‘He made us big-time’: Hugh McColl reflects on Panthers founder Jerry Richardson
It was 60 years ago that Hugh McColl Jr. first loaned Jerry Richardson some money — $25,000 by his recollection, to build a Hardee’s in the Charlotte area.
The two men became close friends and stayed that way. And as they rose through the business world together, that friendship turned into one of the most important reasons the NFL came to Charlotte at all. With the backing of McColl’s Bank of America, Richardson had the financial wherewithal to fulfill his dream of bringing the NFL to the Carolinas.
Richardson died at age 86 on March 1, and his public memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday in Spartanburg at a building on Wofford’s campus that is named for Richardson, one of the college’s most well-known graduates. McColl, 87, agreed to a phone interview with me on Wednesday and was intent on remembering Richardson at his best.
“He made us big-time in the sports world,” McColl said of Richardson. “The NFL is it in sports, and bringing the NFL here to Charlotte was a remarkable thing.”
McColl said he loaned Richardson’s companies money numerous times. It started with the $25,000 loan and later making another loan for exactly $99,000 because McColl, who hadn’t yet risen to become chairman and CEO at Bank of America and its predecessors (NCNB and NationsBank among them), wasn’t yet allowed to loan more than $100,000.
McColl and his fellow bank employees would eventually loan Richardson “hundreds of millions of dollars,” he recalled, allowing Richardson to finance both the NFL’s $140 million expansion fee and the building of what would eventually be known as Bank of America Stadium (also financed by contributions from the then-novel concept of PSLs, or permanent seat licenses). The Panthers began play in 1995 and Richardson owned them until 2018, with McColl often joining Richardson to watch the games together from Richardson’s end zone skybox. The team made two Super Bowls during Richardson’s time as owner, losing them both.
McColl and Richardson were contemporaries in numerous ways. They were only 13 months apart in age, with McColl slightly older. And they were aggressive businessmen, intent on climbing toward the top of their professions and in the process becoming two of Charlotte’s best-known citizens. Their kids were roughly the same age, too, and their families liked each other and often vacationed together. McColl recalled a nine-day Grand Canyon rafting trip with Richardson’s family when all of their children were much younger, as well as numerous other excursions.
“We went through a phase where we had dirt bikes, and up in the mountains, above Morganton, and we rode dirt bikes with our kids,” McColl said. “We did all kinds of stuff together. We sometimes played basketball games together, with the McColls against the Richardsons. All the McColls are short, so those were some rough games.”
McColl said Richardson was “very formal, even as a young man” and intent on producing “good customer service” at all of his businesses.” Of the Hardee’s hamburger chain that started Richardson’s food empire in the 1960s, McColl remembered fondly that at one point you could buy both a cheeseburger and fries “for 37 cents, and that included tax.”
As each man’s profile grew in the business world, they also became entwined in philanthropic ventures. They combined on donations to help kick-start the new UNC Charlotte football program, where the 15,314-seat stadium is called Jerry Richardson Stadium and the field is named McColl-Richardson Field. Each has also donated millions of dollars to non-sports charitable organizations, often to the arts.
When I asked about Richardson selling the Panthers following a 2017 Sports Illustrated story detailing numerous instances of workplace misconduct, McColl bristled. According to a 2018 NFL press release, the NFL would independently probe and substantiate many of the allegations raised by the magazine article and also uncover “similar matters” that were not previously known. Richardson was fined a then-league record $2.75 million after the investigation concluded. Richardson sold the team to current owner David Tepper in 2018.
But McColl said media outlets bringing up the way the Panthers and Richardson finally split was “beating a dead horse,” and that all of his own memories of Richardson were pleasant ones. He said he didn’t want to comment on whether he wished that Richardson hadn’t sold the team, nor on Tepper, nor on whether he will be one of the speakers at Richardson’s memorial service at Wofford Saturday.
The last time McColl saw Richardson, he said, was “six months to a year ago.” Jerry and Rosalind Richardson had McColl and his wife, Jane, over at their Charlotte home for lunch. McColl said Richardson had “physically slowed down a great deal” by that time in 2022. When he received the call about Richardson’s death earlier this month, McColl said, he was saddened but not shocked.
“Truthfully, I wasn’t surprised,” McColl said, “because he had been very sick. ... I’m 87 years old, and I’ve lost too many friends.”
Richardson, though, was one of McColl’s favorite people, and they were close until the end. Of Richardson’s legacy, McColl concluded: “He did a lot of great things for this city. And you don’t have to be a genius to figure out what they were.”
