I like being underestimated," says Jeanie Buss with a grin, and for a minute, you have to wonder who would be foolish enough to make such a mistake. Underestimate a woman who, at the age of 33, has been running professional sports teams for 14 years, who has promoted events at a prestigious arena since she was barely out of high school, who serves on the board of directors of one of the hottest sports franchises of the past few decades?
But Jeanie Buss, you see, isn't just one of the most successful women behind the scenes in sports--she's also the daughter of Dr. Jerry Buss, owner of both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Great Western Forum, who invited his daughter into the family business and then let her prove herself. "People have preconceived ideas about the children of the boss," says Jeanie over lunch in the Forum Club. "But anyone who knows me knows what I can do."
What she has done is succeed in the male-dominated world of pro sports since she was a shy teenager. "I would take along my Barbie dolls when my dad would take us to track meets and football games," she says, laughing at her introduction to sports. "But then I got kind of obsessed with sports." At 13, she got the nickname Arena Rat because she'd do anything to hang around athletes or sit in on business meetings. She absorbed so much that at 19 she was named general manager of the Los Angeles Strings professional tennis team while at the same time finishing her education at USC.
Now she's the president of Forum Sports Inc., a company that stages tennis exhibitions, volleyball tournaments and a variety of other events at the Forum. She's also on the board of the Lakers--whose part-owner Magic Johnson recently asked her, "When are you and I going to start running things around here?"
Jeanie's current passion, though, is the team she owns: the L.A. Blades, which plays fast-paced, five-man hockey on inline skates as part of the Roller Hockey International League, now entering its third season. "I wasn't sure about the sport at first," she admits. "But before the first game, I went out to the parking lot and there were pickup games going on. As all the kids who play it grow up, I think it'll become a major sport."
It was Jeanie's idea to step out of the boardroom for these photos, partly as a way to draw attention to her teams. "I'm not going to deny that this might help my business," she says. Most of all, she was looking to document her personal growth. "My marriage recently ended," she says, "and I thought, What are all the things I've wanted to do? And being in Playboy was one of them. As an 18-year-old, I couldn't have done this. But now I feel I've matured into a woman who's confident in her sexuality, in how she looks and in how she takes care of herself. This, to me, was the perfect statement that I wanted to make about myself."
Underestimate Jeanie Buss? Not likely.
