Pat Croce, Now & Zen: Add Spiritual Author to the Philly Sports Icon’s Remarkable Résumé
Scheduled for release on October 27, it is not meant to be a linear read. Each book comes with a gold ribbon bookmark so that, according to Croce, "each reader can know their last sacred shift," allowing the book to stir the reader's soul.
Sitting there on a coffee table inside a cozy home in Ocean City is an elegant little book, “Enjoy Your Self Now!”
The elegance is obvious by the simple attention to detail in everything from the cover to the tastefully colored edges of the 352 pages, to the simple ribbon the reader can use to mark any of the 66 chapters, or teachings, or dharma – “66 Sacred Shifts to Instantly Awaken the Peaceful Presence within You,” as the subtitle says.
Seated across the table, relaxed, calm, and welcoming, is the well-known author of the book, Pat Croce. And it’s his journeys, victories, and mostly the lessons learned that give this little book a huge impact.
Yes, the author is that Pat Croce, known to so many around the Philadelphia area as the former president of the 76ers, a sports and health industry pioneer, elite martial artist, literally a swashbuckling pirate in search of buried treasure, entrepreneur, humanitarian, etc., etc.
More locally, he’s the character who introduced the Pirate Island miniature golf courses in Sea Isle and Avalon, and former part-owner of Greate Bay Country Club in Somers Point.
It would be a book in itself to simply list Croce’s many achievements over five decades, but those are not the lessons he wanted to relate in this remarkable collection of teachings he studied throughout the world.
Over the past decade, the whirlwind life of Pat Croce has evolved from diving for buried treasures, to diving into his Self to find what truly matters. And this book is an effort to share those teachings, which is why this little book is so much bigger than the usual anecdotes of a successful entrepreneur. Instead, he hopes some of the insights of great minds of the centuries might provide some sort of light to help people find a path to being content.
Pretty remarkable that a man so driven by external successes could suddenly dismiss the public applause, and look for fulfillment on a far different plane.
“I always need another standing ovation, another pat on the back, another win … always more,” Croce says as he discusses the reasons for the book, and why he veered from the public stage about 10 years ago.
Croce had made himself into one of Philadelphia’s most admired success stories. The local guy who became a sports industry icon as president of the Sixers, and actually the guy whose obsession with pirates got them the black jerseys everybody associates with those great seasons with Allen Iverson.
It was one success after another, from the bestselling book “I Feel Great and you will too!” to fitness guru, to hospitality success, pirate museums, and on and on.
“And then … something happened and my mind cracked in 2015,” Croce says. “And I went on this journey around the world to find out from the greatest teachers in all wisdoms and traditions, Hindu, Buddhist. I didn’t care, who or what, I just wanted to learn.”
In this case, a “crack” in the mind was a good thing. It was not a breakdown, it was not a fault. Rather, the crack was an awakening of sorts, and the crack literally allowed illumination of what really mattered.
“There is nothing, nothing more powerful than realizing the nature of yourself. Nothing,” he says. “When you realize that you are fulfilled, that you don’t need anything.
Pat Croce in March 2026 at Mount Everest Base Camp. As if the challenge wasn't enough, he completed the climb while taking chemo pills for bone marrow cancer.
“I realized there was a hole in myself, that I was just chasing that next applause. It was like I had a hole in me that always needed another standing ovation.”
Call it what you might – the Australians might say a walkabout – but this years-long venture had a huge impact. Armed with the teachings of various spiritual voices over the span of history, he felt he was ready.
He began a modest Sunday Sangha. These Sangha, or virtual spiritual meetings, began with about 17 people, but over the past seven years they have grown to more than 700 on Sunday mornings, and the 365th Meditation Hill Sangha occurred in late August, amounting to a year full of Sundays – and still going strong.
“I was doing Zoom before Zoom,” Croce says with a laugh, thinking back to the beginnings of those Sundays. “I should have bought stock in it!”
A joke like that is what makes Pat Croce able to connect so easily with people. And it is why when he was president of the Sixers, he made fans feel like they were all on the advisory board. And it is also why he can write about such incredibly complex ideas in this book and make them so easily translated to just about anybody.
“I learned through my own direct experience that I could choose,” he says. “I could choose no worry, no angst, no anger, no frustration, no resentment … I figured that I would share this with first the Sangha and then the book.
“The book is just another venue, 66 more ways that maybe, maybe if you worry at night, here’s a way that you can [cope]. I’m not saying ‘Believe me,’ I’m saying ‘Give it a try.’
“I think the beauty of the book is that I take complex terminology and simplify it. The Buddhist concept of dukkha holds that suffering is part of human existence. It echoes the opening paragraph of ‘The Road Less Traveled’: Life is difficult. Once you accept that, life becomes less difficult.”
To be sure, it does seem odd that a man who has accomplished so much would have any type of emptiness. It is no surprise that many who try to find a more spiritual path have been affected by setbacks, whether health, financial, or personal failure, or whatever trouble.
But that was hardly the case with Pat Croce. He was a huge success and would never seem the logical choice to have his past set him in this new direction.
“The past has served its purpose for all of us,” he says, “and so the past that was required for me to get to where I am right now was through those three lifetimes in medicine, in pro sports, in hospitality. That was me seeing a bigger picture.”
Al Morganti and Croce catch up on careers that have intertwined for more than four decades prior to the interview for this story in August 2026 in Ocean City.
As Croce sees it, the tragedy is that so many people find their Self far too late.
“Most people, far too many people, they get it on their deathbed,” he says. “But it’s too late, and then they realize when they’re dying, ‘What was it worth?’”
So, can this all boil down to as simple a concept as the cliché of take the time to stop and smell the flowers?
“Yes, that’s Zen – just this,” Croce says. “Smell the flowers … when washing the dishes, just wash the dishes. Smell the flowers – but we don’t, we don’t stay in the present moment to smell the flowers, we’re thinking, ‘What’s for lunch?’ or ‘That son of a … cut me off yesterday!’”
The original idea for this book actually began about 12 years ago, and it was not successful. And that turned into a good thing, because the reason for this book at this time is far different than it was in the past.
Says Croce: “Twelve years ago when the [idea for the book] was rejected, that was all about ‘I want to write a book so I can be at the speakers bureau, get [another] bestseller.’ But this one is just a way for me to help people through grace.
“I feel like I’ve been given a … skill set to help others awaken, because of my past. This is locker-room spirituality. The market for this is anyone who worries. If you worry, you’re not in peace, you’re not yourself."
So, what would he consider a “home run” in terms of success of the book?
“It’s way different than in the past,” says Croce, who has gone to great lengths in terms of quality control of every aspect of the book from cover to colors to pictures to production. He was involved in every detail of the book as evidenced by the painstaking longhand notes he transcribed over several years of studying the great teachings.
He says the success of this book won’t necessarily come from being a bestseller or garnering headlines: “If you want to call it a home run, the home run for me would be if someone reads the book and then comes up to me and tells me they had what I call a ‘ping’ moment.
“I guess Oprah [Winfrey] called it an ‘Aha’ moment. I call it a ‘ping’ moment, something that pings with you. That’s the success, and it’s not my success, it’s just me relating some form of grace.”
Aside from the book, Croce is continuing to challenge himself on so many levels.
One of the latest challenges was climbing Mount Everest. It was only a few months ago, in March, that Croce decided to climb it. Pretty good, you might say for a 72-year-old. And then you see that photo of Croce scaling the mountain, and celebrating with a big smile and a chemotherapy pill in one hand.
Sure enough, the climb was made while dealing with the effects of a form of terminal bone cancer.
“I love a challenge,” Croce says. “I love preparing for it, studying the geography, the extra training … In 2024, I was going to do the Camino de Santiago [the famous 500-mile walk across Spain in 33 days], and I was all trained for it. I was going to leave on Labor Day – and in July I get diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.
“It was incurable bone marrow cancer, so they started the chemo and I said, ‘I feel better, I’m going.’ The doctor was like, ‘Umm,’ and by the middle of August I could not walk … my back, I could not walk.
“And then in September I had spinal surgery, to put four bolts to reinforce my pelvis bone which was separated from my sacrum, so I didn’t go in 2024.
“And then in 2025 I decided, ‘Screw this, I’m taking this body, it’s not going to sabotage me anymore.’ I feel good right now, I’m going. [My wife] Diane didn’t want me to go. You know fear of injury, fear of disease, fear of anything, but I was determined to go.
“It was good, I took the chemo to Everest, it was good.”
Mind you, this all said calmly, with no hint that it was anything extraordinary, but then again, Pat Croce has always made the extraordinary look very ordinary.
“Look, I’m not my body,” he says. “Ever since Day 1 [of the diagnosis], I’ve never suffered. On a scale from zero to 10, I’m a zero, I feel great.
“However, every 12 hours I do these chemo pills … sometimes brain fog, headache, fatigue. I’m compromised, but right now I’m not sick. I don’t go out in confined quarters; I don’t go out to eat much.
“Look, I’ve got to stay on the medication for life until it stops working. Right now, it’s working.
“It doesn’t bother me, I have incurable, indolent cancer, it’s slow-moving, it’s going to keep going. But my body has it, [not my Self] … ”
Naturally, the teachings in the book have been a bedrock for navigating any situation.
“It’s because of this,” Croce says, holding up a copy of his book. “Because of the secrets in here – not really secrets: Jesus said them, Buddha said them, Lao Tzu said them, St. Francis said them.
“They’re all in there and I try to break down all the wisdom and traditions in here into our understanding, what I call ‘locker room.’ Put these concepts into words we can all understand.”
"If you're interested in not suffering mentally, and I'm not talking about sadness from the death of a loved one, that's love. I'm talking about fear-based suffering, this book could help."
“The fear of dying is the existential fear. I don’t fear dying because the awareness, the divine in you can’t die. The body might, that’s going to go … but not your Self.”
Pat Croce has scored many victories over the years. He’s literally climbed about every mountain, and forded every stream. But the real success might be right in front of him at the Jersey Shore where – on a Saturday afternoon in the August of 2026 – he sits and watches his children and grandchildren enjoying the sunny afternoon, the Atlantic Ocean arriving in wave after wave, two dogs running around the pool, and he can light up the occasional cigar and just enjoy the here and now.
If you are ready to live fully in the present moment, then pencil in Oct. 27. That's the release date for “Enjoy Your Self Now!” It will be available wherever you purchase your books. A digital edition can be purchased at patcroce.com/buy-the-book . And you can also follow Pat Croce at patcroce.com.