 

The Bulls would go on to become one of the greatest success stories in sports history.

For Phil, though, the significance of basketball went far deeper than an NBA investment.

In his book Angles of Vision, Klutznick wrote movingly about Dr. James Naismith, the Kansas physical-education instructor who invented basketball, and Naismith’s daughter, Hellen, who was Phil’s favorite teacher at Manual High School.

“When he came to Kansas City to visit his daughter, she would assign me to be his guide around the city,” Klutznick wrote. “I, in tum, recruited my father to be our chauffeur.”

As a young man “drowning” with obesity, Phil credited Naismith with saving his life.

Naismith put Klutznick on a regimen that combined a strict diet with a rigorous program of day-in-and-day-out exercise.

“Naismith’s regimen seemed at times to be the equivalent of a continual Yom Kippur fast,” Klutznick recalled. “But I stuck to it.”

With Naismith’s help, Klutznick dropped from 212 pounds to 150 just ahead of his 18th birthday and the 1925 AZA National Tournament in Kansas City, where Phil was elected Grand Aleph Godol.

“I have seldom exceeded what I weighed after Naismith released me from redemptive care,” wrote Klutznick. “In later life, when for a while I shared an ownership interest in the Chicago Bulls professional basketball team, I remained more grateful to Dr. Naismith for what he did for me personally than for the fact that he invented basketball.”