Bill Laurie Biography
Bill Laurie (born as William J. Laurie) is an American business executive and philanthropist who is a former basketball coach and player. Laurie is the co-chairman of Paige Sports Entertainment (PSE) and the former owner of the St. Louis Blues.
Bill Laurie Age
Mr. Laurie is 67 years old as of 2019. He was born in July 1952 in Versailles, Missouri.
Bill Laurie Family
Laurie comes from a family of basketball players. Nothing is known of his parents. He has one sibling, a brother by the name Barry and a nephew called Spencer, both of whom played for the Missouri Tigers. His other name known as Shane also played basketball for the Missouri State University
Bill Laurie Education | Alma Mater
Growing up in rural Missouri, Laurie went to high school in his native home of Versailles. He began playing basketball while he was a student. As a senior, he led the scoring across the state of Missouri. He then attended Memphis State University in Memphis, Tennessee, now known as Memphis University.
Laurie also played basketball in college in the school’s team, the Memphis Tigers men’s basketball. The team was part of several competitions with one of the notable ones being the 1973 NCAA national championship game, but they lost to the UCLA Bruins. He graduated from the institution in 1974.
Bill Laurie Wife | Bill Laurie Daughter
Bill Laurie is the husband of multi-billionaire heiress of the Walmart fortune, Nancy Walton Laurie. The couple met and began dating while they were studying at Memphis State University. The two come from the same town. They got married one year after graduating from college.
Nancy Walton is the younger daughter of Bud Walton, the brother and business partner of Sam Walton who is the founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Laurie and Nancy have one child, a daughter by the name Elizabeth Paige Laurie.
Bill Laurie House
The Laurie family lives at Crown Center Farms, a 350-acre equine farm in Columbia, Missouri. On their farm, they rear Appaloosa horses. One of the barns on the farm burnt down on March 23, 2014. The Columbia Fire Department ruled out any ill-doing as the cause of the fire and said that it was unintentional. The family owns a couple of other properties such as the one in Bel Air, Los Angeles and in Henderson, near Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bill Laurie Profession
After his graduation, Laurie first taught at a school and was also the basketball coach of both Rock Bridge High School and the Christian Brothers College High School. After getting married, Laurie and his wife lived at Crown Center Farms in Columbia, Missouri, and they began breeding race horses. In 1983, he left his job to manage the family estate and build on its portfolio.
He then acquired the St. Loius Blues, a professional hockey team in St. Loius for US$153 million. The team is a member of the National Hockey League and Laurie owned it from 1999 to 2011. He also acquired the Savvis Center, an 18,400-seat arena in St. Loius, Missouri. In 1999, Laurie was unsuccessful in acquiring The Denver Nuggets basketball team, the Vancouver Grizzlies basketball team in 2000 as well as the Charlotte Hornets in 2001.
Laurie co-founded Paige Sports Entertainment (PSE) with his wife and is also a co-chairman of the same. Paige Sports Entertainment operated a cosmetics company known as SkinMarket, headquartered in Carpinteria, California. The business was in partnership with the Savvis Center and the St. Louis Blues.
Laurie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in Springfield, Missouri, in 2003, for his “lifelong dedication and personal contributions to the betterment of sport and the spirit of sportsmanship… as a player, a coach, an executive, and a benefactor.”
Bill Laurie Philanthropy Works
In 2001, Laurie and his wife donated US$25 million to the University of Missouri to fund the construction of a new sports arena for the Missouri Tigers. The new sports arena was to be named after Paige Laurie, their daughter who did not attend the university.
The arena naming idea was rocked with controversy when it was revealed that Paige had paid her USC roommate to do much of her homework for her, even after the roommate left the university due to financial issues. The revelations were made after the 2004-2005 basketball season began. On 23rd November 2004, the Laurie family gave up the naming rights, to the university, which then renamed the arena “Mizzou,” the university’s common nickname. They also removed all mention of Elizabeth Paige Laurie from the venue, beyond the bare minimum required to acknowledge the Lauries’ gift.
The Lauries also sponsored the University of Missouri to set up the E. Paige Laurie Professorship for the Equine Center at the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine and donated $10 million to the athletics department of their former university, the University of Memphis. The Los Angeles Times has also noted that Laurie and his wife have made charitable gifts for “a cancer research center” and “a shelter for abused women” as well as “a children’s hospital.”