| There's a place in Florida being built with the money | | | | And he acted the part of a rich man. 'I went |
| you may have paid for a pizza you once had | | | | overboard' in buying worldly things, he says. It started |
| delivered to your home. Not the tip - the money for the | | | | with his 1983 purchase of the Detroit Tigers baseball |
| pizza. | | | | team. The team won the World Series the next year, |
| This place in Florida is the state's newest town, Ave | | | | prompting publication of his 1986 autobiography 'Pizza |
| Maria, which Tom Monaghan is building on 5,000 acres | | | | Tiger'. He also bought collections of cars and Frank |
| in a former tomato field at the edge of the Everglades | | | | Lloyd Wright buildings. |
| northeast of Naples a few miles from Immokalee. He | | | | That's about the time he became ultra active in |
| hopes the town, which stresses family values, | | | | Catholic education, including pro-life causes that |
| eventually will have 30,000 residents. | | | | prompted picketing of his Ann Arbor stores, and he |
| You may not recognize the name of this man who | | | | decided the reason God put him on Earth was to get |
| has been dubbed by the British press as the 'Pizza | | | | people into Heaven. He sold the Tigers. And, eventually |
| Pope'. But you'll recognize what made him famous: | | | | - in 1998 - he sold Domino's for $1 billion. |
| Domino's Pizza. And, outside of Rome, it would be | | | | Since then, his outspoken views have dogged his |
| difficult to find a more devout Catholic. Some would | | | | proselytizing efforts. He has become a lightning rod for |
| say 'rabid' or 'fanatical', but that's getting ahead of the | | | | all kinds of controversies, including pro-life causes and |
| story. | | | | opposition to homosexuality. Outwardly, it doesn't seem |
| The story of Tom Monaghan is a typical Horatio Alger | | | | to bother him. |
| story: | | | | What's more, his Ave Maria project has not escaped |
| - Father died of ulcers at age 29 when Tom was 4. | | | | the controversies. What sparked the controversy here |
| - Mother put him into a Michigan orphanage run by | | | | was his statements early on that 'there is not going to |
| Polish Catholic nuns, where his devotion to Catholicism | | | | be any pornographic television in Ave Maria Town,' |
| became an obsession. | | | | and (paraphrasing) there won't be any contraceptives |
| - As a high school freshman, he decided to become a | | | | or adult magazines in the drugstores, either. He had to |
| priest, but a year later was expelled by the seminary - | | | | dance around those statements, finally conceding such |
| for pillow fighting, among other things. | | | | products will not be banned. |
| - Back in public high school, he graduated 44th in a | | | | So what led him to establish not only a pro-life |
| class of 44. But his yearbook photo has this caption: | | | | community near Naples, but also the first Catholic |
| 'The harder I try to be good, the worse I get; but I may | | | | university to be built in the United States in 50 years - |
| do something sensational yet.' | | | | one he hopes one day will rival Notre Dame? |
| - He dreamed of being an architect like his idol, Frank | | | | In short, Ann Arbor politicians rejected his plans to build |
| Lloyd Wright, but his bad grades and lack of money | | | | the university there. Rural Collier County - with a more |
| ruled that out. | | | | conservative population more likely to accept his views |
| - So in 1956 he joined the Marines, served three years, | | | | of the purpose of life (he hoped) - seemed a more |
| and hitchhiked from San Diego back to Ypsilanti, MI, | | | | likely place, a place in Florida that he was familiar with. |
| with only $15 in his pocket. | | | | The economic climate has slowed construction in Ave |
| - Six times he enrolled in college, only to fail to become | | | | Maria, but the progress is still impressive. There's |
| more than a freshman. | | | | already the new $240-million Ave Maria University, |
| - In 1960, when he was 23, he and his brother | | | | which opened in 2007, hoping to attract 5,000 students. |
| borrowed $900 and bought their first pizza place in | | | | It now has 600. |
| Ypsilanti, near the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor | | | | Dominating the landscape is a $24-million, |
| -- a hotbed of pizza-eaters. Early on, you had your | | | | 60,000-square-foot, 10-story steel-and-stone church |
| choice of delivered cuisine: pizza, pizza or pizza. Extras | | | | with glass arches. It has the nation's largest crucifix in |
| were added later. | | | | stained glass - one with a 60-foot-high bleeding Jesus. |
| - And, yes, in that first year, he delivered his own | | | | And 1,100 seats - making it one of the larger Catholic |
| pizzas. In fact, he met his wife while delivering a pizza. | | | | churches in America. |
| And, as they say, the rest is history. As Domino's | | | | In building Ave Maria, Monaghan obviously is trying to |
| grew, Monaghan's riches grew -- despite many | | | | use his millions to pave his and others' road to Heaven. |
| obstacles. 'I don't think anyone in business had a | | | | 'I want to go to Heaven and take as many people with |
| tougher time than I had,' he now recalls. 'My faith | | | | me as I can,' he says. 'I don't want to go to Hell. |
| sustained me.' | | | | |