photo by: copyright Paul Grottoli

David Magley, who played for Ted Owens at Kansas University, is the commissioner of the NBL of Canada.

The pressures of running a professional sports league can turn a commissioner into a suspicious robot devoid of humor and fluent in corporate-speak.

And then there is David Magley, commissioner of the National Basketball League of Canada and a former Kansas University basketball player coached by Ted Owens.

“Normally you want the face of the league to be young and good-looking,” Magley said in a Monday night phone interview from Bradenton, Fla., his offseason home. “I’m an old and fat commissioner. Not a pretty face for a league. I look like an aging Al Bundy.”

Magley, 56, happens to have a rich basketball tradition — Mr. Indiana as a senior in high school, Academic All-American as a senior at Kansas — and a fertile business mind.

When the league was in crisis, the owners turned to Magley, figuring that combination could pump some life into it. Magley, whose first year in the NBL of Canada was as coach of the Brampton A’s, prefers to tell another version of how he ended up in the league’s top position.

“We were up 3-1 in the semifinals, and we lost,” Magley said. “So the owner said, ‘I think you need to be the commissioner.'”

He was joking, which Oklahoma City Thunder coach Billy Donovan and Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr would be glad to hear.

The eight-team professional league reached a low point when Game 7 in 2015 never was played.

“Two teams showed up at the same time for a shoot-around for Game 7, a fight broke out, one team refused to play, and it ended up being a forfeit,” Magley said. “It was scary. The league was in a perilous position.”

Magley cited a parable in the Bible — two women claiming to be the mother of one baby, King Solomon saying the only fair way to solve the dispute was to cut the baby in half, which caused one woman to cry out to give the baby to the other woman, thus revealing herself as the real mother — as an analogy for what happened next.

“Everybody wanted to win so badly that they were tearing each other apart,” Magley said. “After that, they all decided to work together.”

And Magley was the one brokering the peace for the league that will expand to 10 teams for next season.

“Not a single punch was thrown this season, and we had a great seven-game series with the top two teams playing,” said Magley, who played 14 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1982-83 season.

He implemented a drug policy and dress code and arranged for 30 scouting combines throughout North America for interested players. Each team has a $150,000 salary cap, and the minimum salary is $1,600 a month for six months, plus housing and several meals. Teams are allowed up to eight non-Canadian players.

Magley ran a variety of “sales-driven businesses” and found in each one of those that the secret to sales is, “It’s easier to listen to someone and make a sale than talk them into one.” He has applied that to his job as commissioner and said he responds to every fan who contacts him on social media.

“The London Lightning outdraws any professional basketball team outside the NBA in North America,” Magley said. “They averaged 8,000 fans. Technically, I live in London (during the season), but I actually live in my 2014 Impala. All my clothes are in it, and I stay in hotels 28 days a month and sneak to Indiana to see my wife and (four) kids.”

While working full-time in business, Magley coached high school basketball at Bradenton Christian in Florida for 11 years. He has stayed in close touch with his college coach.

“Like a father,” Magley said of Owens. “He’s in his 80’s and knows more basketball than I’ll ever know. He’s a basketball guru, maybe more now than he ever was.”

Magley is not the only KU connection in the NBL of Canada, which has a 40-game regular season. Sherron Collins played 20 games for the Windsor Express. Travis Releford finished the season with the Niagara River Lions. Kevin Young played in the league the previous season. Paul Mokeski, drafted out of KU in 1979, played 12 seasons in the NBA. He coaches the Moncton Miracles. (Magley and Mokeski once were part of the same five-player trade that sent them to the Cavs and Bill Laimbeer to the Detroit Pistons).

“Paul was my assistant one year, and we were a good cop/bad cop,” Magley said. “Mo just doesn’t mess around. I could never yell at a player because Mo already beat me to the punch.”

The MVP of the league this past season has a connection to the state of Kansas as well. Logan Stutz played at Butler County Community College and Washburn University.

“As commissioner, I get to the games an hour-and-a-half before tipoff, and I’ll shake hands and talk with the fans, ask them for suggestions,” Magley said. “Or I’ll sit down and talk to the players. It’s fun to talk to the players from Kansas. They give you the Rock Chalk and ask what it was like when I played. Lot of respect there. It’s pretty cool.”

If a KU player asks what it will take to get to the NBA, Magley might even share wisdom passed along to him from Darnell Valentine, his former All-American teammate.

“My first time in the fieldhouse, I’m playing a pickup game, and when we got done, Darnell went on the line and started running,” Magley remembered. “I went and asked my other roommate, Tony Guy, ‘Is he in trouble?’ Tony said, ‘No.’ I’m looking around the fieldhouse, and coach is not there to see it. Why would anybody run line drills if nobody is there to see it?”

He approached Valentine and asked: “Are you in trouble?”

Valentine: “No, I’ve got someplace to go.”

Magley: “Where?”

Valentine: “The NBA.”

Magley: “You’re only a sophomore. Why are you doing this now?”

Valentine: “That’s why I’m going there and you’re not.”

That conversation, Magley said, changed his work ethic.

“After that, I started working harder, got into shape, took things much more seriously,” Magley said. “I thought I was a hard worker coming out of high school. Darnell was the hardest worker I’ve ever been around.”

He must have rubbed off on Magley, who said he hasn’t taken a day off since he took the commissioner’s job May 28, 2015.