Attorney Gary Schwartz dispels 'win at all costs' persona as senior softball manager

     By Bill Tarrant

     When Gary Schwartz first joined the senior softball circuit, he was a pitcher in the over-65 Tuesday league. His best softball memory is being the winning pitcher in back-to-back championship games.

     He’s now managing teams in both the Tuesday and Thursday (over 55) leagues and pitching for neither. For unselfish reasons.

     “I’m just as happy playing elsewhere, if in my mind someone is better than I am at a position, or if it gives my team more position flexibility,” he says.

     Schwartz, who has been managing several seasons on Tuesday, is a rookie manager in the Thursday league. His 6-2 Deadheads team is now tied for second with the Runaways behind the Archies after Thursday’s games.

     The key to his success so far (aside from not making himself the pitcher – JK!) has been constant communication with his players and tempering a desire to win at all costs.

     “So, I think my personality has changed from what I would play like in college or high school to where I now coach to manage. And I think most importantly is to appreciate that everyone doesn't have the same abilities, and to make it more enjoyable with also trying to win.”

     He played softball sporadically as an adult. Basketball was his main sport, and he played three to four times a week “until my knees gave out.” He’s had one knee replacement and expects to have another soon – a fate many senior players face (which is why teams have sported names such as “Hip Replacements” and “Bad Knees Bears.”)

                           -----         -----         -----         -----

     As might befit a senior softballer, Schwartz is an estate planning and Trust lawyer. He began his career, however, in the niche field of radio law “and I became one of the leading attorneys in the country, ultimately, helping people buy, sell and operate radio stations, and programming.”

     It was niche, Schwartz said, “because not everybody knows how to work mergers and acquisitions of broadcast properties. In those days, you could only own two radio stations in a city, 11 in the country, and you couldn't have cross ownership between radio and TV and radio and cable and radio and newspaper. So, it was a unique industry.

     “During Clinton's second administration, Congress changed the law that eliminated the ownership limitation rules, and the industry changed dramatically, very quickly, where now I would tell you that there's probably 10 companies that probably own 80% of the radio stations in America.”

     In Schwartz’s most notorious case, he represented the business interests of Fred Cote, the owner of LA’s KOLA radio station, among others, who was ultimately convicted of hiring an employee to kill his wife and lover in the 1970s and served a life sentence.

     “You can't have criminals who have been convicted of murder owning broadcast properties, and he had some significant radio stations. We had to sell the stations, and there was a lot of limitations that were put up towards doing that. Ultimately, I had to get a U.S. senator involved to force the FCC to allow for a sale to go through.”

     Schwartz, 69, was born back East before his family joined the post-war Great Migration to California, arriving in the Valley from Pittsburgh at the age of 8. He has two adult sons from his first marriage with a college sweetheart, and married again just a couple years ago.

     As with just everybody in these leagues, he plays primarily for the community.

     “I think we all need some kind of outlet, as we get older, as the kids have moved on. And I think as we get into seniorhood, if we don't have something to do, I think it drags on you. I've always enjoyed playing sports, and it gives me that outlet to do something. And the added benefit has been the friendships I've made out there on the field.”