Ted Leonsis
Leonsis at a Wizards game in 2011
Born	Theodore J. Leonsis (1957-01-08) January 8, 1957 (age 55) Brooklyn, New York, United States
Residence	Potomac, Maryland[1]
Education	Georgetown University
Occupation	Owner, Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics, Verizon Center, Chairman SnagFilms, Clearspring Technologies, Revolution Money
Net worth	$1 billion[2]
Religion	Greek Orthodox[3]
Website
Ted's Take

Theodore John Leonsis (born January 8, 1957 in Brooklyn, New York^[4]) is an Internet pioneer, sports team owner, venture capital investor, filmmaker, author and philanthropist. His early new media company, Redgate Communications was acquired by America Online in 1994, and Leonsis became a senior AOL executive for the next 13 years. He is the majority owner of the NHL's Washington Capitals, the NBA's Washington Wizards, the WNBA's Washington Mystics and the Verizon Center in Washington, DC.^[5] He serves as Founder and Chairman of SnagFilms, vice chairman of Groupon and on the board of American Express and other companies. Leonsis has produced documentary films such as the Peabody and the Emmy Award-winning Nanking and is the author of The Business of Happiness.

Biography[link]

Leonsis was born to Greek American parents in Brooklyn, and spent his early years there.^[6] His parents worked as a waiter and a secretary.^[7] After skipping 8th grade, Leonsis attended Brooklyn Technical High School but before graduation, his family moved back to their hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts.^[8] He graduated from Lowell High School in 1973 and Georgetown University in 1977.^[9] After graduation, Leonsis moved back to his parents' home in Lowell and began working for Wang Laboratories.^[8] In 2005, he was honored as one of Lowell High School's Distinguished Alumni for reaching the highest level of accomplishment and possessing the highest standards of integrity and character.

After surviving an airplane crash landing in 1983, he drafted a list of 101 things to do in life and has completed many of the tasks, including owning a sports franchise.^[10]

Leonsis speaking to the Tech Council of Maryland.

His career with AOL started in 1993 when AOL purchased his marketing company, Redgate Communications Corp. to help AOL compete with Microsoft.^[11] Under his leadership, AOL increased its membership from under 800,000 members to over 8 million, and their annual revenue increased from $100 million to $1.5 billion.^[12] He held numerous positions at AOL during his years there, completing his tenure and retiring in 2006 as the audience group's president and vice-chairman.^[13] He now serves as vice chairman emeritus of AOL.

Leonsis was named Businessperson of the Year in 2001 by Washington Business Journal^[14] and Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine.^[15] In 2009, Leonsis was named one of Washington's Tech Titans by Washingtonian Magazine.^[16] In July 2010, Leonsis was elected to the Board of Directors of American Express, he chairs the New Innovation and Technology Committee.^[17] In December 2008, Leonsis was named to the board of NutriSystem, Inc.^[18] In June 2009, Leonsis was appointed as member of Alcatel-Lucent Board's Technology Committee.^[19]

Leonsis currently serves as founding chairman of SnagFilms, a social media website that lets viewers watch and share documentary films.^[20] He is also chairman of Clearspring Technologies.^[21] Leonsis also serves on the board of Groupon^[22] and Rosetta Stone.^[23] Leonsis is currently on the board of directors at Georgetown University, his alma mater.^[24] In 2010 Leonsis authored, The Business of Happiness.

In early 2011, Leonsis announced his purchase of Marwood, a historic 13-acre estate in Potomac, Maryland.^[25] He acquired the property, a chateau-style riverfront mansion, for $20 million after selling homes in McLean, Virginia and Vero Beach, Florida.^[1] The 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m²) estate was once the home of Joseph P. Kennedy,^[26] summer home of Franklin Roosevelt,^[27] and was owned by the Gore family from 1942-1995.^[28] Leonsis purchased the home from Chris Rogers, a telecommunications executive ^[29] who acquired Leonsis' home in McLean. The house, which was built in 1926,^[30] or 1930 by Samuel Martin,^[31] has 8 bedrooms, 11 full baths,^[32] and parking space for 10 cars.^[30] By some accounts, the estate is haunted,^[33][34][35] and has been called the "creepiest" home in Potomac.^[36]

Leonsis' son, Zachary, graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and is a volunteer for Street Soccer USA.^[37] His daughter, Elle, is a student at Georgetown University.^[38]

Sports team ownership[link]

Leonsis watches Wizards player John Wall in 2010

Leonsis is the founder, majority owner, chairman and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the sports and entertainment group which on June 9, 2010 became owners of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL's Washington Capitals and the WNBA's Washington Mystics and the Verizon Center.^[39] Monumental Sports also manages Kettler Capitals Iceplex and George Mason University’s Patriot Center.^[40] Leonsis publishes his e-mail address and responds to fans’ requests. He also walks around the Verizon Center during games and uses Facebook and Twitter to communicate his thoughts and urges players and staff to do the same.^[41]

Leonsis has a "hands on" approach to management of his sports teams.^[42] Leonsis has sought to roll-back changes to the Wizards and Capitals franchises that coincided with the opening of the Verizon Center in 1997. In 2007, he changed the Capitals team logo and its colors back to red, white, and blue and has done the same with the Wizards. In May 2011, the team unveiled new Wizards uniforms and logos, receiving positive responses from media, fans, players and alumni.^[43] Additionally, he had taken under consideration returning their name to the Bullets,^[44] though critics said that this would "send the wrong message" about gun violence in Washington.^[45]

In the early years of his ownership, the Capitals went on to win back-to-back Southeast Division titles in 2000 and 2001, but lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Pittsburgh Penguins. In the summer of 2001, the Capitals traded for Jaromir Jagr and signed him to what was at the time, the largest contract in NHL history. After Jagr was traded in 2004, Leonsis received overwhelming criticism from fans,^[46] and was involved in a physical altercation with a 20-year old fan, Jason Hammer, who led a mocking chant of Leonsis during the game and hoisted a sign chiding him. Hammer confronted Leonsis, who grabbed and threw him to the ground. Leonsis was fined $100,000 and suspended for a week, during which he was prohibited from having any contact with the team.^[47]

After purchasing the Wizards, Leonsis criticized the NBA's salary cap at a luncheon with business leaders. He was fined $100,000 by the league, for "unauthorized public comments regarding the league's collective bargaining negotiations."^[48] In 2010, journalist Damien Cox, author of the Ovechkin Project, a biography of Alexander Ovechkin, wrote that Leonsis was trying to circumvent the NHL's salary cap when signing Ovechkin’s contract.^[49] He also alleged that Leonsis was bribing bloggers for positive coverage of the Capitals.^[50] Leonsis said that Cox was angry that he did not receive the access to Ovechkin that he wanted and defended his support for the league.^[51][52]

In 2009-10 the Capitals earned the NHL's President's Trophy as the team that finished with the most points in the league during the regular season. ^[53]

The 2010-11 season marked the highest attendance in franchise history, drawing 754,309 fans.^[54] The Capitals, like other teams, have raised ticket prices in recent years.^[55][56] In 2001, Leonsis claimed to have written a computer program that prevented Pittsburgh Penguins fans (the Capitals first-round opponent) from purchasing tickets online. When asked if the actions were unfair, Leonsis stated, "I don't care. I'm going to keep doing it."^[57] Again in 2009, he received criticism for preventing visiting team fans from purchasing Capitals playoff tickets.^[58]

Filmmaking[link]

Leonsis has become involved in film investing as a philanthropic interest, which he calls "filmanthropy". "The driver of filmanthropy is that the world is more screwed up every day and people want to call attention to issues," he told the Financial Times.^[59] His first production was the documentary Nanking which made its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.^[60] The 2009 Best Historical Programming Emmy and 2008 Peabody Award winning^[61] film is based on the best selling book The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. In 2008, Leonsis produced Kicking It, a documentary by Susan Koch about the 2006 Homeless World Cup. The film, narrated by actor Colin Farrell, featured residents of Afghanistan, Kenya, Dublin, Charlotte, North Carolina, Madrid and Saint Petersburg. The film premiered in January, 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival and is being distributed by Liberation Entertainment, Netflix and ESPN. A third documentary,A Fighting Chance, tells the story of Kyle Maynard, who despite being born without arms or legs has become a nationally ranked wrestler, motivational speaker and bestselling author.^[62]

Philanthropy[link]

Leonsis is a mentor through the Hoop Dreams program. Through Hoop Dreams, Leonsis was able to guide Michael Hendrickson into and through his first choice college. Leonsis and Hendrickson continue this relationship today.^[63] About Hoop Dreams, Leonsis has stated, “"The Hoop Dreams Scholarship Fund is extraordinary and this Tournament really brings together so many different segments of the city to do something good for the youth of DC. Together, we can help make the educational dreams of hard working students a reality."^[64]

In addition, Leonsis is a contributor to the See Forever Foundation and to YouthAIDS.^[65][66] He also sponsors his own philanthropic foundation, the Leonsis Foundation, dedicated to creating "opportunities for children that enable them to reach their highest potential." The Foundation "partners with and supports organizations with the creativity, skill and dedication to help children overcome obstacles and achieve their goals."^[67]

On November 20, 2010, Leonsis was inducted into the Washington Business Hall of Fame due to his work in AOL, Washington’s major sports, filmmaking and donations to local charities.^[68]

Bibliography[link]

• Leonsis, Ted. 1984. Software Masters for Pfs. Clayton: Warner Books.
• Leonsis, Ted. 1984. Software Masters for Pes: Apple Version (48k). Clayton: Warner Books.
• Chposky, James and Ted Leonsis. 1988. Blue Magic: The People, Power and Politics Behind the IBM Personal Computer. New York: Facts on File Publications.
• Leonsis, Ted. 2010. The Business of Happiness: 6 Secrets to Extraordinary Success in Work and Life. Regnery Publishing, Inc.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ted Leonsis

• Official site
• The Business Of Happiness discussion at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, February 2010
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Leonsis, May 9, 2010

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (February 2009)

Carol Ross Joynt is an Emmy-winning network news producer, interviewer and writer in Washington, DC. She is the host of "The Q&A Café,^[1] a talk show she created in October 2001 in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. At the outset the program focused on interviews related to 9/11. Washington D.C. Over the years it evolved to feature interviews with notables and newsmakers from all walks of life. Carol called upon her extensive background producing talk shows for Charlie Rose, David Brinkley, Ted Koppel, Larry King, and the fact that she had inherited the restaurant, Nathans,^[2] to create the Q&A Café.

Nathans was a popular Georgetown watering hole that was founded by Carol's husband, John Howard Joynt III, in 1969. When he died suddenly in 1997 she inherited the bar and that's where she set up "The Q&A Cafe." It took place weekly in Nathans back dining room. A lease dispute and eviction forced Nathans closure in 2009. Carol moved "The Q&A Cafe" to the nearby Ritz Carlton Georgetown hotel. Her struggle owning Nathans, which included a surprise multi-million dollar criminal tax fraud case, bankruptcy, myriad business calamities, while also trying to hold onto her television career and raise her son, are the focus of her memoir, "Innocent Spouse," which is scheduled to be released by Crown Publishers in 2011.

Carol has interviewed almost 300 notable individuals, including Fred W. Smith, the founder of FedEx, Kenneth Feinberg, the "special master" of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, Tim Russert, Dr. Anthony Fauci of NIH, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, Huffington Post creator Arianna Huffington, Daily Beast founder Tina Brown, Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, "Spinal Tap" stars Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer; Bob Woodward, Erica Jong, Christopher Hitchens, Tom Brokaw, Marion Barry, Douglas Feith, George Stevens, Jr., Fred Thompson, Mark Warner, Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten, Jack Valenti, Chuck Todd, Sally Bedell Smith, Vernon Jordan, Kitty Kelley, Carly Fiorina, Jim Lehrer, Oliver Stone, Valerie Plame Wilson, Bob Balaban, Maury Povich and Connie Chung, "DC Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, Gwen Ifill, Ben Bradlee, Sally Quinn and Quinn Bradlee, Jonathan Tisch, Mark Penn, Ted Leonsis, Alexandra Wentworth, Jonathan Capehart, George Stephanopoulos, C.Z. Guest, Connie Schultz, Michelle Rhee, Dan Rather, Ted Sorensen, Jane Lynch, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

Journalism career[link]

She began her career in national news the same January week in 1969 when Richard Nixon was inaugurated President for the first time. She joined the staff of the Washington bureau of United Press International, taking dictation from Helen Thomas and Merriman Smith, when she wasn't packing a gas mask and note pad to cover violent anti-war protests in the streets. She also covered political stories and the Apollo space program. After a few years in Washington, she was hired by TIME Magazine and moved to New York City to write about politics and features.

In 1972 Walter Cronkite asked Joynt to be one of his three writers on the CBS Evening News, where she sat by his side for four years as Cronkite informed viewers about the death of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Watergate scandal, the resignation of Richard Nixon, the kidnap of Patricia Hearst, and the end of the Vietnam war. She and her colleagues were three times awarded the Writer's Guild Award for best news script. The CBS Evening News was commended on many fronts for its outstanding coverage of Watergate and Vietnam.

After a year-off to crew on a Spartan, a classic Herreshoff New York 50 in the West Indies, in 1976 Joynt returned to Washington and network news and a succession of positions, which included producing roles at NBC News, CBS News Nightwatch, USA Today the TV Show, This Week with David Brinkley, Nightline, Larry King Live, John Hockenberry, and Hardball with Chris Matthews. For these broadcasts she focused on subjects ranging from global politics and the world's leaders to the latest successes or scandals involving the talented, the royal or the merely celebrated. In 1987 Joynt and Charlie Rose won the national news Emmy Award for "Best Interview" for an hour CBS News special with Charles Manson at San Quentin Prison.

Film work[link]

Joynt also directed documentary films and oversaw several other film projects for the National Gallery of Art, including a retrospective of the NGA's 50th anniversary, and a tribute to the Kress family and their contribution to the Gallery's collections. In 1994 she made a film for the American Academy in Rome, celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Family life & business[link]

Carol was born in Denver, Co. She is the daughter of Olga (Papp) Ross, who died in 1987 and Richard Harold Ross, the former director of the Airlie Foundation, who died in 1999. Her siblings are Susan Ross, who is deceased, David Scott Ross of Jupiter, Fl and Robert Keith Ross of Warrenton, Va. In 1997, when she was a producer for Larry King Live, her husband of twenty years, J. Howard Joynt III, died suddenly from pneumonia. Their son, Spencer Ross Joynt, was born in November 1991. Carol raised him alone. Though she has been linked to several men she has not remarried. Her sister-in-law is the presidency scholar, Dr. Martha Joynt Kumar. Her literary agent is Laney Katz Becker of the Markson Thoma agency.

In addition to producing and hosting "The Q&A Cafe," Carol also writes a regular weekly column about Washington for the website New York Social Diary.,^[3]

In February 2011, Carol was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.[3]

References[link]

External links[link]

• [4]
• [5]
• [6]
• [7]
• [8]
• [9]
• Article from The Washington Post
• Article from Washingtonian Magazine
• Interview w/Dan Snyder in Washington Life Magazine
• The A-List from WUSA9
• Article from The Huffington Post
• Article from The Washington Post
• Zagat Guide Listing
• Article from The Washington Business Journal

Bradley Beal (born June 28, 1993) is an American college basketball player. After his freshman season for the University of Florida Gators men's basketball team, Beal announced he would enter the 2012 NBA Draft.

High school[link]

Beal attended Chaminade College Preparatory School in St. Louis, Missouri. He competed in the 2010 FIBA Under-17 World Championship for the USA, which won the championship with Beal averaging 18 points per game.^[1] During his senior year of high school, Beal averaged 32.5 points per game, 5.7 rebounds per game and 2.8 assists per game. At the end of Beal's senior season, he was named the 2011 Mr. Show-Me Basketball which recognized him as the top high school basketball player in the state of Missouri.^[2] He was also named the 2011 Gatorade National Player of the Year. According to ESPNU recruits, Beal was the fourth ranked recruit and second ranked shooting guard and he was also the fourth ranked recruit according to Rivals.com.^[3]

College career[link]

On November 30, 2009 Beal committed to the University of Florida.^[4]

In his first game at Florida, Beal started and recorded 14 points. Beal was named SEC Freshman of the Week on November 28, 2011. During the week of 11/21–11/28, Beal averaged 8.5 points, seven rebounds, two assists and 1.5 steals in two wins over Wright State and Jacksonville.^[5] Beal would go on to win five additional SEC Freshman of the Week honors and be named SEC All-Freshman Team and First-Team All-SEC.^[6] Beal finished the season second on the team in scoring with 14.8 points per game.

On April 13, 2012, Beal announced that he would forgo his sophomore season and enter the NBA Draft.^[7]

College statistics[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• ESPN.com- Bradley Beal recruiting profile
• Rivals.com- Bradley Beal recruiting profile