Pat Croce Brings Pirate & Treasure Museum to Saint Augustine
Story by Kari Cobham & Photography by Justin Itnyer
Long after pirates became the stuff of legends, Croce was just a “street corner kid” with dreams in a rough Philadelphia neighborhood in the 1960s, fascinated by Errol Flynn in Captain Blood.
Croce is a frenetic mix of Italian and Irish as the son of Pasquale Croce, a self-made man who held down three jobs to care for his family. Croce’s mom, Dolores Croce was a registered nurse. He grew up in a row home and, by his early 20s, was no stranger to hustling and hard work. Croce has shined shoes, been a roofer and even an undercover detective at a department store.
From college scrapper to physical therapist to New York Times bestselling author to reality TV star, Croce’s life story reads like a lesson in adversity, near death, determination, discipline, and success—with a heavy set of metal cojones thrown in.
The one-time Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers conditioning coach opened 40 Sports Physical Therapists centers nationwide in the 1980s and 90s before its sale in 1993. And he moved from training Charles Barkley to owning the 76ers in 1996, where he helped lead the NBA team from last to first in 2001. Somewhere in there he also almost lost a leg, but more on that later.
Croce is a self-made man. And through it all, he has been a husband, father, and grandfather with an indelible pirate soul. (His granddaughter Paz calls him Pop Pop.)
Today, Croce has one of the most enviable collections of rare pirate artifacts in the world, which was once displayed at the award-winning Pirate Soul museum, launched in 2005 in Key West.
“When he first told me about the idea to move the museum to St. Augustine, I said, ‘Are you out of your mind?” said Croce’s wife of 32 years and, quite often, his voice of reason. “How do you even begin an undertaking like that? But when he explained the City’s history in that way that he does, I knew right away that it was a good idea,” she said with a chuckle.
Moving his multi-million dollar “baby” to St. Augustine, Pat Croce said, was a no-brainer, with the Old City’s rich history and visitor base of children and families far surpassing the southern island’s visitors.
“When he gets on a mission like this, it’s hard for him to unwind from it,” said Diane, ºwho added that Pat crashes early at night and rises at dawn every day, raring to go.