Growing up, Mike Repole had two dream jobs, he says: general manager of the New York Mets or head men’s basketball coach of St. John’s University.
As an adult, neither opportunity materialized. Instead, Repole co-founded drink companies Glaceau — the maker of Vitaminwater — and Bodyarmor, which sold to Coca-Cola for $4.1 billion in 2007 and $5.6 billion in 2021, respectively. Repole currently has an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, according to Forbes.
He credits one particular book for inspiring his business approach: “Success Is a Choice: Ten Steps to Overachieving in Business and Life,” by Rick Pitino. When the book first published in 1997, Pitino was an NCAA championship-winning basketball coach, freshly installed at the helm the NBA’s Boston Celtics.
Today, Pitino is the head coach of Repole’s favorite college team. He’ll lead St. John’s into its first-round matchup in this year’s March Madness tournament against the University of Nebraska Omaha on Thursday night.
Repole, 56, was so taken by Pitino’s book when he first read it that he quickly told many of his friends, he says. “I told them, the only book I’ve ever [fully] read was ‘Success Is A Choice,’” says Repole, who graduated from St. John’s in 1991. “Every time we still see each other, you know, 30 years later, we still talk [about] ‘the only book Mike Repole’s ever read cover-to-cover.’”
The book’s release roughly coincided with Glaceau’s launch, and its overarching themes were clear to Repole, he says: “attitude,” “work ethic,” and “success is best when shared.”
“I took a lot of that coaching philosophy into being an entrepreneur,” says Repole. “The job of the coach is to make your players better, so I always took a coaching philosophy towards management.”
Pitino’s book focused on how to build self-esteem, set demanding goals and learn how to communicate with a team. “You must constantly stress to everyone that when the group does well, everyone benefits,” he wrote.
A number of staffers at Glaceau and Bodyarmor held company shares, meaning they received a portion of the proceeds from each sale, says Repole — mirroring similar moves by fellow billionaires Mark Cuban and Jay Chaudhry, who helped turn most of their employees into millionaires after selling their respective companies.
″[If] you have shares in the company, you’re not [just] an employee,” says Repole. “It’s almost like when a basketball or football team wins a ring.”
Building a March Madness contender
Particularly now that Repole is wealthy, his St. John’s allegiance extends beyond alumni fandom: He’s reportedly donated millions in name, image and likeness money since 2023, adding to a fund for attracting top athletic recruits to the school.
Pitino joined the team the same year, after being cleared of scandal: He’d been fired from the University of Louisville in 2017 amid an FBI bribery and fraud investigation, and was exonerated in 2022.
“You’re a big part of this team,” Pitino told Repole, in a video published last month on apparel brand Nobull’s YouTube account. “You were the impetus for [my] taking the job.” (Repole’s private equity firm owns a majority stake in Nobull.)
Repole says he plans to attend the St. John’s game on Thursday night, with his daughter and a group of his childhood friends.
“I’m going to be right behind the players,” says Repole. “I’ve never seen a team coach as hard as them, play as hard … It’s great to see.”