Carl Sheer obit

Carl Scheer, first GM of Charlotte Hornets, dies at 82

He was not on the list.

Former Nuggets executive Carl Scheer wasn’t above fudging attendance numbers and he certainly wasn’t afraid to think outside the box.
Whatever it took to drum up interest in the Nuggets, Scheer would consider it.
As the architect of the Slam Dunk Contest, an idea spawned during the 1976 All-Star Game in Denver, and the man who ushered the Nuggets into the NBA from the ABA, Scheer left an indelible mark on basketball’s history, particularly in this city. From 1974-84, he oversaw the team and was instrumental in keeping it in Denver when ownership was tenuous.

Over his career, he served as the general manager of the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers and Charlotte Hornets. He was also the commissioner of the Continental Basketball Association. He was the first GM in Hornets history and is credited as the inventor of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

 

After several years of battling dementia, Scheer passed away last Friday, only one day before his 83rd birthday. His memorial service is Wednesday in Charlotte, the same place where he helped launch the expansion Hornets in 1988.

On more than one occasion, Scheer has been called the “Bill Veeck of basketball” for his willingness to gin up any sort of publicity. It was his idea to hold a fan contest, that ultimately led to the iconic rainbow skyline jerseys that are still immensely popular with the fan base.

“I mean this in a great way, he was a character because he was thinking outside the box all the time, and sometimes it was a crazy box,” said Lisa Johnson, the Nuggets’ Vice President of basketball administration. Johnson will be forever grateful to Scheer, who hired her 39 years ago to sell season tickets.

“And I’d never sold anything in my life,” she said with a smile.

One of the most memorable ploys involved selling tickets for the barebones price of $2.

“We were on channel 2 back then, and he would have channel 2 tickets for two dollars,” she recalled. “He would announce it, like, ‘OK, it’s our channel 2 special,’ and we’d have to answer the phones and sell tickets for two bucks. And then we’d have sellouts, and sometimes he padded those sellouts a little bit.”

Former Nugget Bill Hanzlik also points to Scheer as the reason he ended up in Denver.

“Carl interestingly was the GM when I was traded here in 1982,” Hanzlik said. “I was traded from Seattle to Denver for David Thompson. Oh, by the way, there was a first-round pick that was thrown in, too.”

During that time, the Nuggets were “bleeding red,” according to Hanzlik.

Scheer’s solution?

“He had some of his buddies, cronies and he would say, ‘You know, put in $100,000, you get one percent,’ so he had 30 owners at one point,” Hanzlik said.

One of his most shrewd moves came via the hiring of head coach Larry Brown, who had worked with Scheer (and future Nuggets coach Doug Moe) with the ABA’s Carolina Cougars.

 

Hanzlik recalled a story where Brown and Moe were in Russia with an ABA All-Star team before the Cougars folded.

“Larry’s nervous as all get out, and Doug is like, ‘Larry, what are you nervous about? I don’t have a job either, so if you don’t have a job, I don’t have a job,’” Hanzlik said. “So Carl orchestrates getting hired by Denver. So he gets hired by Denver, Larry gets a job, Doug gets a job (as a lead assistant), so they come in.”

The Nuggets honored Scheer with a moment of a silence and a moving tribute video during last Saturday’s game against Oklahoma City. His energy, his aura, his ideas helped legitimize basketball in Denver.

“He brought basketball to this city and maintained it and really is such a big part of our history,” Johnson said. “… He had a vision for this team and this city and made sure that it happened.”