The college football community and NFL world was mourning together on Monday when the news broke that one of the most legendary figures in both sports suddenly passed away.
Homer Rice, a former football coach and college administrator, died Monday at age 97.
Georgia Tech announced the passing of Rice, the school’s athletic director from 1980-1997. The Yellow Jackets won their last college football national championship under his watch in 1990 after the men’s basketball team made their first Final Four earlier that year.
”The Georgia Tech athletics community is deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Homer Rice,” Georgia Tech athletic director J Batt said in a school statement. “Coach Rice was a giant in the fields of coaching and athletics administration. He oversaw the most successful era of Georgia Tech athletics and also, through his Total Person Program, has made and continues to make a positive impact on millions of student-athletes nationwide. His legacy will be a part of Georgia Tech and intercollegiate athletics forever.”
Rice lost just nine games in 11 seasons as a high school football head coach before beginning his college career as a Kentucky assistant in 1962. He later spent a season at Oklahoma before becoming Cincinnati’s head coach in 1967.
Following two seasons, North Carolina made Rice its athletic director. He then served as both the head coach and athletic director at Rice University before landing an NFL head coaching job with the Cincinnati Bengals in 1978.
The Bengals won four games in each of Rice’s two seasons before he made his final stop at Georgia Tech as the athletic director, where he would be instrumental in the Yellow Jackets winning a college football national championship. After leading the school to newfound athletic heights, he wrote books and taught classes on leadership.
The NCAA annually presents the Homer Rice Award to a retired FBS athletic director who “made significant and meaningful contributions to intercollegiate 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. “At a time of profound changes in athletics, Homer’s message and legacy of excellence is more important than ever.”
Homer Rice Thrived As An Athletic Director And Led Georgia Tech To College Football Championship
Rice’s win-loss record had fallen off – 12-28-1 in college, 8-19 in the pros – but the goodwill he built as an administrator and motivational figure never dimmed.
He was part program-builder, arriving at Tech in 1980 and sparking a sporting renaissance on The Flats during his 17 years as athletic director. Where before him there was a football team that teetered on irrelevance and signs of dry rot throughout the athletic department, there followed one of the golden periods of Tech athletics. Highlighting Rice’s reign was a college football national championship, a men’s basketball Final Four appearance – both in 1990 – and six different programs enjoying at least some time atop the national rankings.
Three athletics figures have been deemed statue-worthy on the Georgia Tech campus: John Heisman, Dodd and Rice, who is 7-feet tall and cast in bronze in the shadow of the sports-performance building that bears his name. All three have big-time awards named after them – Heisman (most outstanding college football player), Dodd (college coach of the year), Rice (athletic director of the year). Their names have all been transformed into synonyms of success.
It’s clear while Rice never thrived as a head college football coach, he learned enough from standing on the sidelines and suffering losing seasons at all of his stops, to know what worked and what didn’t, cementing himself as one of the best athletic directors in college history, His legacy won’t be forgotten.
