Friday, August 19, 2011

My Dad.... A Phoenix Icon

My dad, Herb Lieb, passed away on Feb. 24, 2011, after just celebrating his 91st birthday. Dad was born in Chicago, left to fight in WWII and actually landed on Normandy Beach. After the war, he met my mom, Sharon. They lived in several locations before they divorced. My brother Michael and I moved with our mom to Atlanta and dad moved to Phoenix in 1965. Dad became partners with Geri Kagel in Kagel's ladies’ store in Park Central Mall. In 1970, he opened Herb's Underground at Central and Clarendon avenues, which was Phoenix's first disco. He sold the Underground after three years  and then had Jerry Hassett build the Jockey Club Nightclub in 1976, which was located at 20th Street and Camelback and was the first private disco in Phoenix.  I graduated from college in 1978 with visions of playing professional baseball but instead I was hired to manage the Jockey Club at 22–and what a run it was. I met so many great people through my dad and even hired a disc jockey from another club, MaryAnn Ortiz, who worked for me (I mean I worked for her) for five years.                                                                    In 1986, MaryAnn and I got married and now we have two college- age kids, Sean and Juliann. In  1989, Burt Lewin, Mal Straus and Mike Hayes worked with dad to open another Jockey Club and we opened at Central and Camelback. Once again, I met wonderful people and we enjoyed this club until 1986 when we sold it to Sweet Tomatoes.                                                                 My dad then retired and started to enjoy his life without the burden of a business to run. Michael and I really enjoyed visiting dad twice a year when we were younger and it was truly amazing how many people my dad knew from going to Rocky's Hideaway, Bobby McGee’s (where dad had a booth  reserved for him at every location) and the other places where all the Phoenicians used to hang out. I also remember how wonderful dad's friends were to Michael and me. Instead of treating us like the little punks we were they always treated us respectfully, like we were adults.
As my dad grew older, the respect his friends had for him just grew stronger. They all had stories about dad and they all used to tell me how he always had time for them no matter what the situation was. He was like a second father to many people out there. The greatest tribute to my dad was the more than 275 people who attended his funeral and the more than 100 cards that my brother and I have received over the past four weeks. My kids and my brother’s kids, Stephanie and Jeffrey, gave eulogies about what a great grandpa dad was and there were eulogies from his friends. A special  thanks to the many people who were there the past few weeks to make my dad's last few days comfortable:
Rabbi Herring, Bill Saul, Mike Davis, Bob Sikora, Jan and Wendall Chapman, Arlene Copley, Sherri and Sandy Germaine, Shannon Lieb and his grandkids. There will never be any more stories from dad but there will be hundreds about dad for the years to come. We also have CDs of his numerous birthday roasts. Dad, I wish I could hear one last story from you but just know that I love you very much. Your legacy is the many friends that you left behind and also the wonderful family that loved you dearly.                                                                                       Guess what, dad? You now have a new captive audience to tell your many stories to.
WE MISS YOU.

Summer is Busy at New Office!

I am trying to think of words of wisdom for this month's column but I find myself very tired. Long days of working? No...it is three nights in a row having my wife Mary Ann wake me up at 2 a.m. while I am in a deep coma to tell me my son is still not home yet. I thought it was our son but not in this instance. I pretended I did not feel the hits on my arm nor hear the yelling but to no avail. I  assume I am not the only dad who has experienced college kids adjusting to parental control again after being away for 9 months. Anyway, belated Happy Father's Day to everyone.                I have now been part of North Central's newest Real Estate company, HomeSmart, for more than three months now. Our office consists of more than 30 seasoned veterans who have had incredible success over the past 10 years-plus and our particular group is called HomeSmart Elite. I have never been part of such a consistently strong group of people.
Our first month we had Mayor Phil Gordon cut the ribbon for our office and welcome us to North Central. The next month City Councilman Sal Diccicio spoke to our group. Recently, we had the director of admissions at All Saints and Xavier as well as Jeff Glosser, from Brophy, who is the assistant vice principal, as well as the activities director. I even exposed Jeff's previous career as stunt double for Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf, in which he was a former gymnast at LMU and did the basketball dunking scene. Sorry, Jeff, to expose your checkered past!! In addition we had three mayorial candidates speak and our residential appraiser guru, John Fournier, talked about the new requirements for his industry.
Our company, HomeSmart Elite, is the number-one selling and listing real estate company in the North Central area in just three months. No matter who is hired from our office, the other agents will do whatever we can to help each other sell their listing. Our office will tour the new listings and give our opinions and we advertise in the North Central News. Every agent in our office has had long-term experience and the benefit to the buyers and sellers is beyond belief. HomeSmart Elite will get the job done for you.
I am thankful to the buyers who have purchased more than 50 homes from me in 2011 and the more-than 60 homes that we have listed so far this year. It may be a slow market but we will work every day to get your home sold. Besides advertising in three pages in this paper, I have a huge advantage in that HomeSmart places our listings in more than 200 web sites. Our new president, who just came to us from Vienna, places our listings on his social media pages all over the world. This is why I changed offices after 17 years of being at Realty Executives and made the move to HomeSmart. Our company is far and away light years ahead of our competitors.
Now I am going back to sleep because my son just got home at the crack of 3 a.m. The good news is that he will be fully rested to go to work at the Brophy Sports camp in three hours...oh, to be young again.The good news is I can sleep for a few hours until I get beat up again waiting for my son to come home. By the way, only a few more months until college starts again. Have a safe summer.

Bobby Lieb
Associate Broker
HomeSmart Elite
602-761-4646 (office)
602-376-1341 (mobile)

We Have Come a Long Way!

I was very intrigued in watching the Women's World Cup last week because it brought back wonderful memories of coaching my daughter Juliann in soccer, basketball, softball, baseball, T-ball in RAMMS and at All Saints. The last few years she hated dad coaching her after 9 years, but she was stuck with dad. I was a very disciplined coach and had lots of practices and expected the team to be at practice
with no excuses unless they had 105 fever, broken toe, broken arm, in the hospital ... never "I
wanted to be at my friend's house to watch TV." I would run them unless it was a legitimate excuse. Juliann was usually the only girl on the team so it was easy yelling at the boys for not showing up. Guess what? We usually won and the parents appreciated my effort since it taught the kids that they could not quit something that they agreed to start. (Okay, so we made them play most of the time without a choice). I simply hated to lose at anything..                                      Juliann played boys’ baseball until she was in fifth grade and actually made the All Star team every year. In fifth grade I made that tough transition to coach girls sports for the very first time and I was nervous.Was I allowed to yell at the girls for not coming to practice like I did the boys? Were they allowed to have friends in the dugout or walk around while we were at bat talking to their friends and family and not cheering on their teammates? I never would have allowed the boys to do this but the girls seemed to do this because other coaches/parents let them do this so it felt weird to me because they were just girls and they did not care about winning or being told what to do at practice or during the games. RIGHT? No.WRONG. I only knew one style and whether it was boys or girls, I was going to treat them the same. You don't show up to practice and you did not have a legitimate excuse, you ran. If you got mad at me, so what? It is not fair to your teammates to not come to practice and expect to play in the games. My coaches in the first year of girls’ softball were Chuck Whetstine and Mark Hester, who were great. Chuck never learned my signals for the girls but I understood as an attorney he had issues. We made it to the championship game that first year and lost by one run..
The following year, when Juliann was in sixth grade, our team went 16-0 and beat Kim
Ashton's team 19-7 in the finals. Kim was very upset to be playing me in the finals because her
team was sponsored by Bobby Lieb–Realty Executives and she had her team cover my name up on their jerseys with tape.
Ok, so what is this all about? Simple–the girls and their parents are as competitive as the boys and they do not want to be treated any differently. It took me a few practices and one game to learn that. We have come a long way and I really am proud of my daughter helping me become a believer in girls sports and see those competitive juices flowing.
Please support Mark Hester as he is helping sponsor this column (see his ad below). I have been working with Mark as my insurance agent for almost 10 years.

The Lieb Group
Bobby Lieb
Associate Broker
HomeSmart Elite
602-761-4646 (office)
602-376-1341 (mobile)
Bobby Lieb