Pat Croce

Pat Croce channels boundless energy and passion into everything he pursues from building physical therapy empire to serving as Philadelphia 76ers president to treasure hunting adventures. He speaks on passion-driven success and entrepreneurial mindset and maintaining enthusiasm despite setbacks. Pat’s career demonstrates the power of genuine enthusiasm. His infectious passion attracts opportunities and opens doors and inspires others to invest time and resources in his ventures. This energy becomes competitive advantage money cannot buy. Organizations value Pat’s emphasis on loving what you do. His diverse career spanning healthcare sports management and adventure pursuits shows how passion enables excellence because work feels like play when you genuinely love it. His presentations address turning obstacles into opportunities and maintaining positive attitude under pressure and recovering from failures that would crush less resilient people. Pat’s experience includes business failures and personal challenges he discusses candidly. Pat discusses the importance of preparation and while passion provides energy it must combine with discipline and skill development and strategic thinking. His success required both heart and head working together. What makes Pat’s message powerful is authenticity. He embodies the enthusiasm he preaches making his message contagious. Audiences feel energized by his presence and encouraged to pursue their passions with similar intensity. Beyond motivation Pat addresses practical business building and customer service excellence and team culture creation. His Sports Physical Therapists Centers grew from single location to national success through attention to operational excellence not just passion. Pat discusses his 76ers presidency including the challenges of rebuilding losing franchise and creating winning culture. His experience demonstrates how enthusiasm combined with strategic changes can transform organizational performance and public perception. His adventures pursuing shipwrecks and historical treasures demonstrate that meaningful life continues evolving beyond traditional career success. He encourages audiences to keep discovering new passions and challenges. Companies wanting to inject energy and enthusiasm and sales teams needing motivation and entrepreneurs building businesses and anyone feeling stuck find Pat’s passion-driven approach transformative for remembering that life and work can be exciting adventures rather than obligations when approached with genuine enthusiasm and commitment to excellence.

Pat Croce graced the cover of Success magazine as the first person to ascend from the training room to the boardroom of a professional sports team. His remarkable success as a physical therapist and pioneer in the sports medicine field to the colorful leader responsible for the resurrection of the Philadelphia 76ers as an NBA championship contender has been defined as one of the most amazing stories in sports history.

Through his business savvy, dynamic personality, and emphasis on customer service, Croce built Sports Physical Therapists, a sports medicine empire of 40 centers in 11 states, into a top-ten finalist for the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Following the sale of his company, Croce focused his entrepreneurial spirit and indestructible positive attitude on the purchase of the NBA’s last place team, the Philadelphia 76ers, in 1996. During his five-year tenure as President, the team rose from worst to first in the NBA standings and broke franchise records in attendance, revenue, merchandise, and consecutive wins on the way to the NBA Championships against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2001.

Croce has served as a commentator on NBA on NBC and the Summer Olympic Games, hosted a nationally syndicated daily show, Pat Croce: Moving In, for Sony Pictures Television, and served as a panel judge on ABC’s American Inventor. He just completed a pilot, Family Business, for The History Channel.

Croce continues to fill requests as a nationally renowned motivational speaker, and is the author of the New York Times bestseller I Feel Great and You Will Too!, the motivational tome 110%, and the business book Lead or Get Off the Pot!

He has also authored several books on his piratical passion. They include the historical books Pirate Soul and Pirates of St. Augustine; the children’s picture book My Pop-Pop Is a Pirate; and the instructional book The Pirate Handbook.

Croce is the founder of the world renowned St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum. He was the proud recipient of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, featured on the cover of Inc. magazine as “The Dale Carnegie of the 21st Century,” and honored with A&E Biography’s Community Hero Award. He is Chairman of Pat Croce & Company, which has controlling interests in three notable Key West restaurant/bars.

I Feel Great and You Will Too! How to Score Big in Life

Ten Commandments of Customer Service

The Power of Positive Thinking

Achieve the Impossible

Negotiating for Success