Making it big in health clubs and wine, Saxton now wants to hoop it up

Luci Serrato and Steve Saxton, who loves wine and Beaver hoops (courtesy Steve Saxton)

Updated 1/8/2023 12:25 AM, 1/8/2023 11:11 PM

(Editor’s note: Our most recent corporate partner, Bravuro Cellars Vineyard of Amity, has agreed to a promotion with kerryeggers.com. Owners Steve Saxton and Luci Serrato will play host to two separate pairs of free wine tastings at either of Bravura’s locations — Newberg and Amity. Enter your name in the comments at the bottom of this article and include your email. We will notify the winners.)

 Steve Saxton would like to be head coach of the men’s basketball program at Oregon State.

Immediately, if not sooner.

Current Beaver coach Wayne Tinkle’s contract runs through 2027, so Saxton — who owns Bravuro Cellars Vineyard in Amity — understands he needn’t prepare for a job change right away.

On the other hand, time is of the essence. Saxton, 67, is no spring chicken. He has never coached basketball collegiately. The 1977 Oregon State graduate’s only experience with coaching the sport came in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, when he served as player/coach for an AAU team based out of Albany.

The Amity resident owned Oregon State men’s basketball season tickets for several years until dropping them this season. Saxton lists three reasons.

“Too many time conflicts with my work, the team is not interesting/entertaining enough, and it’s not reasonable for one-third to one-half of my $3,000-plus season ticket fees to go to Wayne’s personal bank account,” says Saxton, who watches every Beaver game on TV.

Saxton says he is “living my dream” with the winery he and wife Luci Serrato started in 2016. Another dream, however, would trump that one.

“I want to be the next Oregon State coach, absolutely,” Saxton says. “There are two chances of that happening. Wayne leaves on his own or the school asks Wayne to leave.

“I love what I do at Bravuro Cellars every day. If the OSU basketball job were to come available, I would pursue it. I don’t know if they would hire me, but I think they should.”

Saxton fills a wine barrel at Bravuro Cellars. The Oregon State grad has other adjustments in mind with the Beavers’ men’s basketball team (courtesy Steve Saxton)

Most would call Saxton’s goal a pipedream. Some will call him off his rocker. I wondered about that when, some time ago, when we had never met, he sent me a 178-page binded brochure called “The S5.” Sounded to me like military weaponry. Google tells me it’s actually a rank in the military.

To Steve, though, S5 stands for the “Saxton Smart Speed Synergy System.”

It is designed to turn college basketball on its axis with a warp-speed system with intention of scoring 150 points a game.

Today, I can say I know Steve Saxton. He is a bright, entertaining guy who has been successful in business and is an innovative thinker. Saxton’s Bravuro Cellars is the newest supporting sponsor for kerryeggers.com. Thanks, Steve. I’ll drink a bold red to that.

Here I want to detail Saxton’s life and career and what has led him to this point in his passion for Oregon State basketball. Before you dismiss him as a kook, read on.

•

The Saxtons have always been doers. Steve’s father, Marvin Saxton, was a city councilman in Albany for 16 years. Steve’s older brother Ron, an attorney, ran for Oregon governor on the Republican ticket in 2006, losing to Ted Kulongoski. They also have two younger sisters, Linda and Marilyn.

“We were always a political family,” Steve says. “We sat and talked politics at the dinner table every single night. It was part of the fabric of our family. It was a given in our house.”

Ron, a year and a half older, was a particular influence for Steve.

“We shared a bedroom from the time I was born until he went off the college,” Steve says. “My very first memory — I must have been four — was waking up in the night. My brother would slide down the stairs, hold my hand, take me down to the bathroom, wait for me to finish and then take me back up to bed. He was a great caring brother then; he’s the same way today.”

Steve, a 1973 South Albany High graduate who was the school’s student body president his junior and senior years, grew up an Oregon State sports fan.

“Especially basketball,” he says. “I was very active in the Albany Boys Club, and they were taking busloads of kids to football games all the time. I remember listening to the Pete Maravich game (LSU 76, OSU 68 in 1969) on the transistor radio in my bedroom.”

Shortly after earning his degree in business from OSU in 1977, Saxton opened a sporting goods store in Albany called “The Sports Page.”

“I had always wanted to have a career that combined my college degree with my passion for sports,” he says. “Health, fitness — something like that. I refused to work in a ‘job’ job. It was going to be something I enjoyed doing.”

The store didn’t last long.

“We were behind from the day we opened,” Saxton says. “Took me three years to run it in the ground. I filed for bankruptcy. I thought I knew everything. I didn’t have a clue. Fresh out of college and you think you have all the answers, and you don’t know what you don’t know. I look back now and think, ‘Why would anybody have loaned me money at that time?’”

Saxton moved to Burlingame, Calif., in 1983 to begin a career in the health club industry. He started with an entry level position at the Burlingame Athletic Club. Within a year, he was the club’s manager.

“Within five years, I was named a model manager for business savvy and sports expertise by the International Health & Racquet Sportsclub Association,” he says. “I couldn’t believe they actually paid people to work in a fitness center. It wasn’t work in the traditional sense. I was paid well to do things I enjoyed. I loved my job every day.”

Saxton then moved to another company operating a chain of high-end resort clubs in the Bay Area, where he served as vice president of operations for seven years. He spent another seven years as chief operating officer for a chain of 55 health clubs throughout California. He retired from the fitness industry after 33 years when he turned 60 in 2015. Hiring right, he says, was the key.

“I always surrounded myself with people who were better than me,” Saxton says. “I’ve always done that my entire career. I’ve never claimed to be the best in anything I did, but I find good people.”

•

Saxton and wife Luci moved gradually into the wine business.

“For 10 years, we had been involved with wine-making in the Lodi area, helping other wineries,” Steve says.

“Our third year in, we made our first barrel of wine. The next year, two barrels. The next year, three barrels. We got more and more interested and found people in Lodi who would let us learn the business from them. They shared everything.”

Saxton learned something very important as he was getting started.

“Almost every winery is started and run by a winemaker,” he says. “They’re not business people. I would ask them, ‘How much did it cost to make that barrel of wine,’ and they would say, ‘I don’t know. How would I figure that out?’

“I came in from the opposite side, from a business perspective. I’ve never seen a business run by a technician. With my model, I’m the business guy and I hire the technicians. Now we have five winemakers. We own and run the business and do sales, marketing and bookkeeping.”

While living in California, Steve and Luci would visit Oregon every year to see members of Steve’s family.

“We would go out wine-tasting, and it was all Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris, because that’s what grows here,” he says. “We had this fondness for big red wines from our time in California. We looked at the market here. We thought, ‘We could open a winery in Lodi and be just like anybody else, or we could take that same exact plan and go to Oregon and be unique.’ ”

With Oregon’s climate, grapes for big red wines — Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Petite Verdot — would not grow well. Their plan was to buy the grapes, make the wine and bottle it in Lodi and then bring it to Oregon.

“Before we opened, I talked to a number of people up here in the business about what we were considering doing,” Saxton says. “A lot of them said, ‘You’re nuts. That’s a risky business model to try here.’ ”

Steve and Luci opened in 2016 as “Bravura Cellars.” The next year, they learned that “Bravura” — which in Spanish means “great technical skill and brilliance shown in a performance or activity” — “was trademarked on Planet Earth for all time,” Steve says. So they made the most minimal change to “Bravuro.”

Saxton started with a tasting room in historic downtown Newberg in 2016, which remains a popular spot. In 2020, they purchased the Amity vineyard property and opened a second tasting room there in 2021. It has a beautiful view in a rural setting and, yes, some grapes in a vineyard.

Steve Saxton has owned and operated Bravuro Cellars Vineyard since 2020 (courtesy Steve Saxton)

“We are growing Pinot and Chardonnay,” Saxton says. “Two percent of our sales are from the Pinot and Chardonnay we grow. Ninety-eight percent comes from our wine from Lodi.”

Most of what they produce, then, is considered California wine. Bravuro Cellars, in fact, is unique.

“There are several wineries that bring Washington fruit to Oregon,” Saxton says. “They have a Washington-based winery with a secondary tasting room here. But nobody else is doing it from California.”

Bravuro Cellars produces about 2,500 cases per year, with 10-12 varietals each year. Gross sales for 2022 were $770,000. “We have set a sales record every year we have been in business,” Saxton says.

This year, in fact, Choice Wineries named Bravuro Cellars sixth on its list of the 10 best wineries from more than 900 in Oregon. Writes Choice Wineries of the Amity property: “Providing a one of-a-kind tasting experience in a gorgeous little pavilion (complete with fireplace and comfy chairs), Bravuro Cellars is paradise found.”

Saxton’s fondest wish is to apply the “focused research” he put in on developing Bravuro Cellars to the Oregon State men’s basketball team.

“I have a vision, I have created a comprehensive business plan and I have a boundless passion for OSU men’s basketball,” he says.

•

In the late 1970s, after he had opened his sporting goods store, Saxton formed an AAU team featuring mostly Oregon State alumni. He got a sponsor, Advanced Control Technology, owned by OSU alum John Walker. Ex-Beavers including Rickey Lee, Steve Smith, Don Smith, Tim Hennessy, Tony Martin, Bill McShane, Alonzo Campbell and Bobo Campbell, along with former Duck Dean Roberts, played on the team. Saxton was the team’s “12th man and coach.”

“All I did was roll the ball out and say, ‘Let’s go play,’ ” Saxton says with a laugh. “We won the Oregon state AAU title two years in a row and got fifth in the nation one of those years. It was a lot of fun.”

Through the years, Saxton remained a faithful Oregon State men’s basketball fan, joining many alums in lamenting the lack of success by Ralph Miller’s successors, starting with Jimmy Anderson and continuing through to Craig Robinson. In 2012, he fired off a letter to Ed Ray, then OSU’s president.

“I sent him a list of things I thought were wrong with the program and what could be fixed,” Saxton says. “I didn’t know Ed, but I thought, ‘Why not?’ ”

A week later, Saxton received a letter from Ray.

“He said he was really impressed with what he called a ‘Herculean effort,’ and that he loved all of my insights,” Saxton says. “He said he was going to pass what I sent him on to (athletic director) Bob De Carolis and Craig Robinson, and ‘I’m sure you’ll be hearing from both of them, because these are great ideas.’ Of course, I never heard from either of them.”

Since then, Saxton and Ray have maintained a corresponding relationship. He has come to some of the Bravuro Cellars winery events.

“I consider Ed a friend,” Saxton says. “He thinks I’m crazy. He knows all about the S5. He says, “I love what you say here. This would be a great program for Oregon State.’ ”

The basis for Saxton’s S5 plan is speed on offense and defense.

“I have created an all-encompassing, on-and-off the court business model — exclusively for Oregon State — that includes an innovative ultra up-tempo brand of basketball that few coaches would want to coach, few players would want to play, and no one would want to coach or play against,” he says.

“That’s what makes it so extraordinary and why so many people will watch. It’s the best system to win games, mentor and graduate student-athletes, be financially self-sustaining and entertain fans and TV viewers.”

One phrase catches me — “Few players would want to play.” How then, will he recruit players?

“If you want to be in the NBA, don’t play in S5,” Saxton says. “No one is going to be a star. I’ll have 15 players, all about 6-4, and they’ll all play. There would be constant substituting, like hockey. Go all out for five minutes and we’ll get another group into the game.”

But wouldn’t that work against him, with the best players wanting to play in the NBA?

“Not the ones I want,” Saxton says. “I don’t want that kind of an ego. If you want to play in the NBA, go play somewhere else. I want some guys who have already come to grips with, ‘I know I’m not an NBA quality guy, but this looks like a lot of fun.’ We’ll have plenty of good players. The problem would be picking the right 15, including 13 on scholarship.”

Does Saxton envision a style as fast as Paul Westhead’s at Loyola Marymount of the Denver Nuggets?

“Faster,” Saxton says. “He used only a half-court press; mine would be a full-court press. The opponent is going to have to go deeper into their bench if they want to keep playing. There’s not as much talent on the bench. No one is conditioned to play that pace. The whistle is the enemy. We don’t want to stop the game. Keep the game going as fast as you can. It’s absolute bedlam. No one has ever played against an offense or defense like this.”

Saxton says he favors sending four players to the offensive boards when taking a 3-point shot.

“You’re going to give up some easy buckets,” he admits, “but the best 3-point teams in the country make 40 percent of their shots. If you assume a miss, why not? The 3-point shot sets up the second shot. My guys will be all over the boards.”

Will Saxton slow it down at some point?

“When the opponent waves the white flag, we’ll let up,” he says. “Not until then.”

Saxton won’t accept criticism from doubters who point out he has never really coached basketball.

“I’ve coached my entire life,” he says. “I coach as a businessman. I’ve been a coach for 30 years — just not a basketball coach.”

But if Oregon State were in the market for a new coach, why would they hire Steve Saxton?

“Because of my system, not because of me,” he says. “I challenge anyone at Oregon State to read the S5 program and tell me why it wouldn’t work. I don’t think you need to have a coach with 20 years experience of Xs and O’s. The S5 doesn’t need that. I am not a career basketball coach, and that is just one of my strengths.”

Saxton points to a stat line, showing that OSU’s last six head men’s basketball coaches have produced conference winning percentage of .435, .222, .222, .292, .361 and .358, respectively.

“The last five coaches have had no connection to OSU before being hired,” he says. “Scott Rueck, Jonathan Smith and Mitch Canham are all OSU graduates.

“If the position ever becomes available, OSU should hire a coach who is passionate about OSU men’s basketball and graduated from OSU. I am a dedicated, passionate OSU alum with an amazing plan. I should be the head coach.”

•

This is not an endorsement for Saxton to be Tinkle’s successor, whenever the time comes.

If you read his brochure, though, you’ll find that Steve has a plethora of interesting ideas.

Reach out to him at Steve@bravurocellars.com. Ask him about the health club industry or the wine business or even basketball. He will have an answer for you.

► ◄

Readers: what are your thoughts? I would love to hear them in the comments below. On the comments entry screen, only your name is required, your email address and website are optional, and may be left blank.

Follow me on Twitter.

Like me on Facebook.

Find me on Instagram.

Be sure to sign up for my emails.