Charles Koch played taped lectures from economists like Walter E. Williams and Milton Friedman. As the economists and philosophers droned on, Charles Koch periodically stopped the tape and quizzed his children.
“He’d pause it and then say, ‘Okay, well, what did you kids learn from that?’ ” Chase recalled. Chase was maybe eight years old at the time; certainly “in the single digits,” as he remembered it.
Elizabeth, the oldest child who always seemed eager to please, was attentive to the lessons and earnestly answered her father. Chase struggled to stay awake. “Literally half the time, I’d get caught, like, with a baseball hat over my eyes, because I would be sleeping through it,” he said. “And my sister, being the good first child . . . she was valedictorian in her class or second in her class. And so she was, at a very early age, just gobbling this stuff up.”
Charles Koch tried to teach his son, but it appeared that his son did not want to learn. Chase’s obstinance, or apathy, posed an obstacle to Charles Koch and his future plans.
Those plans seemed clear to everyone from the first day Chase Koch was born, in June of 1977. At that time, a group of employees at Koch Industries took it upon themselves to print a banner and hang it up above their desks, where Charles Koch would see it when he returned to the office.
The banner read: “WELCOME CROWN PRINCE.”
If the birth of Charles Koch’s daughter had not been greeted the same way, it might have had something to do with the conservative culture of Wichita at the time. “In those days, it was logical that your son followed you,” said Leslie Rudd. “A lot of people around the area—the kids followed their fathers.” This was the Koch family tradition. Charles Koch had followed his father, Fred, who had pushed him, disciplined him, taught him to fight, and then pressured him to return to the family company and run it. It seemed natural that Chase would, in turn, follow Charles. “Charles was preparing Chase for success. But it’s damn near impossible to do, to build the drive and all of those things into a person,” said Rudd, who went on vacation with Charles Koch and attended many Koch family events.
Charles and his wife, Liz, worked hard to instill a competitive drive in their children. They informed Chase and Elizabeth that the children must find a sport outside of school at which they could excel. When Chase was about ten, his parents enrolled him in a local basketball league, which was sponsored by the Salvation Army. One of the league coaches was Brad Hall, who later became CFO of Koch Supply & Trading. Hall often watched Chase Koch play and saw a gangly, mediocre player. But Hall was impressed with the kid’s values. Chase worked hard. He wasn’t arrogant. He didn’t advertise his last name to anyone. Hall remembered seeing Charles Koch at the games, watching closely.
When it was clear that Chase had no future in basketball, the family focused on a different sport: tennis. Chase showed aptitude here. If Charles Koch was born with a brain for math, Chase Koch was born with a body for tennis. Chase was tall and lean, with powerful legs. He could get to the far corners of the court before his opponent. He had a strong swing. Unfortunately, playing tennis required that Chase Koch spend large amounts of his free time—weekends, nights, and summers—at the Wichita Country Club.
Just like his father, Fred, Charles Koch vowed that he would never raise any “country club bums.” But Chase Koch seemed to want very much to be a country club bum. It turned out that he was quite sociable and liked having friends. Eventually, Chase’s natural talent for tennis won the day. He was allowed to spend long hours each day, and whole days in the summer, with his friends, as long as he was on the tennis court.
Things weren’t as easy for Elizabeth. She never found her equivalent of the tennis court. Outside the confines of sports, social interactions were fraught and complicated for the Koch children. Elizabeth Koch wrote later about the difficulties of growing up as the daughter of the richest man in town. She could go wherever she wanted, but could never escape the family name. “I want people to like me, and as a small child growing up in a small town, I learned that having money makes people sort of hate you on the spot,” Elizabeth Koch wrote.
Every year, a portrait of the Koch family was printed and sent out as a Christmas card to Koch Industries’ employees. The family posed in that awkward manner all professional photographers seem determined to create: Elizabeth Koch sitting on the floor, with her father kneeling behind her, his arm around her shoulder. Chase and his mother hovering behind them, with frozen smiles. Elizabeth never seems to have escaped the feeling of awkwardly posing as Charles Koch’s daughter. As a young adult, she was filled with anger, and it strained her relationship with her parents.
“I am such a terror,” Elizabeth Koch wrote in an online essay in 2007. “I’m angry that those girls on the playground in sixth grade called me a rich bitch when they knew nothing about me except my last name. I’m angry that I have everything in the world I could possibly want and yet I’m still angry.”
Spending time on the tennis courts removed some of these pressures from Chase Koch’s life. Things were uncomplicated and straightforward on a tennis court. There was often very little talking. Everyone focused on the ball. Chase Koch was on a tennis court in the mornings, afternoons, and weekends. He practiced hard and drove himself. Soon, Chase was playing in regional tournaments and winning. He became recognized as one of the best young players in Wichita, and then was recognized as one of the best players in Kansas. He became one of the top players in the Missouri Valley Conference, which covered several states. On the tennis court, Chase Koch’s last name didn’t matter. And if Chase Koch was winning, his father didn’t express dissatisfaction.
* * *
By the time he was in middle school, Chase Koch’s tennis regimen became difficult to sustain. All of his free time became dominated by tennis. When he spent time with his mother, it was so they could drive to regional tennis tournaments. Chase began to burn out. He started to hate the game. And he rebelled.
“I got exposed to new groups of friends and got to hang out with them, and just enjoyed that part of life instead of tennis,” Chase recalled. “In some of these regional matches, I intentionally started throwing matches, and, like, tanking, because I wanted to get home and party with my friends, basically.”
Chase’s mother, Elizabeth, couldn’t understand what was happening. He was losing now in the early rounds, when he used to win easily. It vexed her, and brought her to tears.
“So she reported this back to my father,” Chase said.
After hearing about Chase Koch’s failure on the court, Charles Koch invited his son to come down to Koch Industries headquarters for a talk. Chase expected that they might have lunch. When he arrived, there was no lunch.
Charles Koch gave his son a choice. Summer was about to begin, and Chase could do one of two things. He could spend his summer working for Koch Industries, or he could reapply himself to tennis and play competitively again.
Chase would be fifteen years old that summer. It was his last summer before high school. He chose to work for the family company. He thought that he would get an office job, learn some things, and have the evenings to spend time with his friends. Plus, he’d earn some money. The decision was easy.