My friend Mark died.
I found out when an MBA classmate of ours called. He saw the above post on Facebook. I met Mark around the first week at Chicago Booth.
He went to Colorado for his undergrad. He was on the 1990 national championship Colorado football team. He was a linebacker. Mark grew up in southern California. He was recruited by a lot of schools and settled on Colorado. One of the last times we chatted we were talking about an article I had read about all these USC linebackers that had passed away. Mark knew all of them. They were his vintage.
After our MBA, I visited him at his SoHo apartment. He had a huge metal buffalo on the wall. Mark loved his time in Colorado and he’d go back there every so often. He was still close to a lot of his teammates, specifically Alfred Williams. Alfred played in the NFL for the Broncos. I never met Alfred or anyone he played football with. It was important to him because it shaped a part of him, but the fact he played wasn’t the be all end all of his personna.
We were fast friends.
When I met him, he had a company, Win Products. It was a soap company that got the stink out of your clothes. Mark had the balls to contact the US Olympic Committee and became the first official detergent of the Olympic team! He put the five rings on his label. The corporate suits at Procter and Gamble were pissed off because they hadn’t thought of it first. It was a great lesson in entrepreneurial gumption.
I led a small investment into Win with two trader buddies in 2008. We lost 100% of our money. But, I remained friends with Mark. He certainly made some mistakes in running the company. But, I certainly made some mistakes in diligence. Funny thing, I ran into a straight consumer products venture capital guy that had looked at Win and I asked him why they didn’t invest. He told me. If I’d have done better diligence and looked at that factoid, I wouldn’t have invested but I still would have been friends with Mark.
Win is still in business. But, we are so crammed down on the cap table we will never see a penny.
We were on the board of the National World War Two Museum together. Mark nominated me. We met all kinds of people including Medal of Honor recipients. Mark was particularly close to a guy named Walt Ehlers and through Mark, I was able to strike up a relationship with Walt. Walt was an amazing man. Mark idolized him. I am sure they are chatting each other up today.
Mark got me to bring Walt to the CME trading floor. It is one of the most single spontaneous things I ever saw on a trading floor. I had a plain brown badge cut for Walt that simply said, “Walt Ehlers WW2 Medal of Honor”. I didn’t make any announcements or set up anything for official exchange stuff. We just had breakfast with my daughters at the CME Club. Earlier that summer we had all been to Omaha Beach where Walt went ashore.
Mark, Walt, and I walked on the floor into the hog pit where they were doing out trades. A girl read Walt’s badge and screamed-and immediately ran to him and gave him a huge hug. Traders and clerks were hugging and shaking Walt’s hand every step he took. It continued like that as we walked around the floor.
We went upstairs to the Eurodollars. Walt was standing outside the Euro Options pit and some brokers I know asked if Walt wanted to go to the top step. He walked up, and some of the traders on their headsets asked people in the office to Google Walt.
All of a sudden, the entire Eurodollar futures and options pit stopped trading and broke out into thunderous applause. Thunderous. Deafening. Walt sheepishly kept walking and Mark and I looked at each other smiling.
Trading never stopped like that for dignitaries. But it stopped for Walt and Mark was the one that made it happen.
Mark absolutely adored his two daughters. He was divorced and he never remarried. I was sad when he and Amanda parted ways in the way that you are sad for people who can’t work it out. I had dinner with Mark and Amanda a couple of times. I had met his daughters a few times but it had been years since I had seen them.
The last time Mark and I saw each other was in Las Vegas and he said he was moving from California to New York to be closer to them. His eldest daughter was playing volleyball and he wanted to be a part of it. We had coffee at my club then went and had lunch with our buddy Roland.
When we were together we always laughed a lot. I appreciated his perspective. In one of our last face-to-face conversations out of the blue Mark said, “You know, moving to Las Vegas is the ideal location for you. People always come through Vegas once a year or so and so you will see them.” I had never thought of it that way but I am glad Mark saw it that way.
I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness at the time. Fortunately, a second opinion found that the first diagnosis was wrong.
Mark was a huge fan of The Who. He dated one of the Spice Girls for a bit. Sometimes his life was jet set. Sometimes it wasn’t. By the time I met Mark, he had quit drinking. The last time I saw him he had dropped a lot of weight and he had gotten in great shape. He said he probably needed a knee operation and was trying to figure out when to do it.
When people die suddenly, you just cannot explain it. You take for granted that they are in your life. Then they are gone. It’s different than when a friend passes from a long-term extended illness. Unfortunately, I have experienced both. I guess if you live long enough and meet enough people, that will always be the case.
If his daughters were in front of me now, I’d tell them that Mark cared for them deeply. I’d also tell them that you just can’t make any sense of what happened. Don’t even try because you won’t. Trying to figure it out will only frustrate you the rest of your days. You can only hold dear the things that person meant to you for the rest of your life. As long as they are alive, Mark will live inside them. Things will remind you of him. You can, and should pray. Being religious in situations like this is a lot better than trying to find some sort of Oprah-like spirituality. Mark may have passed, but his love for his daughters is everlasting.
I found that being a Christian really helped me think through things when I was misdiagnosed.
Amazingly, after I found out about Mark, I hopped in my truck to go to town to buy some lumber for a project I have been working on. This song popped on. I didn’t plan it. It just happened.
Given that Mark and I went to New Orleans a lot together, I figured that was a sure sign he was talking to me and telling me he was all right, and things were going to be all right. By the way, the next song that came on was about Atlanta which is where Mark lived when I first met him, and the next song was about California where he was living the last time I saw him. Crazy coincidence? Or not?
Godspeed Mark. I will miss you.
I don't think it's a coincidence. And, I'll miss him too.
Mark and I went to one of the last games in old Yankee Stadium against the White Sox. I decided to buy him a jersey as a gift. I got him #4, not #3 since it fit his personality better.