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Smelling the Roses
By Chris Williston, IBAT President and CEO
The Texas Independent Banker
Volume XXXIII No. 6 November/December 2007 |
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 I never thought of Ted Quadlander as much of a baseball coach. The wiry old tobacco spittin’ man was crusty to the core, hardly ever uttering a positive word about life and certainly not about the play of the “One Hour Martinizing Indians.”
But then again, there wasn’t much positive to say about the One Hour Martinizing Indians. We were the perennial “cellar dwellers.” Night after agonizing night we would find a way to lose that summer of 1967, and ol’ Ted wouldn’t think about cutting us any slack, despite our best efforts. He made us feel like what we were…losers.
I wish I could tell you what it was that changed between 1967 and the next summer. We did, after all, field pretty much the same team. But there was nothing about the ’68 team that closely resembled the ‘67 team. This was a team on fire from the opening pitch that summer and through the regional playoffs, with a record of 31-1. Even Ted became an optimist.
But Ted Quadlander had seen too much baseball in his day to know that the streak wouldn’t last forever. I shall never forget his pep talk to the team before the State tournament. With brown streaks of Days Work tobacco streaming down his chin he began.
“You boys have accomplished a lot this year. Regardless of what happens here today, you need to take pride in what you have accomplished. It doesn’t come easy and it won’t get any easier from this moment on. Let’s celebrate the past, with an eye to the future and full knowledge that our job is not yet done. Win or lose though, have fun today. Remember, there are only two teams here. Celebrate that you are one of them.”
Ted should have been a lobbyist. After years of what can only been described as lackluster at best, the community banking industry has hit its stride in Washington D.C. For years we watched and pleaded our case as regulation and legislation was added to an already overburdened industry, dampening our spirits and questioning whether there would ever come a day again when we would claim a victory. Bankers and, yes, their industry representatives too, began to lose hope that somehow their voice was being heard. The lowest of lows came shortly after the banking industry had won a landmark case before the U.S. Supreme court to rein in untethered credit union membership expansion in 1998, only to lose the issue handily in Congress later in the year.
But still we persisted and our persistence has paid off. For the past nine years, community banks have fared well. The passage of Sarbanes/Oxley notwithstanding, community banks have seen the introduction and passage of new bankruptcy laws, modernization of deposit insurance, expansion of Subchapter S provisions, and the beginning of much needed regulatory relief.
Just as important, the industry has been successful in beating back the credit unions’ attempt to expand their commercial lending authority and attempts by the Farm Credit System to do the same. Hopefully by the time this article is published, Congress will have passed a permanent prohibition on commercial firms and banking powers through the expansion of industrial loan companies.
This hasn’t happened by accident. We applaud and are proud to support the aggressive efforts of ICBA to place issues of importance to our industry at the forefront.
We have had a good run indeed, but as history tells us, this is no time for complacency. We must be all the more diligent in fostering relationships with our elected officials, bolstering our political action committee efforts, and not be shy about pleading our case whenever there is a case to be made.
For one brief moment in time, it is time to celebrate our accomplishments, to smell the roses, the very thing Ted was trying to convey to us that day.
But let us do so with the full knowledge that the bloom of the rose is short lived. The thorns are always there.
Editor’s Note: The author would not reveal the fate of the ’68 One Hour Martinizing Indians and their quest to win the State Pony League title. All he would say is that “they had fun.”
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