Major league sports exec winds down at The Cliffs
When Ed Lang steps out onto the porch of the home he and his wife Rita built two years ago at The Cliffs at Mountain Park, he sees stars— millions more than are visible where they live most of the year.
Well, he sees a lot of stars in New Orleans, too: Zion Williamson. Alvin Kamara. Cam Jordan. Drew Brees (at least, before he retired).
Those are just a few of the marquee names Lang encounters in his role as CFO of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints and the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans.
“It’s very much of a roller-coaster-type business and that can be hard,” he says, “but it can be exciting.”
On a call from his office in the “City That Care Forgot,” Lang sounds ecstatic about the cares he forgets when he and Rita escape to The Cliffs every six to eight weeks.
“We love our house in Mountain Park, and the ability to just sit on the porch and hear nothing but the birds and the wind,” he says. “In New Orleans and Uptown, we hear the boats coming and going up the river, we hear trains, we hear cars.”
Lang’s career started in Racine, Wisconsin, at SC Johnson. He moved into sports administration in 1997 with the NHL’s Nashville Predators.
In 2011, Lang moved his family to the Crescent City and, before long, began looking for a place where they could ultimately retire. The Upstate kept calling, perhaps because he was born in Greenville, South Carolina, although his family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, when he was 3.
Lang learned about The Cliffs from a “Wall Street Journal” article. During one visit, he cycled around Mountain Park: “And I thought, ‘Man, this would be what I enjoy.’”
The couple often avail themselves of the community’s trails as well as the tennis courts at neighboring community, The Cliffs Valley, where Rita Lang enjoys matches and clinics.
One of her fondest memories is also one of her freshest—when their grown sons, Andrew and Eddie, visited while Ed’s parents, Fred and Evelyn, were there, too.
One day, she caught her father-in-law sleeping out on the screen porch, the fan spinning.
“It was just nice to see him enjoying it and seeing the whole family enjoy it, and that’s what we’re hoping for,” she says. “We want a place where the kids and their families want to come, and The Cliffs offers that to us, between the amenities that they’ve got now and the amenities that they’re going to be adding in the future.”
Their favorite? The Cabin at Mountain Park, which sealed the deal for them. In 2021, The Cabin will undergo expansion and renovations to enhance services to members.
“The food is fabulous,” Lang says. “The Cabin’s rustic feel really stood out to us.”
For now, both see a (slow) transition to a much quieter sporting life.
“When I get to The Cliffs, it’s a good way for me to just wind down and download, it’s a way for me to recharge my batteries,” he says. “I can get out by myself on a bike ride, being in the hills and the mountains.”
This story was featured in Cliffs Living magazine. To read more stories like this one and learn more about The Cliffs, subscribe here.
