(Information for this post was taken from a July 2007 GQ Magazine story by Alex French)
When Michael Irvin and the Miami Hurricanes football team won the National Championship, he was there on the sidelines. Heavyweight Title Fight? He’s there with Uncle Luke from 2 Live Crew. When the Cowboys won the Super Bowl, he was with team owner Jerry Jones. He was one of the people on the floor breaking up the Pacers-Pistons fight that spilled into the stands. He was with team president Joe Dumars after the Pistons won the NBA Championship. He has sat next to Jay-Z at the NBA All-Star Game, and with Nike boss Phil Knight at the Final Four. He has even accompanied the U.S. Senior National Basketball team to Japan.
He may sound like the most interesting person in the world, but he is actually William Wesley; the man that the sports world calls “Worldwide Wes”.
His legend begins in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. That’s where a teenaged Wesley worked at a small sneaker store called Pro Shoes. The spot was an 80’s equivalent to New York’s famous Flight Club shoe store. Pro Shoes sneaker selection attracted some of the areas best basketball players. Though several college and professional athletes frequented the store, the two people that would eventually mean the most to Wesley were merely like high school students like him.
Wesley’s two friends were Leon Rose (name sound familiar? it will later) and Milt Wagner. Rose was just your run of the mill high school point guard, but Wagner was one of the areas best college prospects. When Wagner eventually committed to the University of Louisville, Wesley packed up and moved to Kentucky with his best friend.
Wagner would become a star in college and go on to the NBA; meanwhile Leon Rose toiled away in Law School. As time went on, Wesley continued to build his social circle, helping out players in every way that he knew how until he eventually made the biggest connection of them all. He met Michael Jordan. No one knows for sure when the meeting took place, but the encounter resulted in Wesley eventually becoming close friends with Jordan’s boss at Nike, Phil Knight, and among other people, the President of the United States. To this day, Wesley is still close with both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Wesley and Jordan became friends right before Mike’s reign of terror over the NBA. Six rings later, Jordan was the most lucrative athlete in the world, and Wesley was his best friend.
Fast Forward to the year 2001…
Remember Wesley’s childhood friend Milt Wagner? He now has a son; a son that also happens to be the best high school basketball player in the country. His name is Dajuan Wagner. William Wesley is his Godfather.
Despite the sports world unanimously deeming Wagner ready to jump to the NBA out of high school, it was Wagner’s Godfather who steered him to go to Memphis, where John Calipari was the coach. Memphis was Calipari’s first college coaching job since he had a Final Four appearance stripped from him at UMass. It did not stop Calipari from being very flexible during his recruitment of Wagner. Wesley facilitated two main negotiations between the two parties. The Tigers would also sign a friend of Wagner’s who was having trouble qualifying academically, and Dajuan’s father Milt would become the school’s director of basketball operations. The last stipulation was considerably damning, considering that the eldest Wagner never graduated from college.
Calipari made the concessions anyway, and has continued his working friendship with Wesley. If you see a basketball recruit around William Wesley, there’s a good chance he’s going to play for Coach Cal. It is worth noting that Calipari has been to two Final Fours and both of them have been stripped from his record.
After an impressive freshman year at Memphis, the younger Wagner left the school and declared for the NBA Draft. It was the general consensus that such a phenom would surely sign with one of sport’s premiere sports agencies, but this is when the story starts to come together.
Remember Leon Rose? While Wagner played in the NBA and Wesley became a major mover and shaker behind the scenes of college and professional sports, Leon Rose went to law school – and became a sports agent.
Rose, whose top client had previously been career backup Rick Brunson, was now the primary representation of the most hyped prospect the league had seen in quite some time. The same year, Rose also became Allen Iverson’s agent.
This wasn’t a coincidence. Iverson had long been a close friend of William Wesley. When Iverson clashed with Coach Larry Brown, it was Wesley who supposedly brokered a peace treaty between coach and player. One story goes that Wesley once called Iverson and simply told him, “Quit bitching and go to practice.” Later that year Iverson won the MVP award and the Eastern Conference Championship. Rose also began representing Richard Hamilton. Hamilton and Wesley run a Detroit Based AAU team called “The Family”. As you may expect, it is one of the best and most successful AAU programs in the country.
Oh, but wait. There’s more.
Wesley has always had a tendency to pick up and move, following his most lucrative friends and associates. Something that probably isn’t a big deal for him since he is supposedly a real estate agent. So when Wagner was drafted by Cleveland, Wesley picked up and moved as well.
That’s when “Worldwide Wes” met “The Chosen One”.
Once Wesley heard about the fifteen year old prodigy named Lebron James that was dominating his competition in nearby Akron, he reached out immediately. Wesley, immediately befriended James’ primary father figure Eddie Jackson, but he had to go much further to impress Lebron James. Wesley needed the help of another one of his close friends – rap mogul Jay-Z.
Once Wesley introduced James to his hip-hop idol, he’s had his attention ever since. This wasn’t the only instance in which Wesley used some of his famous friends to get close to a potential star.
Gregory Dole, who worked as a translator for Brazilian Leandro Barbosa, told a similar story about Barbosa encountering Wesley.
According to Dole, Wesley scooped up him and Barbosa in a Mercedes and began to ask Leandro some questions. Who’s your favorite player? Michael Jordan. Wes calls him up on speakerphone, but gets the voicemail. Do you like Hip-Hop? I like Jay-Z. Worldwide Wes calls Jay-Z. Jigga answers the phone. Barbosa starts singing the hook from “Hard Knock Life”. The world’s most famous rapper puts Beyonce on the phone to listen to Barbosa sing. Jay-Z is laughing hysterically. Beyonce finds it similarly funny and keeps telling him to sing the hook again and again.
Personally, If Beyonce’s on the phone…I’m going to sing whatever song she asks me to.
Surprisingly, despite Wesley’s relationship with the prince that would later become king, James did not employ Leon Rose as his agent upon entering the NBA. Wesley responded by deciding to get even closer to James. In 2003, Worldwide Wes became “Uncle Wes down the hall”. Wesley moved into the same apartment building as James.
Within two years, James fired his agent…and hired Leon Rose, turning Wesley's high school acquaintance into a sports management power player.
Now the cycle is complete.
With a little help from his friends, Wesley has cornered the market in the area of influence.
William Wesley has a familial relationship with the greatest basketball player ever, the next greatest basketball player ever, the greatest living rapper of all time, the man who founded Nike, a former president of the United States, and one of college basketball’s premiere coaches.
Need a shoe deal? He can call Knight. Need a record deal? He can call Jigga. Want to be a politician? He can call Bill…or Hillary if you prefer. Need a place to masquerade as a college student for a year or two? He can call Calipari.
The point is that if you know William “Worldwide” Wesley – the world is at your fingertips.
