![[Baker] “I’m going to open up a foundation and we’re going to get black people in here” Ballmer declared. He attracted basketball talent and aided them with a series of questionable tactics. One star player stayed at a $6 million mansion. They may have violated Washington state’s prep-sports rules.](https://www.rawchili.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/4Acq98xDm23dYKg_lTaCrOOwc6cdY3cpC3e0h31dgOo-1200x1024.png)
By the time Steve Ballmer’s oldest son reached his junior year at Lakeside School, the basketball program was in disarray.
The Lions finished the 2008 season with just two wins, losing every game within a Seattle league that was otherwise producing NBA talent. One loss was by a margin of 66 points.
An elite private school with an endowment of $190 million, Lakeside was better known for its academics, chess team and being the place where Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen began their alliance as students in the late 1960s.
Ballmer, however, was a basketball zealot who had been angling to own an NBA franchise, a goal finalized just last week with his $2 billion purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers. Before he had a pro team to call his own — and with all three of his kids involved with basketball at Lakeside — Ballmer focused his attention on the high-school team.
Ballmer and his allies at Lakeside attracted basketball talent to the wealthy school and aided them with a series of questionable tactics that included a new basketball-focused nonprofit, cash for a coach, an unusual admissions process and weak enforcement of academic standards. One star player stayed at a $6 million mansion as he shuffled through three years of an academic schedule that almost ensured he wouldn’t get a Lakeside diploma.
“They relaxed their academic integrity to accommodate athletes,” said Dana Papasedero, who coached baseball at Lakeside for two decades.
The tactics may have violated Washington state’s prep-sports rules, according to a Seattle Times investigation. But it all paid off: In just five years, Lakeside went from winless in its district to district champs for the first time in a quarter century.
Ballmer, who spent his high-school years at Detroit Country Day School, grew up playing basketball and wishing he had the skills to do it well.
Even as he rose up the ranks at Microsoft, where he was CEO for 14 years, Ballmer sought counsel to improve his game. The software company and the Seattle SuperSonics shared workout space in Bellevue in the early 1990s, allowing Microsoft executives to build relationships with local basketball players and their workout guides.
One of those Sonics advisers was Steve Gordon, a gregarious gym rat nicknamed Hat Man who ran basketball workouts for NBA stars, local executives and the children of both groups.
For years, Gordon led grueling 6 a.m. sessions with Microsoft executives, beginning what would become a deep friendship with Ballmer.
When Ballmer had his 50th birthday party with an exclusive guest list, Gordon was there to celebrate. Over the years, Ballmer paid for things like Gordon’s medical expenses, airline tickets, hotel rooms, legal help and a financial consultant.
Ballmer became the ultimate fan at his kids’ games, bellowing supportive cheers and comments at a volume that verged on obnoxious.
But in private, Ballmer expressed frustration with the team’s terrible performance, according to a sworn deposition from Gordon in a lawsuit that targets the two men over a business deal.
In the car after one of his son’s particularly bad games, Ballmer fumed about how Lakeside’s coach was managing the team, according to Gordon’s March deposition. During his rant, Ballmer began plotting a way to bring in new personnel.
“I’m going to open up a foundation, and we’re going to get black people in here,” Ballmer declared, according to Gordon’s testimony from March.
So the two set out to make it happen.
28 comments
Ballmer is hanging on for dear life. “Quick, how will they like me again?”
I will never understand adults giving a single shit about high school or other youth sports beyond just supporting their kids.
This sounds like a setup for Get Out 2
Why does this all just seems like the tip of the iceberg still
A 180 from Sterling is certainly one way to go about fixing your image
>One star player stayed at a $6 million mansion as he shuffled through three years of an academic schedule that almost ensured he wouldn’t get a Lakeside diploma.
Cut off the weirdest part. Are they saying he was held back by design? Sounds like something out of a movie
This article is 10 years old by the way, and honestly I don’t think pouring money into improving his son’s high school basketball team is necessarily a bad thing. This does show a willingness to skirt the rules though, and Ballmer had also shown that willingness around the same time in the NBA, when he attempted to violate cap rules around 2015ish iirc. It was chalked up to him being a new owner & nothing came of it.
Frankly if any one of us walked into billions of dollars we’d probably do similar. He’s a hoop freak just like all of us are
Have you ever seen that movie Foxcatcher? The more I find out about him, Ballmer is reminding me of John DuPont.
I think he’s done a great job as an owner.
This season they’ve made tickets extremely affordable. You can buy a season ticket on the wall and include up to two kids for $500 for all home games.
So a family of up to 6 could get season tickets for $1000. It’s just a little too far away otherwise I’d buy them even if I could make just half the games
The kicker is his kid’s team still didn’t win a championship.
Balmer’s always been a scumbag.
So he tampered even at that level?
>“I’m going to open up a foundation and we’re going to get black people in here”
This honestly feels like that movie 43 skit where the players are asking their coach for advice and he’s like “brother you are black, they are white, we are going to dunk all over them”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8bw4-7Rk9aI
Pablo has more ammo, he never releases everything during the first episode. Waits for the denials, and then hits them with more evidence. We are still in the top of the 2nd inning of this saga
Wait a sec. A high school has a $200 million endowment? Wtf do you even do with that as a high school?
read the title and thought this was an r/nbacirclejerk post
Detroit Country Day. All makes sense now.
Zes
That Lakeside community hated Ballmer for bringing in all those kids.
I don’t think being racist is the answer
well, thats something…
Dude is what you would call a habitual line-stepper.
Ballmer went on ESPN and welcomed a full investigation.
Well, here you go.
This might rock the NBA as hard if not harder than the reffing scandal. As a fan, its hard to trust the nba ever. Beginning of the end of a business. Fandom will always be there for the sport, but I cant invest my time, energy and money into something like this. At this point, just call it wrestling and entertainment rather than a sport
i went to hs school there during then. crazy time. ama
Who cares? Isn’t this basically what all elite HS do?
College is where adults study for a career. High school is where kids study for a well rounded education to elevate the basic education level of the population. I don’t care about college lowering their academic standard for sports because it was never mandatory to begin with. But it should never happen in high school.