November 20, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross tells the stories about the lessons in ethics that changed his life.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And we continue with our American stories and with the
story of an American classic. Stephen Ross is the largest
real estate developer in America, the owner of the Miami Dolphins.
Here's our own mounty montcomer with his story.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It may surprise you to know that the owner of
the Miami Dolphins, Stephen Ross, was born and raised in
the cold of Detroit, Michigan, and would later move to Florida.
Here's Stephen on how that move felt and how he
felt about Florida.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I wanted to get out of there. I went to
my parents, said, well, if you're going to leave, you
don't want to go to school here. You have to
go to military school. So it's been about four days
of military school, and said, I'll go back to school,
you know, and I mean, I'll talk to most of
my friends. I mean probably My background was probably different
(01:03):
than most because I'd never excelled early in life, and
I was you know, I got into college because they
had to accept me because I had a standardized test
that I scored well enough that the school had to
take you. And they flugged out two thirds of the
freshman class. They tell you look on your left and
look on your right, the person sitting next year won't
be here next year, and so you know, kind of
(01:26):
it's a wake up call. But I also knew if
I wanted something, I wasn't going to get anything. For
my parents, I wasn't left anything and they had nothing
to give me, you know, so I knew what there was,
you know, it was either sink or swim. And then
when I got to college, that's when I really kind
of started to being able to do well at University
(01:47):
of Florida then so I could transfer to Michigan and
then law school, and then I got my master's in
tax law, which I excelled in, and it was probably
the best year of school I ever had that I
really found something enjoyed. I'd always get good mind if
I liked it. You know, I didn't like the subject.
I didn't do very well. The confidence I mean, you know,
(02:07):
you have to first find your confidence that you can
succeed and do something well and excel to continue on me.
As they say, success breeds success. I mean, my teachers
told my parents they were wasting time sending me to college,
which is really kind of funny right when I look
back at it now. So I mean, I look at myself.
I was a late starter in life because I probably
(02:31):
I was probably the least likely to succeed in my
high school class. You know, so you tell me how
much teachers know and so the environment in which are
brought up, I mean, even with your parents, as much
as my parents emphasized that, and I could see things.
It was really later that I really saw things a
lot more clearly, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
After getting his master's degree at NYU, Stephen went back
to his hometown to work at an accounting firm as
a tax attorney.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I was doing very well practicing law, and you know,
a certain life is really kind of funny. It's kind
of impulsive. I'm in my office one day. It was,
in fact, I remember, I could still picture it. It
was June's I think it was June seventh or June ninth,
in nineteen sixty eight, the night before Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
(03:24):
And I'd watch it that night and that next day.
You're wondering in life, hey, you never know when it's over,
and thinking about that, you know. And he was a
multiply young guy. And the partner walks in my office
and asks me if I want to go to a
seminar in New York. I said, you know what, And
I didn't even ever thought about it. I said, I
(03:45):
want to go. I think I want to go to
New York for good. As a matter of fact, I'm quitting.
I'm moving to New York. Never enter my mind. It
never went from my mind to you know, I'm going
to think about leaving. And I hadn't even thought about leaving,
and it just came up. I mean, life is so impulsive.
Sometimes we don't even know ourselves, you know, what's really
what's going on. So he then brought in the senior
(04:08):
partner and they, you know, Steve's quit, He's leaving. He
was going to New York, you know. And the guy said,
what I mean, Steve, You're doing great here, You're going
to be a partner here, and blah blah blah. But
I got bored and I could see how I was
tailing off in my mind, and I was just ready
for something. And that's that sparked it without me even
thinking about it. You know, so a lot of things,
(04:29):
you know, in life we think we're in control of
We're not necessarily in control of it. We really don't
know it takes something, takes a spark for something to happen.
I've told my mother's you don't know anybody in New York.
I said, hey, you know, I lived there. I loved
it and in you know the stories. If you can
make it there, you can make it anywhere. Off I went,
(04:49):
you know. And when I went to New York, then
the firm called and made several appointments for me to
help me. And then I saw a paper, this little
article about Layer, which was a new firm, startup, young guys.
They were doing a lot of really creative things. But
everybody said, you know, how can you consider it? You
got a job at Lazard, that's the best deal house
(05:10):
there is. And I took the job at Laired and
I was there for about a year and a half.
They didn't have any money, and I was doing things
a little different, and they didn't quite understand what I
was doing, and they suggested maybe I wouldn't be good there.
And then two weeks after I left, nothing to do
(05:32):
with my having left, they had a coup and the
firm kind of fell apart, and my friend of mine
got me a job at who was working at bear
Stearns got me an interview, and I was working on
some creative deals. But I had the guy. I was
the wrong guy I was working for, and so I
had put together this deal. When I was a laired
putting together a company that they were taking public. It
(05:56):
was my idea to put several things that he was
doing into one company and take it public. I'd been
at bear Stearns about two or three weeks and that's
when they had the coup. And the guy called me
and said, hey, I'd love to have bear Stearns do
this deal. I have other firms there are smaller firms
and bear Stearns, but would bear Stearns be interested? Met
(06:19):
with this partner, guy said's great. They were located in California.
The partner said, I'll be in California next week. You know,
I'll meet you and go through this stuff. Made. An
appointment doesn't show up, the guy calls me and I
go and to I got caught up in this other deal.
I was out there. I'll be either there. Main an
appointment doesn't show up. Called me again. I told the
(06:40):
guy he said, you know range of time and I'll call.
So twice that happened. He never called. So a guy
calls me. I said, hey, I would take a public
you got these other firms. I wouldn't. Wait. I haven't
been here long enough, you know. I've been here now
what two months? And I can't tell you what to do,
you know, and a bit. If it were me, I'd
(07:02):
go get the deal done, not wait for this guy
to come out. He goes public. It's on the front
page of the Wall Street Journal on the right column,
so it's the lead article, and blah blah blah. And
it went from six to nineteen and the opening and
that day the part of all of a sudden walks
into my office for the first time. Hey, whatever happened
to that company? Blah? You know, Environmental Systems it's called.
(07:26):
I said, he's waiting for your phone call, you know.
And he didn't take that, obviously. And then then after
that he'd when I'd be in meetings, he'd I mean,
he's always putting me down, and you know, and all that.
And I was doing a deal. And when he approved
the deal that I had brought in and worked on,
(07:46):
and then someone asked him, well, who's going to work,
you know, work on it for us. When the senior
guy said, well, Steve is he put it together and
he knows it. Guy's one hundred confers and Steve and
I said, so I got no convience. Next morning, I
got a phone call. You know, I was fired. Did
I quit or was I fired? Stories better to say
(08:08):
that I got fired, right, But I knew that that night.
I knew I couldn't work here anymore. Before I had
the meeting to get this deal approved. I mean, I said,
if it gets approved, I'm thinking, and I was ready
to quit. I knew even I got approved, I had
to get out of there with this guy. I mean here,
I'd left two jobs in a really a six month
period of time. So with that kind of resume, who's
(08:31):
going to hire me? And that said, I started my
company and I had no money, and I wanted to
stay in New York. My mother lent me ten thousand
dollars to live on, and then the bootstrapped the company
and never had an investor. So for about the next
thirty years, every penny I ever earned I put back
in the company and just grew the company. And then
(08:54):
all of a sudden, you know, it's worth a lot
of money, but you know, I mean, it's a nice story.
That's true, and I really believe that you know, when
you're doing something and you're successful, you should believe in yourself.
Who else can you trust more than yourself?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And a great job by Robbie producing the piece. And
a special thanks to Alex for finding this story and
it's a beauty, the story of Steve Ross, the owner
of the Miami Dolphins. Here on All American Story
And we continue with our American stories and with the
story of an American classic. Stephen Ross is the largest
real estate developer in America, the owner of the Miami Dolphins.
Here's our own mounty montcomer with his story.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It may surprise you to know that the owner of
the Miami Dolphins, Stephen Ross, was born and raised in
the cold of Detroit, Michigan, and would later move to Florida.
Here's Stephen on how that move felt and how he
felt about Florida.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I wanted to get out of there. I went to
my parents, said, well, if you're going to leave, you
don't want to go to school here. You have to
go to military school. So it's been about four days
of military school, and said, I'll go back to school,
you know, and I mean, I'll talk to most of
my friends. I mean probably My background was probably different
(01:03):
than most because I'd never excelled early in life, and
I was you know, I got into college because they
had to accept me because I had a standardized test
that I scored well enough that the school had to
take you. And they flugged out two thirds of the
freshman class. They tell you look on your left and
look on your right, the person sitting next year won't
be here next year, and so you know, kind of
(01:26):
it's a wake up call. But I also knew if
I wanted something, I wasn't going to get anything. For
my parents, I wasn't left anything and they had nothing
to give me, you know, so I knew what there was,
you know, it was either sink or swim. And then
when I got to college, that's when I really kind
of started to being able to do well at University
(01:47):
of Florida then so I could transfer to Michigan and
then law school, and then I got my master's in
tax law, which I excelled in, and it was probably
the best year of school I ever had that I
really found something enjoyed. I'd always get good mind if
I liked it. You know, I didn't like the subject.
I didn't do very well. The confidence I mean, you know,
(02:07):
you have to first find your confidence that you can
succeed and do something well and excel to continue on me.
As they say, success breeds success. I mean, my teachers
told my parents they were wasting time sending me to college,
which is really kind of funny right when I look
back at it now. So I mean, I look at myself.
I was a late starter in life because I probably
(02:31):
I was probably the least likely to succeed in my
high school class. You know, so you tell me how
much teachers know and so the environment in which are
brought up, I mean, even with your parents, as much
as my parents emphasized that, and I could see things.
It was really later that I really saw things a
lot more clearly, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
After getting his master's degree at NYU, Stephen went back
to his hometown to work at an accounting firm as
a tax attorney.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I was doing very well practicing law, and you know,
a certain life is really kind of funny. It's kind
of impulsive. I'm in my office one day. It was,
in fact, I remember, I could still picture it. It
was June's I think it was June seventh or June ninth,
in nineteen sixty eight, the night before Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
(03:24):
And I'd watch it that night and that next day.
You're wondering in life, hey, you never know when it's over,
and thinking about that, you know. And he was a
multiply young guy. And the partner walks in my office
and asks me if I want to go to a
seminar in New York. I said, you know what, And
I didn't even ever thought about it. I said, I
(03:45):
want to go. I think I want to go to
New York for good. As a matter of fact, I'm quitting.
I'm moving to New York. Never enter my mind. It
never went from my mind to you know, I'm going
to think about leaving. And I hadn't even thought about leaving,
and it just came up. I mean, life is so impulsive.
Sometimes we don't even know ourselves, you know, what's really
what's going on. So he then brought in the senior
(04:08):
partner and they, you know, Steve's quit, He's leaving. He
was going to New York, you know. And the guy said,
what I mean, Steve, You're doing great here, You're going
to be a partner here, and blah blah blah. But
I got bored and I could see how I was
tailing off in my mind, and I was just ready
for something. And that's that sparked it without me even
thinking about it. You know, so a lot of things,
(04:29):
you know, in life we think we're in control of
We're not necessarily in control of it. We really don't
know it takes something, takes a spark for something to happen.
I've told my mother's you don't know anybody in New York.
I said, hey, you know, I lived there. I loved
it and in you know the stories. If you can
make it there, you can make it anywhere. Off I went,
(04:49):
you know. And when I went to New York, then
the firm called and made several appointments for me to
help me. And then I saw a paper, this little
article about Layer, which was a new firm, startup, young guys.
They were doing a lot of really creative things. But
everybody said, you know, how can you consider it? You
got a job at Lazard, that's the best deal house
(05:10):
there is. And I took the job at Laired and
I was there for about a year and a half.
They didn't have any money, and I was doing things
a little different, and they didn't quite understand what I
was doing, and they suggested maybe I wouldn't be good there.
And then two weeks after I left, nothing to do
(05:32):
with my having left, they had a coup and the
firm kind of fell apart, and my friend of mine
got me a job at who was working at bear
Stearns got me an interview, and I was working on
some creative deals. But I had the guy. I was
the wrong guy I was working for, and so I
had put together this deal. When I was a laired
putting together a company that they were taking public. It
(05:56):
was my idea to put several things that he was
doing into one company and take it public. I'd been
at bear Stearns about two or three weeks and that's
when they had the coup. And the guy called me
and said, hey, I'd love to have bear Stearns do
this deal. I have other firms there are smaller firms
and bear Stearns, but would bear Stearns be interested? Met
(06:19):
with this partner, guy said's great. They were located in California.
The partner said, I'll be in California next week. You know,
I'll meet you and go through this stuff. Made. An
appointment doesn't show up, the guy calls me and I
go and to I got caught up in this other deal.
I was out there. I'll be either there. Main an
appointment doesn't show up. Called me again. I told the
(06:40):
guy he said, you know range of time and I'll call.
So twice that happened. He never called. So a guy
calls me. I said, hey, I would take a public
you got these other firms. I wouldn't. Wait. I haven't
been here long enough, you know. I've been here now
what two months? And I can't tell you what to do,
you know, and a bit. If it were me, I'd
(07:02):
go get the deal done, not wait for this guy
to come out. He goes public. It's on the front
page of the Wall Street Journal on the right column,
so it's the lead article, and blah blah blah. And
it went from six to nineteen and the opening and
that day the part of all of a sudden walks
into my office for the first time. Hey, whatever happened
to that company? Blah? You know, Environmental Systems it's called.
(07:26):
I said, he's waiting for your phone call, you know.
And he didn't take that, obviously. And then then after
that he'd when I'd be in meetings, he'd I mean,
he's always putting me down, and you know, and all that.
And I was doing a deal. And when he approved
the deal that I had brought in and worked on,
(07:46):
and then someone asked him, well, who's going to work,
you know, work on it for us. When the senior
guy said, well, Steve is he put it together and
he knows it. Guy's one hundred confers and Steve and
I said, so I got no convience. Next morning, I
got a phone call. You know, I was fired. Did
I quit or was I fired? Stories better to say
(08:08):
that I got fired, right, But I knew that that night.
I knew I couldn't work here anymore. Before I had
the meeting to get this deal approved. I mean, I said,
if it gets approved, I'm thinking, and I was ready
to quit. I knew even I got approved, I had
to get out of there with this guy. I mean here,
I'd left two jobs in a really a six month
period of time. So with that kind of resume, who's
(08:31):
going to hire me? And that said, I started my
company and I had no money, and I wanted to
stay in New York. My mother lent me ten thousand
dollars to live on, and then the bootstrapped the company
and never had an investor. So for about the next
thirty years, every penny I ever earned I put back
in the company and just grew the company. And then
(08:54):
all of a sudden, you know, it's worth a lot
of money, but you know, I mean, it's a nice story.
That's true, and I really believe that you know, when
you're doing something and you're successful, you should believe in yourself.
Who else can you trust more than yourself?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And a great job by Robbie producing the piece. And
a special thanks to Alex for finding this story and
it's a beauty, the story of Steve Ross, the owner
of the Miami Dolphins. Here on All American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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