Remembering Red McCombs

• San Antonio business icon and philanthropist Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, who parlayed his massive success as a car dealer into ownership of the San Antonio Spurs (twice!), Denver Nuggets, and Minnesota Vikings, and, more importantly for RAMP readers — famously co-founded Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) with Lowry Mays in 1972 — passed away at his home on Sunday, Feb. 19 at the age of 95.

As KSAT-TV/San Antonio reports, McCombs was born on Oct. 19, 1927, in Spur, Texas. He served in the Army after World War II and later used his GI Bill to study business and law at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating from UT, McCombs worked at a Ford dealership in Corpus Christi while awaiting a corporate job. “After selling ten in one weekend, he was hooked and never made it to that corporate job,” his biography states. “McCombs immediately began selling 30 or more cars a month, and within half a year set out on his own.” In 1952, he opened McCombs Used Cars in Corpus Christi, later expanding into San Antonio when he took over operations of a struggling car dealership owned by his first boss, Austin Hemphill. He later became the owner of the dealership, now known as Red McCombs Ford, and his empire expanded to more than 60 locations.

In the early ’70s, McCombs and a group of local businessmen brought professional basketball to San Antonio, buying the failing Dallas Chaparrals before the 1973-1974 season and renaming them the Spurs. McCombs actually owned the Spurs twice and went on to purchase the Vikings in hopes of bringing an NFL team to the Alamo City. He sold the Vikings after seven years and sold the Nuggets after three years.

The Texas Tribune reports that McCombs’ alma mater, UT Austin named its business school after him following a $50 million gift in 2000. The north end zone at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and the school’s softball stadium are also named after McCombs. In 2005, McCombs and his foundation gave MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston $30 million. The McCombs family released a statement that reads, in part, “Red was a visionary entrepreneur who touched many lives and impacted our community in immeasurable ways. But to us he was always, first and foremost, ‘Dad’ or ‘Poppop.’ We mourn the loss of a Texas icon.” [Photo courtesy of The Longhorn Network]