DETROIT -- On a foggy day in the Upper Peninsula a few years ago, Dan Gilbert, the billionaire owner of Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavaliers, sat outside his vacation home, watching a silhouette off in the distance.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Out in the water, Mark Hollis made a few passes. Riding a Sea-Doo, the Michigan State athletic director casually rode around, seeing if he could spot Gilbert on the shoreline.
Once he did, Hollis turned toward the beach.
"All of the sudden there was this guy, this middle-aged guy on one of those jet skis and he's getting closer and closer. I'm like, who is this guy?" Gilbert said.
As Gilbert recounted the story on Wednesday, the room stood at attention. That tends to be the case when one of the richest men in the world has the mic. There were reminders everywhere that this was Gilbert's domain. Taking the elevator at One Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, the door opens floor after floor to Quicken Loans logos.
Gilbert, a Michigan State alum, was in a second-floor presentation room on Wednesday. He sat on a stage next to Tom Izzo as Hollis stood at the podium, announcing a $15 million gift by the man of the hour and his wife, Jennifer Gilbert. The donation is essentially the final layer on a project that's been building for years -- the $50 million renovation and expansion of Breslin Center.
The announcement itself was the formal culmination of a lengthy entreaty.
"He gets right up to the dock and we know each other, of course, and I say, 'Oh, Mark, come on in,'" Gilbert said.
Hollis and Gilbert have a long relationship. It's one that's been tested. Six years ago, Gilbert tried to poach Izzo from Michigan State. In looking to rebuild his Cleveland Cavaliers franchise, he wanted to hire Izzo, trying to pull one of the biggest names in college basketball into the staid, white-collar world of professional basketball. Gilbert was "very, very torn" in doing so, he says, but choose to go ahead and try to lure Izzo from East Lansing anyway.
Izzo allowed himself to consider it. He considered the money, which Gilbert was pushing in with both hands. He considered coaching pros instead of coaching kids.
And, as Izzo admitted Wednesday, he imagined working for Gilbert. It was a plausible notion because Gilbert shares one key trait with Izzo that seems to attract one to the other: They're both nuts.
That's why Izzo says he cried after calling Gilbert to turn down the job. He couldn't leave Michigan State and going to the Cavs was anything but a sure bet. Remember, this was before LeBron James announced whether or not he was staying in Cleveland. Had James called and told Izzo he was staying, history's hands may have pointed in a different direction. Instead, James went to Miami and the Cavs hired Byron Scott. He was promptly fired three years later with a 64-166 record.
Through Gilbert's courtship of Izzo, everyone understood exactly why the Michigan State alum was trying to pry the coach away from the alma mater. Who could blame him? Testing Izzo's hall-of-fame college credentials in the professional realm was a worthwhile venture for a man who built an empire on mortgage lending. Still, though, sometimes business can turn personal. Gilbert taking Izzo from the MSU athletic department would have been the equivalent of Hollis coming to Detroit and draining the electricity out of One Woodward Avenue.
Through all of it, though, everyone remained practical.
In the end, Izzo went with the sure thing and kept his train rolling at Michigan State. He's made six more NCAA Tournament appearances, won another Big Ten title and made a trip to the 2015 Final Four. Anything but jilted, Gilbert said Wednesday, "I think Tom made the absolute right decision to stay at the university ... he made the right choice for himself and the family, and certainly for Michigan State. I totally respected that."
Which is why Wednesday pulled this story full circle. Over the course of a few years, Gilbert went from being the suitor to being sought. By Izzo staying at Michigan State, the university needed to assure that its prized investment had proper facilities and devised a $50-million ambition. In turn, Izzo, forever an MSU salesman, did his part, along with Hollis and others, to work toward it. They did the boot-on-the-ground work, just like they did for previous gifts. Alumnus and philanthropist Bob Skandalaris pledged $10 million in October 2014, much of which went Breslin's expansion and included the naming of the Izzo Hall of History. Draymond Green put up over $3 million for a strength and conditioning center.
Then there was Gilbert. He was the final piece.
Back to the shoreline.
"So (Hollis) comes in," Gilbert continued, "and basically, it was like, one of those things, (he says), 'I'm not leaving till we finalize this.' We really wanted to go out to dinner, so it was like, that's it, and we got it done."
In reality, that was only one affair in a long courtship. Donations like the one revealed Wednesday don't occur overnight. They take diligence. They take resilience and persistence. They take countless conversations and ideas among numerous people on both sides, from Michigan State athletics and development to the philanthropic people in Gilbert's corner.
Sometimes they also take a ride on the Sea-Doo.
Really, a deal like this takes whatever it takes, and the people willing to make it happen.
"That's a small part of the story," Gilbert said.