NEW ORLEANS — Steve Bisciotti is the anti-Dan Snyder. (Though like Snyder he is a self-made millionaire.)
Bisciotti runs his football team nothing like Jerry Jones. (But they both know how to have a good time.)
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Bisciotti didn’t inherit his place in the NFL like so many of the others. (Though like the old guard, he can also appreciate a good cigar, a glass of wine and time on his yacht.)
Sure there are similarities here and there, but the Baltimore Ravens owner isn’t really like the rest. He’s blue jeans and a sports coat, his hair slicked back and skin sun-baked, a native of Severna Park who grew up rooting for the Orioles and Colts.
There are thousands of cameras and reporters focused on Super Bowl XLVII, which pits Bisciotti’s Ravens against the San Francisco 49ers Sunday.
Bisciotti, 52, wants little to do with them. He’d wanted to own a pro football team but had little interest in all the baggage that comes with it.
“My goal is to not let it change my life,” he said.
Bisciotti is back at the Super Bowl, the giant championship ring on his right hand a reminder of exactly what’s on the line Sunday. Bisciotti was a minority owner when the Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2001 and says he felt more “like a fly on the wall.” While he had no problem watching the late Art Modell hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy then, the Ravens have been solely Bisciotti’s team since 2004 and this trip to football’s biggest stage, he said, feels different.
“I would be lying if I didn’t say that I feel like the first one is half mine,” he said.
Even if he spends a good chunk of his time living in Florida or cruising on his boat or strolling around a golf course, Bisciotti’s fingerprints are all over this Ravens team. As John Harbaugh, the only coach Bisciotti has ever hired, said, “He’s the guy that establishes the vision for the organization.”
‘He has an intensity’
Ozzie Newsome isn’t the first amateur sports philosopher to suggest you can learn a lot about a man on the golf course. The Ravens’ general manager said his close relationship with Bisciotti was largely forged on golf courses all over the country.
“He wants to get 18 holes in every day,” Newsome said.
With that in mind, here’s a few revealing things others have picked up on the links:
Baseball great Cal Ripken Jr: “You can see the screw turn a little tighter in his head when the match gets a little close or he feels he’s not playing well enough. . . . He has an intensity about him that he’s well aware of.”
Former Maryland men’s basketball coach Gary Williams: “He’s competitive. He’s not crazy like me. But he’s very competitive. He wants to win. That’s what I found out over the years. Different people show it in different ways. Nobody has an edge on who wants to win the most; there are a lot of people who go after it. Steve is like that, but he’s like that in the quiet way. He’s not over the top, but he’s grinding his way through every round of golf.”
Perhaps the most telling anecdote comes from Robert Ades, a Washington attorney. Several years ago, Williams brought Bisciotti along for a round of golf with Ades.
