The Koch Brothers Used to Be Basketball Stars

David (left), who is 19 minutes older, was the captain. He averaged 21 points and 12 rebounds per game over his college career and graduated as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s all-time top scorer; his 41 points in one game was a program record for 46 years. “I played basketball when you could be white and good,” he once said. By contrast, William rode the bench. The brothers were also brothers in Beta Theta Pi, along with their older brother Charles. All were close until two decades later, when William led an unsuccessful coup of the family business and sold his stake. Today, Koch Industries is America’s second-largest privately held company. William is worth $4 billion, and David and Charles are each worth more than eight times that. They’ve all reconciled, and they’re still all sports fans: William went on to win the America’s Cup yachting race. Charles got the Wichita State Shockers’ home arena named after him. And MIT enjoys a $2 million “David H. Koch ’62 Head Coach of Men’s Basketball” endowment.