Dick Cecil, a former Atlanta sports executive who helped bring the Braves to Atlanta and was president of the Atlanta Chiefs soccer team, died at age 88.
Cecil, who was born and grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and received two degrees from the University of Nebraska, died Tuesday at his home in Atlanta. He taught high school and coached youth baseball before joining the Milwaukee Braves as a scout. He eventually became a vice president of the Braves and president of Braves Productions, which booked events at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to put the stadium to use when the Braves weren’t playing.
Among the events Cecil brought to the stadium was the Beatles concert in August 1965, during the summer before the Braves moved to Atlanta. He brought in numerous other sporting events and concerts featuring well-known entertainers.
Cecil also was close friends with Braves legend Hank Aaron. Cecil sorted through a heavy volume of mail that Aaron received as he drew close to Babe Ruth’s home run record. He worked to keep hate mail from Aaron – and sent the most threatening mail to the FBI.
Cecil was a founding member of the North American Soccer League in 1967. The Braves owned the Chiefs franchise in the NASL from 1967-72, and Cecil served as president and chief operating officer for the team. The Chiefs won the NASL championship in 1968, which some people refer to as Atlanta’s first major professional championship.
Cecil was a strong proponent of that notion.
“This is the first professional championship in Atlanta,” Cecil told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2018. “I’ve been to things that they just talk about the (Braves 1995) World Series. Well, excuse me. I always want to underscore that (the Chiefs) paid their dues, they did a hell of a job and they are really responsible for Atlanta’s soccer scene. They were the base. And Atlanta United exploded on top of that.”
Also in 1968, the Chiefs played host to, and defeated, Manchester City, the dominant team in England.
Chiefs players and coaches served as ambassadors for the sport and helped build an atmosphere for soccer that led the emergence of Atlanta United, which was founded in 2014 and began play in 2017.
One of the key players on the ‘68 Chiefs was Kaizer “Boy Boy” Motaung, who today is the chairperson for the Kaizer Chiefs soccer team in South Africa.
According to the news website the South African in Cape Town, Motaung expressed his condolences in a note to Cecil’s son, Terry, one of his four children.
“Dick Cecil gave me the opportunity to play professional football with players from all over the world. I still feel very honoured to have been part of the first team from Atlanta to win a championship in any sport in 1968. I held him in very high esteem. He was a kind gentleman. Atlanta Chiefs is the reason there is a Kaizer Chiefs today in South Africa. When I left Atlanta, it was with the inspiration of your father that I decided to pursue this journey of forming a club in South Africa,” Motaung said.
Cecil eventually left the Braves to form his own leisure and entertainment consulting company, Cecil and Associates. In that capacity, he was involved in ventures such as the World Cup, multiple Olympics, MLB All-Star games, the Goodwill games and the World University games.
Cecil is survived by his wife of 40 years, Pam; his children, Will, Kip, Terry, and Kelly, nine grandchildren and several great grandchildren.
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