GCU Today Magazine - November 2017

1 0 • GCU MAGAZ I NE Dan Majerle, as men’s basketball coach. The Lopes have gone 81-46 in Majerle’s first four seasons. In 2014, the entire business college was renamed in his honor. It’s no accident that the student-centric and Conscious Capitalism ideals of the Colangelo College of Business marry perfectly with its namesake’s beliefs and practices. University officials were so buoyed by his impact, they built the Jerry Colangelo Museum, standing sentry at the main entrance to campus, waving in more people to be educated by his ideals and achievements when it opened in September. Dr. Randy Gibb, the CCOB dean, had grown accustomed to the rather amazing experience of having such a famous man suddenly sitting in his office, his arrival unannounced. But now Gibb got to work with Colangelo — or Mr. Colangelo, as he and other faculty members always refer to him — for a year and a half as they picked out artifacts for the museum. “You know what’s neat?” Gibb said. “With him and now the museum with his name and the fact that he’s on campus all the time, it gives us this role model, this true servant leader, somebody to really look up to, to be proud of, and I think business students on this campus are proud to be in the Colangelo College of Business.” Even if they came all the way from Lancaster, Pa., as did Andrew Finley, a junior majoring in marketing. “It was huge,” Finley said. “Anybody who knows about sports knows about Jerry Colangelo just because he has built so many franchises and has helped with so many things. In a lot of ways, he seemed almost like family to me in his work ethic and his lifestyle.” It’s all part of the teaching process. Colangelo has never taken that lightly, no matter whether he is running a sports franchise or mentoring a business school. “Many young people have said to me on campus, ‘I’m here because of you. I’m here because you really influenced me coming to school here because I know your background. I’ve read your books,’ that kind of thing,” he said. “To me, there’s a responsibility that I feel. That’s why I’m so interested in what we do in the College of Business, because that’s all- encompassing. Just as we want to be a top-25 basketball program, we want to be one of the top business schools in the country.” One of Colangelo’s favorite sayings is “Life is relational,” so it should come as no surprise that CCOB has constructed a culture of collaboration palpable to faculty and students alike. Call it biz-synergy. There’s a lot to learn from it — which is the way things always have been with Jerry Colangelo. Sweet surprises Life is indeed a box of chocolates, as Forrest Gump’s mother famously told him, but so is a Colangelo speech. Yes, he has recurring themes, Colangelo frequently speaks to business classes. “Most of everything I do is ad lib,” he said. “I just try to speak from the heart all the time.” “I love being around young people. That helps keep you young.”