‘Ron gave me my life’: On the legacy of groundbreaking KC sports architect Ron Labinski

For decades now, Kansas City has been celebrated as the “Sports Architecture Capital of The World.” The distinction is deftly documented in Tom Waggoner’s 2021 book with David Smale (“Designed in Kansas City: How Kansas City Became the Sports Architecture Capital of the World”) and, among ample other sources, described in a 2019 Forbes article proclaiming the same.

How this unfurled and proliferated and has been sustained is a multifaceted story in itself. But the wellspring was Ron Labinski, whose legacy knows no more bounds than the unique mind and persona that animated his work.

“He kind of made the whole thing get off the ground,” Waggoner, a longtime sports architect and former managing principal for HOK in Kansas City, said Tuesday.

He added, “I don’t think there’s any competition in that.”

He was the “Pied Piper” of a movement, as his wife, Lee, put it last week. But with a vital distinction in a city teeming with hundreds of sports architects and known for being the sports headquarters of Populous, HNTB, AECOM and HOK Kansas City … among other thriving firms.

His fertile imagination made for fertile ground not merely in what he created but in what it cultivated for generations to come.

“He was the pioneer,” she said, “but the settlers are incredible.”

All of which is why Labinski, who died in January at age 85, will be recognized among other honorees on Thursday by the Kansas City Sports Commission with its T-Mobile Legacy Award to the “Sports Architecture Visionary.”

And it’s why publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Business Journal and VenuesNow paid tribute to the man who in 1983 co-founded HOK Sports — which later became Populous.

The overall tone shone through in such terms as “the godfather of sports venue design” and “the first architect to specialize in sports,” a man renowned for “foreseeing a market for modern single-sport stadiums” to replace “look-alike concrete bowls” with designs that “brought a critical source of new revenue to team owners with club seats.”

All fascinating and true …

But still only part of the dimensions of the life he began to create as a child in Buffalo, New York, drawing houses, barns and windmills, among other “architectural subjects,” as he showed The Star upon his retirement in 2000.

“And then there was one of Ebbets Field,” said Labinski, who went to high school in Ohio and earned his architecture degree at the University of Illinois. “I had drawn a bunch of players standing around and a ball flying out of the stadium. I guess you could say that was a sign.”

A sign of a life that would be recognized for innovation beginning with Kivett & Myers as project architect for Charles Deaton’s Arrowhead Stadium design.

If he “was at the bottom rung” of that process, as Lee Labinski described it, that also was a pivot point. Because it was then that he was struck by the possibilities implied by the Truman Sports Complex project that also featured Kauffman Stadium.

“Before Arrowhead, all the stadiums were built to compromise both football and baseball,” he said in 2000. “Arrowhead was the first modern stadium built solely for football. What we did here in Kansas City revolutionized the way people think about stadiums and stadium design.”

Starting within himself: The realization spurred him to make a handwritten list of NFL and Major League Baseball stadiums around the nation, when they were built and when their leases would expire. The lists themselves were a reflection of his meticulous artistry, Lee Labinski said, written with “the most lovely tiny handwriting” to detail a vision based on sightlines and a broader experience that previously were secondary at best.

That template soon led to becoming a consultant on Buffalo’s Rich Stadium (now being replaced with a new stadium being built by Populous) and becoming the lead designer/architect on Giants Stadium.

That was the basis for a friendship with owner Tim Mara that paved the way to relationships across the NFL and opening doors in realms across the world.

“He was the frontrunner out there globally,” said Earl Santee, who joined Labinski at HOK Sports in 1984, helped found Populous and now is its global chair.

Listing country after country, he added, “He went to places none of us would go.”

And led them places no one could have foreseen.

But it was right here where the charismatic man who flew more than three million miles in his life had a different sort of indelible impact.

As much as he was “fearless” in his work, as Lee Labinski put it, he also was kind and loyal and funny and lively.

By way of example: He was known to lead celebrations with a conga-line concept he liked to call a “human chain of flesh.” And the office he founded with Chris Carver, Joe Spear and Dennis Wellner featured a makeshift gong installed as a way to signal new business had arrived.

The gong, Santee said, “was really important” to a man who at once had a fatherly presence and engaged virtually anyone he met but also “was definitely a free spirit.”

“He created the culture of the practice,” Santee said, adding, “He had a way of building community, and I think that was really important. We had believers. It isn’t like a religious movement, but it is a movement that when you’re in the moment, you’re in the moment completely.”

The combination of his genius and genuineness made Labinski a man whose life resonates well beyond his vast professional achievements.

As Lee Labinski spoke of him the other day, she pulled out a folder of cards and letters and emails she received in the months since his death. Given that the messages were deeply personal, we agreed that it was most appropriate to share the sentiments without naming the senders.

But the words of so many who knew him so well, from friends to former rivals and colleagues at the pinnacle of the business, make for a tapestry of the essence of his life.

Inside the card with the cover that read, “A life is a continuous thread,” one friend wrote, “Ron’s thread spanned oceans and continents, weaving a conga line of friendships along the way.”

In a handwritten note, another friend wrote, “All of us that have had careers in sports architecture can thank Ron for creating an entire industry, none more than me. I owe everything in my career to Ron, and I only hoped he was proud of me.”

“Ron’s life work,” wrote another, created the opportunity for the “life work that has sustained our family.

As “a young architect,” another wrote, “getting to know Ron was a blessing and a blast! He made everything fun.”

Another told of knowing how many lives Ron touched and added, “But when he touched mine, it felt very special. I owe much of my professional success to the opportunities he provided … and allowed.”

Another: “Ron was always kind and treated me more than fairly. I think he was this way with everyone. He was an absolute visionary and legend in the area of sport architecture. But I will always remember him for his decency and charismatic spirit. Nearly everyone in sports architecture stands on his shoulders. He was a trailblazer and, in many ways, I owe my career to Ron.”

More succinctly but singularly moving, another wrote, “Ron gave me my life.”

When Labinski retired in 2000, his friend Lamar Hunt told The Star, “I don’t think Ron will ever completely retire. Wherever he is or whatever he’s doing, I’m sure Ron will always be drawing or doodling on something.”

And living on through an industry, yes, but also through the countless people for whom he was a beacon.