Brad Schrade’s article does a good job describing how Boots insinuated himself into the NHL realm but only touches on the true nature of Boots Del Biaggio. Let me provide a little insight. I have known that guy for over twenty years and I have never met a more self-aggrandizing, light-weight in my life. From my perspective, everything he has done in the past 20+ years has been to further his own personal agenda. Boots traded on his father’s modest, well-deserved business success to portray himself as a player in the banking and finance world. Keep in mind that he was selling office equipment about the time his dad sold the beer distributorship. Six months later he was the founder and director of a bank. He had dad and several other family friends to thank for that. The truth is Boots knew nothing about banking but had plenty of enablers willing to perpetuate the charade. Heritage Bank professionals eventually pushed him out of active involvement because he was clueless. Evidently, Boots was frustrated by Heritage Bank’s ‘sluggish profits’. That says a lot. Banks are in the ‘low risk, low return’ business. Margins are always thin, and a young, small community bank is not expected to make big profits. Boots did not have the tenacity or commitment to learn a craft. Community bankers were beneath him. He wanted more… and fast. Sand Hill Capital was Boots’ effort to become a big star in Silicon Valley. Clearly his objective was to parlay an unremarkable, short-term career in community banking into tech-sector ‘high finance’. The problem was that he now was in even deeper water than before. Boots was not well-connected in the technology industries and out of his depth. No MBA, no experience… and no established Sand Hill Road firm would ever consider hiring him. So he cobbled together a few third-tier players and started his own firm to go bottom-fishing. Pure hubris. The dot.com bubble had a ways to go so it was easy money for awhile. Everyone was drinking the Koolaid, but predictably he made a mess of things and again left day-to-day operations to the people that had some understanding of the finance world. The whole hockey nonsense was a real mystery to me. What was Boots Del Biaggio doing investing in a hockey team in Nashville? His friends all thought it was great. I was convinced it was pure unadulterated ego-driven, ponzi-scheme BS. Upon reflection the hockey ‘investment’ is very consistent with Boots’ previous activities. What better than to be a passive investor in a sports franchise 2000 miles away? As such, he is able to maintain his high-profile status as a society VIP and never have to actually do anything. The only challenge was how to pay for it. A quick word on the charity activities. Bullshit. Boots was only interested in the photo ops and the fawning praise from his society friends. I believe Boots is a shallow, self-centered ego-maniac. Others claim he is a narcisist. Either way, the auctions and fund-raising were simply more opportunities for him to perpetuate this myth of self-importance. From a practical perspective he used these events to keep his pretty wife and himself busy. Remember this key fact: For the last several years Boots has had no job nor any other professional responsibilities. Sure he could run around with retired NHL players and pretend to make deals, volunteer time and give money. He nothing else to do… and now we discover committed fraud to pay for it. The bottom line on Boots is that he has always felt entitled to the good life without making sacrifice. The house in San Jose exemplifies this so well. It was so much larger and more opulent than the home his parents lived in for so many years. His parents are fine, hard-working and sincerely charitable people. With Boots it has been nothing but smoke and mirrors. He never took the time to learn anything… except bank fraud. It seems he figured that out.

Posted by Boots Buddy on 10/19/08 at 01:08 PM ET

Wow. Quite a response you got there. Gotta wonder who that was… Can you track IP addresses for comments on Kuklas

Posted by pwnicholson from Nashville, TN on 10/19/08 at 07:29 PM ET