Author Ron Maierhofer lives in Alexandria Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., with his wife Sandra. They have eight children and seventeen grandchildren. He has spent a lifetime in the sport of soccer, playing at youth, club, collegiate, professional and national team levels. A graduate of Cornell University, Ron is a former USA Pan American-Olympic Team member and former owner of the Denver Avalanche of the Major Indoor Soccer League. Now a sports management consultant and entrepreneur, he is currently associated with Sports Club Management, LLC, a national company, providing soccer enrichment and online learning programs to young children under the trade name KinderKickIt. The author has published over one hundred articles on soccer in community newspapers and magazines, but this is his first book. He is finishing his second soccer book, The Principles of Team Play, which is expected to be available in late 2009.

No Money Down, How to Buy a Sports Franchise, is the author’s account of his journey accomplishing his dream to be a professional sports team owner. His story takes place during the 1979 to 1983 time period. Prior to becoming a sports team owner, he headed up sales, marketing and operations for an information marketing company called Information Handling Systems (IHS)where he was a major part of its growth. He joined IHS in 1971, when its sales were about $3.0 million. Today, IHS is a public company and has over $1.5 billion in sales.

The author was an all-around athlete in high school and college, with letters in six sports – soccer, lacrosse, track, baseball, basketball and wrestling. He was a soccer All-American while at Cornell and graduated in 1960. He was elected President of his alumni class after graduation and served in that role for five years. Later, Ron was elected to Cornell’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986 and to the Athletic Hall of Fame of his high school, the Park School of Buffalo.

After graduation from college he joined Standard Oil of Ohio. Between 1960 and 1980 he had a variety of sales and executive roles with both small and Fortune 500 companies. Since 1983 he has been primarily an entrepreneur, focusing on companies in software learning technology. He developed educational and soccer-related online learning content, which is marketed through the Internet, DVD’s and other electronic media.

The author has been a guest lecturer at a number of universities with sports marketing programs. These include, Mary Washington University, St. John’s University, New York University, University of Denver and the University of Colorado.