2014 DRESL Hall Of Fame Inductees
Tomorrow some brave souls will don their snow pants and take to North Avenue Fields for the Fifth Annual DRESL Winter Classic, followed by an after party at Gamekeepers and a Hall of Fame induction ceremony. We caught up with this year's four honorees.
Bill Lawrence, former leasing head at Tishman Speyer, started with DRESL and commish Richie Klein from day one and played on several teams until his mid '50s. Fun memory: one time Gary Beban hit the ball so hard at Bill at second base that his wristwatch and glasses flew out into right field, resulting in his inability to find the ball. "I think he may have made it to third," Bill laughs.
US Equities EVP Drew Nieman first learned about DRESL in 1983 when he joined John Buck. (Back then JBC and Irvine combined to form one team called the Irvucks.) A college football player at Miami of Ohio, Drew initially played center field and got by speedily running down fly balls. As time wore on, he moved to pitcher and even eked out a championship with the commish as third base on his winning team. At the office, Drew’s busy working with John O’Donnell’s team on 150 N Riverside. William Blair committed, construction kicks off this summer, and delivery of the 1.2M SF building is slated for Q3 ’16, he says.
Cresa Chicago managing principal Brad Metzger is in Phoenix for the Phoenix Open (where Cresa is sponsoring a touring pro), so Richie gave us a little background. A 20-plus year industry vet, Brad’s also a “plus” handicap golfer (which means he’s really really good) and played on champsionship DRESL teams with Realbuck$ and Equis in the ‘90s. He hit the ball a ton and was human backstop at the hot corner (3rd base), Richie says. Snapped: the ’93 champion Realbuck$ squad with five future DRESL Hall of Famers: the late great Rob Salbego (back left), Richie (front row, second from left), Lee Golub (back row, middle), Drew Nieman (front row, far right), and Brad (back row, far right).
JLL managing director Michael Burns has been in the league since the beginning. He calls DRESL a friendly platform for Chicago commercial real estate to compete hard on the softball field and enjoy a beer together afterwards (or several before hitting the snowy fields). It's given him the opportunity to meet and make friends with a lot of people in the industry. Michael's bullish on the market's prospects in 2014 and he's honored to be inducted with Brad (whom he played against for many years), Bill (whom he played with in the Arthur Rubloff & Co days), and Drew, his college roommate (whom he also played with for years).
