There aren`t many stadiums around that have stained glass windows in them. But then again, there aren`t many stadiums designed, in part, by frustrated cartoonists who amassed small fortunes building church furnishings. The Odeum in Villa Park is not exactly a typical stadium and expo center. It hosts everything from professional soccer practices to traditional ethnic weddings.
It is a family-run operation, once a hockey rink, driven into diversification by the melting prosperity of the hockey industry in the late 1970s. The diversification has apparently been successful. Du Page residents might recognize the Greco family`s twin Lincoln Continentals by their ODEUM and ODEUM 2 license plates.
A mini-McCormick Place might not be everyone`s idea of a cottage industry, but the younger son is comfortable and competent at the helm, Mom can handle the books, Sis is facile with concessions and catering, and the eldest son actually enjoys getting dirty keeping the whole place running.
Overseeing it all is a man known to most as E.G.-Emil Greco. ”The fearless leader” is a one-time owner of a Chicago semi-pro hockey team and a master renderer of the Virgin Mary.
Born in Italy, Emil Greco came to Chicago as a boy and attended the Art Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts before shipping off for the service and World War II.
”Cartoonists were my heroes; that`s what I wanted to be,” Greco said.
”But it never came to that.”
It never came to that, indeed. With the rest of his generation, he returned from the war and began looking for something to do, something that could support a home and family. Cartooning wasn`t going to cut it.
So, capitalizing on his artistic streak, he made a few pedestals for votive candles. Church architects, riding the post-war building wave with modern designs, were eager for Greco`s severe compositions. ”Instead of Greco-Roman, they were modern. It made a big hit with the architects, and that was our start,” he said.
What started was an ecclesiastical furnishings business in Chicago, then called Greco Manufacturing, that grew to be the largest of its kind in the country. The plant, which has since moved to Villa Park under the name PEP Industries, turned out votive light stands, shrines and bronze and aluminum relief statues of holy figures.
So when it came time to build the Odeum in the early 1970s, Greco added his own personal touch: stained-glass representations of a hockey player, tennis player Billie Jean King and boxer Muhammad Ali, all coming ablaze in azure and vermilion every time the sun sets.
Ask him how he came to own an expo center in Du Page, and he will give you a smile and a simple ”I`m trying to figure that out myself.” But with some effort, the story can be pieced together.
Being successful in his business, Greco looked to other ventures. What he found to dabble in was ownership of a semi-pro hockey club, the Chicago Warriors.
And that led to yet another idea, building a place for the team to play and practice. But a single rink wouldn`t do. Greco was thinking big. He envisioned a sprawling indoor complex that would house three rinks. It would be known as the Hat Trick.
And he built what he envisioned (”I just got money from wherever I could,” Greco said). But business, good at first, shortly began tailing off. ”Suddenly hockey wasn`t such a big deal anymore,” he said. The family began to feel the pinch from the huge electricity bills and the high overhead required to keep three rinks frozen.
An avid sports fan, Greco began to notice that soccer was taking off in the United States. He had a hunch that it could be not just the sport of the future but the sport of his future. He melted the hockey rinks, drained away the water and installed artificial turf. The Grecos were in the soccer business.
”Once the ice was gone, we found things were much more flexible,” said younger son Phil Greco. ”One thing led to another, and we just became more and more diversified.”
The Odeum is 96,000 square feet of empty floor space with a seating capacity of 5,200. The Grecos have filled it with dirt for a horse show, 300 tons of sand for a beach party with the Beach Boys and Frankie Avalon, and a mountain track for BMX bicycle races.
Their operating philosophy is to contract out as little as possible, to keep everything in house, in the family. They don`t rent tables; they own 600 of them. They don`t rent chairs; they own 3,000 of them. They don`t rent booths; they don`t rent stages. They have 5,000 yards of carpeting that they can slap on the concrete floors so that they don`t have to rent that either.
Hot dogs and popcorn and beverages are sold by M.G. Concessions, which the Grecos own. It`s named after Mom, who goes by the initials M.G. The Odeum`s Christian events are booked by PEP Industries, which stands for Phil, Emil and Patrick, the older son. They own that, too.
”Having it in-house gives us flexibility and saves us time,” said Phil Greco. ”We can rely on ourselves. And it saves us in costs and becomes a cost-saver for our client.”
But the staple business for the Odeum these days is soccer. The three $100,000 soccer fields can be set up in about four hours and can be broken down in less than two hours. ”We`ve got (artificial) turf coming out of our ears,” said Phil Greco.
Until the Chicago Sting soccer team suspended operations recently, the Odeum was the training facility for the club. It still hosts a number of indoor soccer leagues.
”When they come indoors, this is the hub,” said Phil Greco. ”That`s what keeps us going. It`s our backbone.”
But that backbone supports a number of other ventures, including their increasing interest in Christian rock music.
”It is just as loud as rock and roll, but the lyrics are a little different,” Phil Greco said. ”There is no drinking, no smoking and you feel real good about it.”
Where praise echoes one night, punches fly another. In June, the Odeum hosted a big-time lightweight boxing match between Johnny ”Super D”
Duplessis and Louie Lomeli that was broadcast live, via satelite, over ABC.
Dealing with all the lawyers and agents and slick show-biz people seems to come easy to Phil Greco, who, as general manager, runs the business end of things.
”I think Philip is a damn good businessman,” said his father. ”When you are dealing with the kind of people who do sports and entertainment, you have to be very sharp and elegant. He can handle them.”
”You hear a lot about family businesses; it isn`t always easy,” said Phil Greco. ”But my father and I really have become close friends. We go to the driving range or dinner and we talk about business, but we talk as friends.”
Said daughter Francine, ”There`s a lot of fringes working for your family. You can`t get fired.”
More seriously, though, she, too, finds that the rewards of working with her family run deeper than they have with other jobs she has held.
”Your achievements are much higher in a family business because you know they will always be there,” she said. ”In other places, when it gets tough, people walk.”
And you think of all the companies that have problems with the people who run their till. ”If you can`t trust your mom, who can you trust?” asked Phil Greco.
The future of this family enterprise apparently hinges on how well it grows with Du Page. ”When we came out here, we were pioneers,” said Emil Greco.
The growth of Du Page, along with the family`s willingness to diversify and keep its facility as flexible as possible, has done much to make the Odeum viable.
”We kind of grew up with Du Page County, and this building is finally coming into its own,” Emil Greco said.
