Control. Ever since he was a boy, he has needed to be in control. Long before he appeared out of nowhere five years ago to organize and eventually dominate the 23rd Olympic Games, Peter Ueberroth was always in charge of his life. At 16, he left home voluntarily (even though his parents never really understood why) to live and work in a nearby orphanage. He liked the independence and affection he got there.
Such great control. His bland face and laid-back manner rarely reveal his inner feelings. Those who know him well say Ueberroth is a fascinating paradox, an idealist with a salting of cleverness, a man of high principle who is willing to go right to the edge of scruple to reach his goals. He once described himself as both shy and ruthless. Over the years he has perfected a calculating public modesty, down-playing himself about, say, his mediocre college grades. But behind the self-deprecation is a huge ego and a steely inner toughness. Everything Ueberroth does has a purpose. He is a creative energizer of people, a man unafraid to make unpopular decisions, a natural teacher and leader.
To millions of Americans the blue-eyed, sandy-haired Ueberroth is still a virtual unknown. Even his recent anointment to the apple-pie job of baseball commissioner left most of the country in the dark about him. How did he achieve such a spectacular success? What combination of strength and guile lay behind that almost inscrutable exterior? All his life Ueberroth has been in the thrall of challenges. The Olympics were clearly his greatest. He made speech after speech to his thousands of workers about how together they had to climb a majestic mountain. "I've always hunted for challenges," says Ueberroth dismissively. He is a man who has little patience for self-analysis. Was there anything in his beginnings that would explain clearly why this man, of all the accomplished people around, turned out to be so exactly right for this Olympian task?
The son of a roaming salesman of aluminum siding, Pete Ueberroth was born Sept. 2, 1937, in Evanston, Ill. His father, Victor, half German and half Viennese, with his hearty manner and curious mind, was the biggest influence in his life, says Ueberroth. Perhaps because Victor's education ended in the eighth grade, he always had an encyclopedia near by and engaged his family in mind puzzles, a drill Peter used years later to brace his Olympic employees. His mother, Laura Larson, half Swedish and half Irish, had been ill almost from the time he was born. A Christian Scientist, like her husband, she died when Peter was four.
Within a year Peter's father had remarried. His new bride, Nancy, was an accountant, and she helped clear up some of her husband's heavy debts. Six years later she had a son of her own, whom she seemed to favor. Some friends now believe this was the seed of Ueberroth's drive to achieve, the deep need to gain approval from his new mother. The family moved often, and young Pete had to adjust to a variety of schools and neighborhoods, from Iowa to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and finally to Northern California, in the town of Burlingame. By then his father was home most of the time, ill from a heart attack.