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                                                                                January 7, 1985

Man of the Year:Peter Ueberroth

Master of The Games



Peter Ueberroth has described himself as both shy and ruthless.
 His associates say he is demanding and self-demanding. behind
his laid- back style is the toughness that made him so  right
for an Olympian task.  But when the world cheered, his head spun
and his eyes welled up.


Control.  Ever since he was a boy, he has needed to be in
control. Long before he appeared out of nowhere five years ago
to organize and eventually dominate the 23rd Olympic Games,
Peter Ueberroth was always in charge of his life.  At 16, he
left home voluntarily (even though his parents never really
understood why) to live and work in a nearby orphanage.  He
liked the independence and affection he got there.

Such great control.  His bland face and laid-back manner rarely
reveal his inner feelings.  Those who know him well say
Ueberroth is a fascinating paradox, an idealist with a salting
of cleverness, a man of high principle who is willing to go
right to the edge of scruple to reach his goals.  He once
described himself as both shy and ruthless.  Over the years he
has perfected a calculating public modesty, down-playing himself
about, say, his mediocre college grades.  But behind the
self-deprecation is a hugh ego and a steely inner toughness.
Everything Ueberroth does has a purpose.  He is a creative
energizer of people, a man unafraid to make unpopular decisions,
a natural teacher and leader.

To millions of Americans the blue-eyed, sandy-haired Ueberroth
is still a virtual unknown.  Even his recent anointment to the
apple-pie job of baseball commissioner left most of the country
in the dark about him.  How did he achieve such a spectacular
success?  What combination of strength and guile lay behind that
almost inscrutable exterior?  All his life Ueberroth has been
in the thrall of challenges.  The Olympics were clearly his
greatest.  He made speech after speech to his thousands of
workers about how together they had to climb a majestic
mountain.  "I've always hunted for challenges," says Ueberroth
dismissively.  He is a man who has little patience for
self-analysis.  Was there anything in his beginnings that would
explain clearly why this man, of all the accomplished people
around, turned out to be so exactly right for this Olympian
task?

The son of a roaming salesman of aluminum siding, Pete Ueberroth
was born Sept. 2, 1937, in Evanston, Ill.  His father, Victor,
half German and half Viennese, with his hearty manner and
curious mind, was the biggest influence in his life, says
Ueberroth.  Perhaps because Victor's education ended in the
eighth grade, he always had an encyclopedia near by and engaged
his family in mind puzzles, a drill Peter used years later to
brace his Olympic employees.  His mother, Laura Larson, half
Swedish and half Irish, had been ill almost from the time he was
born.  A Christian Scientist, like her husband, she died when
Peter was four.

Within a year Peter's father had remarried.  His new bride,
Nancy, was an accountant, and she helped clear up some of her
husband's heavy debts.  Six years later she had a son of her
own, whom she seemed to favor.  Some friends now believe this
was the seed of Ueberroth's drive to achieve, the deep need to
gain approval from his new mother.  The family moved often, and
young Pete had to adjust to a variety of schools and
neighborhoods, from Iowa to Pennsylvania top Wisconsin and
finally to Northern California, in the town of Burlingame.  By
then his father was home most of the time, ill from a heart
attack.

At 15, Ueberroth was constantly out of the house, a pretty fair
athlete consumed by sports, usually hanging around with older
kids, holding a series of jobs at gas stations, shopping
centers, Christmas tree lots.  By the time he was in high
school, he was paying all his own bills.  He was in charge, and
he liked that.  A buddy, John Matthews, remembers that Ueberroth
always knew where the parties were, where to get a car.  And he
would usually set up the dates.  If the gang was unable to pick
a movie, says another friend, Pete would quickly make the
choice.  Mostly, Matthews recalls, Ueberroth seemed to have a
new job.

There was a little glamour once in a while.  His father's
younger brother, Alan Curtis, was a movie actor married to
Actress Ilona Massey, and young Pete spent one summer with them.
 He had a broken romance too and got over it in 48 hours,
Ueberroth recalls. Two years before finishing high school
Ueberroth moved out of the house and into Twelveacres, an
orphanage for children from broken homes.  He was the recreation
director and was paid $125 a month.  When he was handed his
diploma in 1955, all 28 of the boys from Twelveacres stood up
in the bleachers and shouted:  "Daddy Pete!"

Ueberroth paid his own way through four years of San Jose
State, although he received a small sports grant for playing
water polo.  He tried out for the Olympic squad in 1956 but did
not make it.  (He did break his nose five times over the years
playing water polo and today it is still badly bent.)  At San
Jose, Ueberroth spent 15 hours a week in the classroom and 40
hours at odd jobs; selling women's shoes, working on a chicken
farm.

The summer after his junior year, Ueberroth and three friends
went to Hawaii.  While they surfed, Ueberroth loaded baggage and
emptied buckets for a nonscheduled airline.  Even his recreation
did not mean relaxation.  On the weekends he frequented a famous
body surfing beach called Makapuu, a stern challenge with 6 ft.
swells crashing one on top of the other.  Makapuu at the time
was jealously guarded by the locals.  Resentful of the
intrusion, they crowded Ueberroth while he was riding the waves,
sometimes driving him into the coral. Bruised and tired,
Ueberroth kept going back.  But once he mastered the challenge,
he lost interest in Makapuu.

After graduating with a degree in business, Ueberroth was turned
down for jobs by several large companies, and the rejections
deflated him. He decided to drift back to Hawaii, confident he
could get work. That September he married the daughter of a Long
Beach baker, Ginny Nicolaus, whom he had known for a couple of
years at San Jose. Together they lived in a one-room Oahu
apartment, so small, remembers Ginny, that they could almost
reach out and touch all four walls from the center of the room.
 Ueberroth, now 22, became operations manager for a small
nonscheduled airline owned by Kirk Kerkorian, the adventurous
entrepreneur who later took over MGM.  The service, Trans
International Airlines, had been set up to bring passengers
from California to Hawaii and back.  Ueberroth created a
market, overlooked by the big jet lines:  luring new customers
out of the scattered islands and sending them to the mainland.
 A year later when Kerkorian offered to bring him to Los Angeles
to run the whole airline at double his $1,000-a-month salary,
the young man showed he could drive a hard bargain.  He held out
for part ownership and got 3%.

Shortly thereafter, Ueberroth left and started his own air
service between L.A. and Seattle.  Hotel rates suddenly shot up,
travel dropped, and he found himself $100,000 in debt.  It was
one of the few times he was truly scared.  But he had another
idea.  It had seemed to him that small airlines, small hotels,
steamships and others that could not afford representatives in
several cities could use a reservation service.  He set up a
phone bank in Los Angeles for a few dozen customers, each
dutifully listed in local directories. If someone telephoned
Alaska Airlines, or Aloha Airlines, or Ethiopian Air Lines,
Ueberroth would answer just as though a local office existed.
 Soon he had a dozen such operations around the country.  By
1965 the company, Transportation Consultants, was rolling up big
revenues.  Ueberroth was invited to join the Young Presidents'
Organization, one of its youngest members ever.  He was