Swinging with the Beloit Supper Clubbers?
Build it and they will have supper (Courtesy of the Beloit Snappers.)
The relish tray is Quint Studer’s favorite item at a Wisconsin supper club. That makes sense. Studer is an investor and managing partner in the rebirth of the Beloit (Wis.) Snappers minor league baseball team. He has an appetite for all the seasoning that life can offer.
Studer grew up in Brookfield, a near western suburb of Chicago. He was raised on the Go-Go White Sox. The neighborhood hangout was Joe’s (Butkovich) Saloon on 47th Street. Joe’s sponsored Sunday bus trips to Comiskey Park and Studer would tag along with his parents. Everyone on the bus was a figurative aunt or uncle. Studer was eight years old when the White Sox won the 1959 American League championship.
Studer was born with partial deafness and a speech impediment. He earned a master’s degree in special education at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. After college he taught special needs children in Janesville, Wis. and Harvard, Ill. A recovering alcoholic, in 1992 Studer became Chief Operating Officer of the financially-strapped Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago.
Out of the blue, with no background in baseball ownership, he purchased the independent league Pensacola Pelicans in 2002. Their player-manager was journeyman Pete Della Ratta. Studer still owns the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, most recently a Class AA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.
Quint Studer (Courtesy of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos.)
Studer is spearheading the new 3,500 seat ballpark that is being built in downtown Beloit. The $35 million Riverfront stadium is slated to open in late June 2021. It is partially funded by Beloit resident Diane Hendricks, the owner of the ABC Supply Company. Hendricks is on top of the 2020 Forbes 100 richest self-made women in the United States. Her net worth is $8 billion, placing her ahead of Oprah Winfrey and Madonna.
And to go along with the new stadium, the Snappers will have a new name. Fans have been voting for the new moniker. The finalists are Cheeseballs, Moo, Polka Pike, Sky Carp, and Supper Clubbers.
The Supper Clubbers are the sentimental choice. Supper Clubbers were the favorite of 31-year-old Beloit fan Tom Lindell, who recently told the Daily Yonder newsletter that supper clubs “are a Wisconsin staple and would create intriguing logo and branding options.”
Of course!
I wrote The Supper Club Book and a book on Midwest League baseball, so I have some promotional food for thought:
* Old Fashioned Sunday (old-time uniforms and drink specials.)
* Friday Night Fish Fry (Former MLB pitcher Steve Trout throws out the first pitch to former MLB catcher Steve Lake)
* Linen napkin giveaways (Every good supper club has linen napkins.)
* The new mascot? A Pink Squirrel, naturally.
The team name winner won’t be announced until spring. Like the rest of the world, minor league baseball is in a state of flux. Major league baseball (MLB) is taking over minor league operations. But,
because of the new stadium, Beloit will have an affiliated MLB team whenever the season starts. Riverfront will comply with the new MLB facility requirements.
The Midwest League season begins in early April. If baseball starts on schedule in 2021, Beloit will play the first part of the season at its current Pohlman Field on the outskirts of town.
The Beloit project takes Studer back to his Midwest roots. Studer and his wife Mary, a.k.a. “Rishy” have five children and six grandchildren. Two adult children live in the Beloit-Janesville region.
Studer’s Gateway Professional Baseball company created a homespun lease where Gateway is responsible for the next 20 years of the Beloit stadium. Typically, a minor league team leases the stadium from a landlord, which is often the city. The landlord pays for insurance, utilities, concession stands, video boards, and more. Studer is budgeting between $12 million and $17 million over the next 20 years for stadium upkeep. Beloit’s ABC Supply is the country’s largest wholesale distributor of roofing, siding, and windows. Could be convenient.
Riverfront will be a year-round facility, hosting concerts, movies, and community events. When baseball was shut down during the pandemic, Pensacola received national news coverage for turning its ballpark into an Airbnb. Guests had access to the field, clubhouse, and batting cages. The Baseball Airbnb was announced with a simple tweet on May 22. Within 24 hours, all 33 dates available were booked. The experiment brought in nearly $200,000. Studer said normal Wahoo revenue is around $8 million.
During the pandemic, Beloit and Pensacola were two of the only sports franchises in America to keep their entire staff employed. Studer and co-owner Rishy made the decision not to lay off anyone on their 24-person staff in Pensacola. “When you keep your employees you want to keep them busy,” Studer explained. “Without baseball what were we going to do? We volunteered them out into the community. We had movie nights. We had the Airbnb. For some young employees, it was their first job. They had an apartment in Pensacola. It caused anxiety. Our goal is to improve the quality of life for the community. We donate a lot of money every year to various causes. What a great cause, to help these people.”
Mock-up from SportsLogos.net
This circles back to what might be the Beloit Supper Clubbers. The Midwest supper club is all about connection of the community. “The magic of any well-run company is community,” Studer said. “Our concourse in Pensacola is like the main street of downtown. We’ve had more events than baseball last year. They’re not drawing the baseball crowds, but a couple of weeks ago a gentleman passed away and his family said he loved the stadium. So we had his funeral service outside at the stadium.”
The Blue Wahoos Stadium in Pensacola does not have private suites. Neither will Riverfront stadium in Beloit. “People need to connect,” he said. “We ran out of money in Pensacola. Lack of money helps creativity.” The stadium does have a third base deck that overlooks Pensacola Bay.
How did Studer find his place at this eclectic table?
* * * * ****
The late Quinton “Quin” David Studer was a diesel mechanic at General Motors’ Electro-Motive plant in McCook, Ill. After retiring from Elctro-Motive he taught diesel mechanics on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. His wife Shirley was a stay-at-home mom and then a teacher’s assistant. She lives next door to her son’s family in Pensacola. Shirley turns 96 on Nov. 12. Quin met Shirley in 1941 at a carnival that was passing through the south side of Chicago. They married in 1942.
They were married for 72 years. Besides Quint, they had a daughter Susan, who died in 2014.
“My third-grade teacher, Mrs. James at Congress Park Elementary School (in Brookfield) knew that I loved sports but I didn’t like to read,” Studer recalled. “So she would bring in sports pages from the newspaper and that’s how I learned how to read. And because of sports, you got good in math because you wanted to know batting averages.”
Studer was born deaf in his right ear and still cannot hear from that ear. “Being hearing impaired, I have to aggressively listen,” he said. “Having a hearing impairment has helped me become a better listener. Then, with a speech impediment, you have to have learn failure. You pronounce words over and over until you can pronounce them. You have repeated failure. That teaches resilience. I tell people that part of leadership is listening and being resilient. Take what you see as an obstacle and make it an opportunity.”
Butterfly Club, Beloit, Wis. (Paul Natkin photo for The Supper Club Book.)
Studer has written ten books that include such as “Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making a Difference” (2003) and “Building a Vibrant Community” (2018, which includes a chapter on baseball). His speech impediment lent accessibility to his text. “Doctors and nurses like the books because they are easy to read,” he said. His books are available at QuintStuder.com.
The medical field called after Studer’s battle with alcoholism. On Christmas Eve, 1982 he was 31 years old, divorced and living in debt in a house in Janesville, Wis. “I found a moment of clarity,” he reflected. “I was trying to talk to this lady. I didn’t want to be alone. I hit every button I could: ‘I want to marry you.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘I’m going to kill myself.’ That’s how alcoholics are with every possible manipulative thing. She left and I went to bed. I woke up on Christmas morning. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. It hit me. If someone asked me on December 24 how I was doing, I would have said ‘Great, life’s never been better.’ But on Christmas Day I had that moment. It looked at me and said, ‘You’re a loser. Don’t con yourself anymore. You need to straighten your life out. I’m open about it so I can help people.
“I think that’s why people in (Beloit-Janesville) Rock County are so kind. They’ve seen the story. They’ve seen somebody who had nothing become relatively successful. That’s part of my effort to give back to the community.”
After going through alcoholism treatment, Studer launched his new career in drug and alcohol addiction. In 1987 he became director of marketing for Mercy Hospital in Janesville and then served three years as senior vice-president of business development at Mercy.
When Studer took over Holy Cross, 2701 W. 68th St. in Chicago, patient satisfaction rose from 3 percent to 73 percent in six months. When Studer arrived about 33 percent of babies born at Holy Cross tested cocaine positive. Hospitals & Health Networks and the American Hospital Association named Holy Cross “Great Comeback of the Year.”
“We learned a lesson,” he said. “There was a lot of ‘poverty’. You can’t pay your employees to stay so you have to create a good condition for employees. I also worked for (hospital president) Mark Clement, who said if we’re going to be successful, we have to put money into training and development of leaders. Sadly, many organizations don’t spend money on training and developing leaders. It taught me the value of investing in your people.”
Because of his success in Chicago, Studer was recruited by Baptist Hospital in Pensacola. He was hired as its administrator in 1996 and within a year he became the hospital’s president. He left in 2000 to work on his own company Studer Group, LLC. Chicago-based Huron Consulting Group acquired the Studer Group for $325 million in January 2015.
Studer did not know anything about independent baseball while living in Pensacola. On one July afternoon, Studer and his wife took in an independent league game at a junior college field in Pensacola. Less than 300 people were in the stands.
Stadium clubhouse Airbnb, Pensacola, Fla. (Courtesy of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos)
“I loved the closeness of the fans,” he said. “It reminded me of a pictorial out of Life magazine. The next day I read the paper and it said the team had been bought. It was, ‘Oh my, that guy (the new owner) was sitting in front of me, I wish I had known.’ Then the next day the paper reported the deal fell through so with passion, I called the owner in Montgomery (Ala.) and offered to take over the debt. I ended up having a minor league baseball team in a league that wasn’t going to make it. But due diligence is not my strong suit.”
Studer’s wife was all in on the purchase. Rishy’s father played minor league baseball in the St. Louis Cardinals organization. The Studers bought the Pelicans midway through the 2002 season and the team wound up winning the championship of the now-defunct Southeastern League. The move to the independent leagues brought Studer back to his Chicago roots as Mike Veeck, the son of White Sox Hall of Famer Bill Veeck was involved with independent baseball. Studer got to know Mike Veeck and it helped him recall fun things like the exploding Comiskey scoreboard of his youth.
Quint with PGA golfer Bubba Watson (right.) The Studer Family Children’s Hospital is at 1 Bubba Watson Dr. in Pensacola. This photo is from when Bubba bought a portion of the team in 2015.
In 2016 minor league baseball called Studer about coming to Beloit. “They knew I had roots there,” he said. “Beloit has a (community-run) non-for-profit board, one of the few in baseball. It would be easy to get involved in ownership. It intrigued me. I wouldn’t do this anyplace else. I don’t buy baseball teams to flip them and make money. I want to improve the community.”
The plan stalled for a couple of years when the team realized it would not be able to secure public money for a new stadium. Studer and his wife then met with Diane Hendricks.
“We never crossed, but our circles did,” Studer said. “Our kids knew her kids. I have a lot of respect for Diane. We talked about the quality of life in Beloit. I didn’t know if she was going to move in and say, ‘I’ll build a stadium.’ She wanted it to be sustainable and run well. That’s how we created this partnership.”
Work is continuing on the new stadium although it is unclear when minor league baseball will resume or what MLB team will be affiliated with Beloit. How is Studer navigating the murky waters? “I’ve navigated it by looking at what major league baseball is going to look for,” he answered. “They look for a great facility, good ownership, and a good location. We have to make sure all those boxes are checked. Diane did fly to New York to meet with deputy commissioner Dan Halem and Major League Baseball. I was there. She said, ‘I’m going to build a stadium and showed them the blueprints.’ They said, ‘If you build the stadium, you will have an affiliated team.”
Now that MLB is running MILB, they want affiliates closer to parent clubs. Between 1982 and 2004 Beloit was an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, but the Brewers’ most recent Midwest League affiliate has been in Appleton. The 2003 Snappers included the sons of two famous major leaguers: Prince Fielder and Tony Gwynn, Jr.
Beloit’s team has been known as the Snappers since 1995 because Beloit was once known as Turtle Village. Studer elected to change the name for branding and merchandise opportunities. Studer estimates that a new team name will generate around $300,000 in its first year. Snappers merchandise has averaged about $50,000 yearly. Studer had wacky success with the Blue Wahoos in Pensacola. Studer has reeled in Brandiose, an outside company that brands sports teams. They conducted research in Beloit and helped conduct a name-the-team survey on the team website. About 30 percent of the respondents were fine with the Snappers. The Supper Clubbers emerged as a finalist.
“My first supper club experience was at a place called the Crossroads in (Platteville) Wisconsin,” Studer said. “I love relish trays. I have a thing for relish trays. None of the (Beloit) team names came from me. Its funny people are more riled up about the name of the team than if the team was going to survive.”
Future home of Midwest League baseball in downtown Beloit.
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