LOS ANGELES >> Western Michigan athletic director Kathy Beauregard received an unexpected phone call from a Beverly Hills billionaire on Oct. 8, 2014.
Alec Gores was on the other end to pitch a potential football game.
The previous night, Gores, a private equity investor, had met USC president Max Nikias over dinner in Los Angeles. And he had an idea.
Gores had been on Western Michigan’s football team during the 1974 and 1975 seasons, before graduating from the university in 1977 and later founding the Gores Group, a private equity firm.
When he reached Beauregard by phone on that October day, Gores relayed part of his conversation with Nikias.