Billy King (born January 23, 1966) is the general manager of the New Jersey Nets, and former general manager and team president of the Philadelphia 76ers. King grew up in Sterling, Virginia where he played basketball at Park View High School, and received a scholarship to play at Duke University. He was known primarily for his tough defense. In his senior season, he served as a captain of Duke's 1988 Final Four team. King joined the 76ers on June 2, 1997, as Vice-President of basketball administration. On May 19, 1998, he was promoted to General Manager, and on April 5, 2000, he signed a new year contract to stay with the team for an extended term. On May 26, 2003 he was named President along with General Manager. He married Melanie Lynn Frantz on August 27, 2005.
In 2005, King and other individuals became prominent investors in a Foxwoods slots casino proposed for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In September 2008, facing massive opposition at the originally proposed waterfront location, backers for the slots casino decided to seek a new location in the Center City area, next to Philadelphia's Chinatown community. As of January, 2009, the casino still does not have a building permit.
William Everett "Billy" Preston (September 2, 1946 – June 6, 2006) was a musician whose work included R&B, rock, soul, funk and gospel. Preston became famous, first as a session musician with such artists as Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and was later successful as a solo artist with such hit pop singles as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from Nothing", and a string of albums.
Alongside Tony Sheridan, Billy Preston was the only other musician to be credited on a Beatles recording after he was credited on the group's number-one hit, "Get Back", with the record title listed as The Beatles with Billy Preston. Steven Stills asked Preston if he could use Preston's phrase "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" in a song and created the legendary eponymous hit.
William Everett Preston was born on September 2, 1946 in Houston, Texas. At the age of three, the family moved to Los Angeles where Preston began playing piano while sitting on his mother Robbie's lap. Noted as a child prodigy, by the age of ten, Preston was playing organ onstage backing several gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland and Andrae Crouch. At twelve, he appeared in the W.C. Handy biopic starring Nat King Cole entitled, St. Louis Blues, playing W.C. Handy at a younger age. A year prior, Preston appeared on Cole's national TV show singing the Fats Domino hit, "Blueberry Hill".
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a German-born American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles. He is well known for the role of John McClane in the Die Hard series, which were mostly critical and uniformly financial successes. He has also appeared in over sixty films, including box office successes like Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Over the Hedge (2006) and Red (2010).
Motion pictures featuring Willis have grossed US$2.64 billion to 3.05 billion at North American box offices, making him the ninth highest-grossing actor in a leading role and twelfth highest including supporting roles. He is a two-time Emmy Award–winning, Golden Globe Award–winning and four-time Saturn Award–nominated actor. Willis was married to actress Demi Moore and they had three daughters before their divorce in 2000, following thirteen years of marriage. He is currently married to model Emma Heming, with whom he has one daughter.
Lionel Eugene Hollins (born October 19, 1953) is a retired American professional basketball player and the current head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association.
During his ten-year NBA career playing as a point guard he played for five teams, averaging 11.6 points and 4.5 assists per game.
Drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers with the sixth pick of the 1975 NBA Draft out of Arizona State University, Hollins was bestowed All-Rookie first team honors that season, averaging 10.8 points in 78 games for the Blazers. Prior to his two seasons at Arizona State, he played two years at Dixie Community College in St. George, Utah.
He was a member of Portland's 1976–77 National Basketball Association championship team, and made his only All-Star Game appearance one year later. He was a member of the NBA All-Defensive team twice, in 1978 and 1979.
Prior to his head coaching career, Hollins served as an assistant coach at Arizona State in the 1985–86 season and again in the 1987–88 season. He then served as an assistant for the Phoenix Suns under head coaches Cotton Fitzsimmons and Paul Westphal from 1988 to 1995.
Ian Eagle ( /ˈaɪ.ən/; born February 9, 1969) is an American sports announcer calling National Football League (NFL) games on CBS, Brooklyn Nets games on the YES Network and hosts Full Court Press, a basketball talk show with former player Kenny Smith on Sirius Satellite Radio. Other announcing experience include NCAA men's basketball, tennis, the Army–Navy football games, the Army-Navy basketball games, boxing, and NCAA track and field for CBS. He is a graduate of Syracuse University, where he was initiated into the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. He is known as "Bird" or the "Birdman".
Eagle was born to entertainers Jack Eagle and Monica Maris. Jack, a former "Catskills comedian" and commercial actor, was best known for portraying "Brother Dominic" and "Mr. Cholesterol" in Xerox and Fleischmann's margarine television commercials respectively in the 1970s. Maris was a singer.
Eagle began his career by announcing football, basketball, and lacrosse for the Syracuse Orangemen on WAER a student run radio station. While at Syracuse, he was admitted to the AEPi fraternity. Following his graduation in 1990, Eagle began working for WFAN Radio in New York City as a producer. In 1992, WFAN gave him his own show (Bagels and Baseball). In 1993, Eagle was given pregame and postgame duties for the Jets. 1994 saw Eagle's first year as a Nets play-by-play radio announcer. A year later, he was made a TV announcer for SportsChannel, which later became Fox Sports Net New York (now MSG Plus). In 1997, WFAN made Eagle play-by-play announcer for Jets games.