Millions of dollars and past successes are not enough for Don Barden

Not bad, he says, for a leisure bowler.

But he knows he can do better.

He quit college with no money and turned his first million 15 years later. His net worth is beyond $100 million and he's one of the wealthiest blacks in America.

Not bad.

But he thinks he can do better.

If he wins a casino license in Detroit, Barden Companies Inc. - a mishmash of construction, broadcasting, distribution and casino businesses - could become a billion-dollar operation.

Then, who knows what? He has an option on 500 acres in the Virgin Islands for a resort and casino. He has architects poring over plans for malls, hotels and restaurants in Indiana. He dreams of Barden gambling palaces in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Not bad.

But even that may not be good enough for Barden.

"I'm on a mission to prove that a poor, young African-American from a very large family, from humble beginnings, can rise to the top in America in a free enterprise system," he says.

He's not looking to be a billionaire, though he wouldn't mind, he says.

"I think it's a natural progression, just to show that there is no limit, you can go to the stratosphere, you can go beyond the imagination, you can go beyond the ordinary wealth of an athlete.

"It's bragging rights," Barden says. "It's prestige. We'll become role models for young people."

Barden built his fortune as an intense and aggressive entrepreneur, moving swiftly from enterprise to enterprise, using capital from one venture to finance the next - and quickly seeing the profits.

At 53, he has achieved the kind of success that allows him to hobnob with Joe DiMaggio at Bryant Gumbel's golf tournament, keep company with Namibian President Sam Nujoma and teach President Clinton The Hustle following a state dinner with South African President Nelson Mandela.

Through it all, his friends say, he stays grounded and approachable, unchanged from the kid who drove a tractor on his parents' rural home and sold 45 rpm records in his first business venture.

"The Don Barden I know today is the same Don Barden I knew when all he had was 5 cents in his pocket," says Andy Warhola, a long-time friend.

Barden keeps his fancy limousine tucked in a garage most of the time, friend Sam Tesauro says. But when Tesauro had bypass surgery in Cleveland a few years back, Barden sent that limousine to pick him up - with a medical technician aboard.

"How many rich guys would even think about doing that?" Tesauro says.

Tesauro says he knows a lot of wealthy people. "But they're not my friends, because they let you know they have a lot of money. Don doesn't."

At the bowling alley, Barden looks regular enough. His name is stitched on the back of his shirt. He smokes Winstons and wears a plastic contraption on his wrist for support and to curve his shots.

But his pinstriped suit pants, cellular phone and glistening jewelry hint he's a businessman.

"Don, I beat you by one point!" says bowling buddy Dave Wilson, a Conrail regional manager. "Beating Barden is the one great pleasure I have in life."

"That's the last time," Barden mock threatens. "So you better enjoy it."

The weekly bowling league helps him unwind. "You get your mind off business," he says. "I enjoy the fellowship with the guys."

But there's another reason he's here. He wants to win.

"I never play to lose," he says.

That's been clear since Michigan voters last fall approved the construction of three casinos in Detroit. Barden is spending millions of dollars in a relentless pursuit for one of them.

He's hired architects, secured potential casino sites and bought billboards trumpeting that a casino for Barden is "the right thing to do."

The mayor and city council will decide who gets casino licenses. Barden can't buy his way in. But he's applying political pressure the old-fashioned, grassroots way.

Hundreds of people wear Barden T-shirts and hats. They put Barden bumper stickers on their cars. They send letters supporting Barden to the city council and Mayor Dennis Archer.

Archer spokesman Anthony Neely says the promotional campaign won't help, because the mayor will consider only the strength of each casino plan.

Barden sees it otherwise. "If we're not selected," he says, "people are going to want to know why."

That kind of determination, along with his persistence and intensity to succeed, are traits Barden says he developed when he was 18 and rebuilding auto parts.

"I noticed that the owner of the store was up at the front counter with a beautiful white shirt on, making all the money, and I was the guy in the back doing all the hard work," he says.

"That gave me the motivation to try to be successful with my own business."

Other lessons were in his upbringing as the ninth of 13 children on the family's 9 acres in Inkster. There, the Bardens grew vegetables and raised chickens and pigs to help feed themselves.

"We were poor," Barden says. "The work ethic I developed, I gained from my parents."

He scraped together money to go to Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. When the money ran out after a year, he dropped out.

He moved in with a brother in Lorain, Ohio, in 1964 and began a 20-year stint in the city where he said he learned his business skills.

First were a series of odd jobs: mover, plumbing and heating company laborer and short-order cook, followed by two years at American Shipbuilding Co.

Then, at age 22, he opened Donnie's Record Shop. He started a weekly newspaper a year later and in 1968 began an advertising and public relations business.

His first big boost came in 1971, when he learned military recruiters were looking for office space. He took out a mortgage on his home and bought a building for $25,000. He remodeled it, rented it to the military, and cleared $200 a month.

Two years later he sold the building for $50,000.

Next he bought an $85,000 building. Later he built a $1 million building. Then a $3.1 million building.

He joined the Lorain County Chamber of Commerce, was elected to a city council seat, played golf with community leaders. For a decade, he hosted a weekly TV news programs - and read the TV trade magazines.

Cable TV, he thought, had possibilities. He began his pattern again.

"Don will move in any direction if he feels there are opportunities there," Warhola says. "He calculates the risk and then is willing to stick his neck out."

Barden invested $2,000 each in two cable franchises in Lorain and nearby Elyria. When he sold a few years later, he cleared $400,000.

Next he won a cable franchise in Inkster, costing about $3.4 million. Later he won franchises in Romulus and Van Buren Township.

By the early 1980s, he was worth about $6 million.

Then he put all but $1 million of it on the line in trying to win the Detroit cable franchise, the one that would make him a big-league rich man.

"I was scared," he says.

The risk paid off. Barden won the franchise. When he finished selling his cable interests in 1994, he had cleared $115 million.

He expanded his holdings through the 1980s and into the 1990s, building his workforce to 1,500 people. Revenues for Barden Companies were $93.2 million in 1996, and he expects to clear $130 million this year.

His wife, Bella Marshall Barden, the former finance director in Mayor Coleman Young's administration, runs Barden's real estate enterprise and the Namibia, Africa, office.

"She operates as a paid executive during the day, and she operates as a traditional, lovely wife in the evenings and weekends," Barden says.

Mrs. Barden, who shares her husband's passion for pro boxing, says the couple puts business behind them when they get home and spend time with their 6-year-old daughter.

"He's got a great sense of humor," she says. "We have a lot of fun together."

But at work, he's the boss, she says. "As people will tell you, when it comes to Barden Companies, there's only one Barden."

When Indiana legalized casinos in 1993, Barden was winding down his cable interests. He saw yet another new venture.

"I decided to pursue that industry because it had a lot of similarities to cable," he says. "I'm into entertainment."

He beat out 20 casino applicants to win one of two riverboat gaming licenses in Gary.

Thomas Crump, a Gary businessman who worked as a paid consultant for Barden during the casino application process, says Barden didn't let anything get in his way of the Gary prize - not even a group of his supposed partners.

Crump says he was to be among 11 local investors who were to own 15 percent in Barden's project. But he says he never got it in writing.

"When it came down to finalizing everything, he kind of backed out on his commitment to me and the local group down here," Crump says. "I feel very much used."

Barden says the group was unwilling to put up enough capital. "There's no free lunch," he says.

He says his casino has been a success, generating $53 million in revenues in its first six months after opening in June. He plans a new $40 million casino boat, which he says should boost revenues to $150 million in the second full year.

But he thinks he can do better.

A casino in Detroit would put Barden Companies at or near the top of the nation's black-owned industrial and service companies, up from No. 18.

"I'm an extremely focused person," Barden says, "and securing the license in Detroit is very, very important to this company's future."

While focusing on Detroit, he still manages to visit his Gary casino every other week. Sometimes he sits down with customers and has dinner, giving them advice on how to beat the odds.

"I want them to win," he says. "I want them to be happy. I want them to come back.

"I don't want them to win too much, though."

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