In many ways, Jim Warsaw is an average
University senior. He relaxes on campus with friends, gets a tan on sunny days and tries to fight off senioritis.
But Warsaw’s not the typical student. Not only has his degree been 37 years in the
making, he also has a nationally recognized school at the University named after him.
Warsaw, who is the founder of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center in the Lundquist College of Business and co-founder of the Cure Parkinson’s Project, is completing his bachelor’s degree in business administration and is set to walk this month.
“Oregon means so much to me,” he said. “It’s given me my own identity and self-esteem. It’s really important that I do this.”
Picking up where he left off in 1969, Warsaw, 58, is taking two 200-level general education courses through independent study and one business course at Lane Community College.
Although his final course, to be taken this summer, will be the only class actually held at the University, he said he still finds time to visit campus between LCC and his home in Newport Beach, Calif.
Warsaw founded the center in 1993 by funding a professorship in sports marketing. This led to the creation of the research and education center, which was the first endowed sports marketing M.B.A. program to be housed in a University, according to the center’s Web site.
“The program was the first in the U.S. that offered research and education in the business of sport at a business school,” said Paul
Swangard, managing director of the center. “It kind of created a category of education.”
The center currently offers concentrations for business students as well as internships, networking and travel opportunities, Swangard said.
“We’re kind of the experiential learning engine for students who come to study sports marketing and sports business at Oregon,” he said.
The school has sent students to the San Francisco Bay area and New York City in the past. Swangard said this year students will be traveling to China. Graduates of the program also have “unprecedented access to the industry” thanks to Warsaw’s numerous connections within the field.
Accordingly, Swangard said the center’s success belongs to Jim.
“He expects the center to be the best and pushes all of us to realize that dream,” Swangard said. “He has made our students his passion in wanting to help them succeed at all levels of the industry.”
Warsaw was just as passionate in his early days at the University. After growing up in Beverly Hills, Calif., Warsaw enrolled in the University in the summer of 1965.
From 1965 through 1967, he maintained a high GPA, served in the Student Senate, was elected president of his dormitory and was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.
But the 1967-68 school year proved to be “turbulent” for Warsaw, he said. He became deeply involved with the Vietnam-protest movement and started falling into a bad crowd. His high grades soon became incompletes.”I led the league in incompletes,” he said, laughing. “The war was preoccupying my mind. I was more concerned about the social issues than the academic ones.”
His father, David Warsaw, the creator of the bobble-head sports figure, decided Jim would be more productive at the family business, Sports Specialties Corporation, and pulled him out of school.
“Dad didn’t like my activity,” he said. “He thought I was fooling around with ‘Make love, not war.’”
In December 1969, 21-year-old Warsaw left the University without a degree. Although eligible, he was not drafted for military service and worked at Sports Specialties for the next three years, earning $79.12 a month.
Warsaw soon excelled in his father’s business.
The company was the first official licensee for the National Football League, providing hats. The business was eventually extended to the locker rooms of some of sports’ most famous events including the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the NCAA Final Four and several All-Star games.
In the 1970s, Warsaw headed corporate offices in Hong Kong, Manila and Chicago and stepped up to become company president in 1981. He held that position through 1993, the same year Nike bought the company.
He retired in 1993 and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease just months later. In the eight years since his diagnosis, Warsaw founded the James H. Warsaw Foundation to Cure Parkinson’s Disease an organization followed in 2002 with the founding of the Cure Parkinson’s Project.
“(The project) is a very ambitious entrepreneurial attempt to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease in six years or less,” said Marc Pollick, one of the project’s co-founders. “Jim has brought a certain sense of urgency, authenticity and enthusiasm to infusing everyone’s efforts by galvanizing them to want to find a cure.”
Warsaw’s national connections have helped spread the project’s message, much like the Warsaw Center, Pollick said.
“Having Jim for the inspiration for this … means there’s literally an army around the country of friends and graduates,” he said. “We’re in the process of galvanizing that army.”
To Warsaw, Parkinson’s is an obstacle he plans to overcome.
“I’m a competitor. I’m not going to lose this battle with Parkinson’s,” he said.
Though he has been successful by most people’s measures, Warsaw said giving back has been the most rewarding aspect of his life.
“Everyone can make a difference in someone’s life,” he said. “If you take that to the nth degree … you usually feel better about yourself because giving gives you more highs than taking. And I’m not a taker.
“I think if you treat people right and respect them, you’ll all have some fun,” he said.
Warsaw said the first thing he’d do after walking across the graduation stage would be giving his mother, Anne, 90, a kiss.
“I’ll thank her and my family because that’s what it’s all about to me,” he said.
But even after 37 years, Warsaw hasn’t lost his playful, collegiate mindset.
“(Graduation) feels good because it completes the circle. The sun rose in June of 1965 and the sun set in June of 2006. Baby, let’s go party,” he said.