Let’s play a sports trivia game: Which Washington businessman has done the most to bring a variety of sporting events to the city? A. Abe Pollin, owner of our pro basketball and hockey teams. B. Redskins owner Dan Snyder. C. Ted Lerner, who bought the Nationals from major league baseball. D. Robert Pincus, known in local business circles as “Boy Banker.” Before last week, I would have chosen Pollin, but seven days ago, when the suits and the politicians smiled into the cameras at the Navy Memorial for the unveiling of D.C.’s first college bowl game, I spied Bob Pincus. And I thought to myself, there he goes again. First tennis, then baseball, then basketball, now football. When the bowl organizers sought out a local sponsor for their game, naturally they went to Pincus, now a top executive with Eagle Bank. “We saw it as a great opportunity,” Pincus tells me, “for the city, for the bank and the charities we work with.” Call it the Pincus trifecta: Bringing sporting events to D.C., using the event to brand his bank, spreading revenue to charities. He’s been hitting the mark since 1982 when he established the D.C. National Bank Tennis Classic at Carter Barron tennis arena. “I don’t call it sports,” he says. “I call it an additional activity to enrich the quality of life in my hometown.” Pincus was born in the Old Sibley Hospital. His father, Max, owned and ran the Pincus Grill on Bladensburg Road just over the Prince George’s County line. His mom, Lee, raised him and his three older brothers. He got an undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and an MBA at American University. In 1971 he joined D.C. National Bank as a trainee; 10 years later, at 32, he was president. Thus, Boy Banker. A year later he started the tennis tournament, which would bring Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Boris Becker and other top players to town. In 1988 he joined with developer Chip Ackridge to form one of the first groups to try and bring major league baseball to D.C. They failed at the time but began the process that eventually landed the Nationals. In 1995, Pincus joined with Republican lobbyist Pete Teeley and sports writer John Feinstein to found D.C.’s first college basketball tournament, named after Frankin National, his bank at the time; now it’s called the BB&T Classic, after Franklin merged with the bigger bank. Pincus says the annual tournament has raised more than $10 million to help children with schooling and health. Now, 26 years after Pincus got behind the city’s tennis tournament, he’s backing its first college bowl game. Proceeds from the game, scheduled on Dec. 20 to be the first in the season, will go to Wounded Warriors, a group that helps veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. “I have gone from Boy Banker to elder statesman,” he says. And along the way he’s helped make the nation’s capital a sporting capital.
