(Georgia Institute of Technology)
Homer Rice, who significantly influenced Georgia Tech’s athletic success and created the school’s Total Person Program, has died at the age of 97.
Rice died on Monday, as confirmed by the school.
Leadership at Georgia Tech
Rice was Georgia Tech’s athletic director from 1980 to 1997. During his tenure, he hired several notable coaches, including basketball coach Bobby Cremins, football coaches Bobby Ross and George O’Leary, and baseball coaches Jim Morris and Danny Hall. Under his leadership, Georgia Tech shared the 1990 national football championship, won its first Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) basketball championship in 1985, and advanced to the Final Four in 1990.
The Yellow Jackets won 16 ACC championships across five sports during Rice’s time as athletic director.
Coaching Career Before Georgia Tech
Rice served as a high school, college, and NFL football coach before beginning his career as an administrator. He coached the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals in 1978 and 1979 before joining Georgia Tech. His college coaching career included roles as an assistant at Kentucky (1962-65) and Oklahoma (1966), and as head coach at Cincinnati (1967-68). Rice also served six years as North Carolina’s athletic director and was hired in 1976 as the athletic director and football coach at Rice University in Texas, holding those positions for two years.
Total Person Program
Rice’s Total Person Program is recognized as the model for the NCAA’s Life Skills Program. The Homer Rice Award, given annually to an FBS athletic director, honors significant contributions to college athletics.
“Homer has reminded us throughout his career that the ultimate goal of intercollegiate athletics is to help student-athletes grow fully as people,” Georgia Tech president Ángel Cabrera said in a statement released by the school. “At a time of profound changes in athletics, Homer’s message and legacy of excellence is more important than ever.”
Legacy and Honors
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips praised Rice’s Total Person Program, calling it ahead of its time and pivotal in preparing student-athletes for life beyond sports. “Each of the seven pillars of the Total Person Program continues to resonate with not only myself but every one of Dr. Rice’s peers, colleagues, and former student-athletes,” Phillips said.
Phillips added that Rice, a native of Bellevue, Kentucky, “was incredibly influential in the development of student-athletes, not only at North Carolina and Georgia Tech, but throughout college athletics.”
Former ACC commissioner and UNC athletic director John Swofford said Rice, AD at UNC when he graduated in 1971, was his inspiration to pursue a career in athletic administration.
“He was my mentor then, and has been throughout my adult life,” Swofford said in a statement. “I had the privilege of serving for 17 years as an A.D. with him in the ACC while he was at Georgia Tech and I was at UNC. Simply put, he was the best Athletic Director that I ever observed during my half century in college sports. He was the best leader, the most organized, the best motivator, the best innovator. He was full of integrity, decency and class.”
Rice continued to teach a leadership class at Georgia Tech until recent years and authored several books on leadership and success. In 2021, Georgia Tech dedicated a statue of Rice outside Bobby Dodd Stadium, making him one of only three individuals commemorated with a statue in Georgia Tech athletics, along with Dodd and John Heisman.
Rice’s first wife, Phyllis, died in 2013 after 64 years of marriage. He married his second wife, Karen, in 2015.
This report used information from ESPN.
