Georgia
Rice, longtime coach and Ga. Tech AD, dies at 97
ATLANTA — Homer Rice, who as athletic director hired some of Georgia Tech’s most successful coaches and implemented the school’s Total Person Program, has died. He was 97.
Rice died Monday, according to the school.
Rice was Georgia Tech’s athletic director from 1980-97. Among his notable hires were basketball coach Bobby Cremins, football coaches Bobby Ross and George O’Leary and baseball coaches Jim Morris and Danny Hall. Georgia Tech won a share of the 1990 national football championship and its first Atlantic Coast Conference basketball championship in 1985 while advancing to the Final Four in 1990.
The Yellow Jackets won 16 ACC championships in five sports during Rice’s time leading the athletic department.
Rice was a high school, college and NFL football coach before beginning his career as an administrator. He coached the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals in 1979-79 before beginning his time at Georgia Tech.
Rice was a college assistant at Kentucky (1962-65) and Oklahoma (1966) and was the coach at Cincinnati (1967-68) before leaving to serve six years as North Carolina’s athletic director. He was hired in 1976 as athletic director and football coach at Rice in Texas and held those positions for two years.
Rice’s Total Person Program is regarded as the model for the NCAA’s Life Skills Program. The Homer Rice Award is presented annually to a FBS athletic director in recognition for 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.”
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement Rice’s Total Person Program “was ahead of its time and paved the way for NCAA programming by preparing student-athletes for life beyond collegiate athletics. Each of the seven pillars of the Total Person program continue to resonate with not only myself, but every one of Dr. Rice’s peers, colleagues, and former student-athletes.”
Phillips said 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 taught a leadership class at Georgia Tech until recent years and wrote a number of books on leadership success.
Georgia Tech dedicated a statue of Rice outside of Bobby Dodd Stadium in 2021. Dodd and John Heisman are the only other in Georgia Tech athletics to be commemorated with a statue.
Rice’s wife of 64 years, Phyllis, died in 2013. He married his second wife, Karen, in 2015.
Georgia
Georgia Tech Athletics Receives a Pair of $10 Million Gifts
THE FLATS – Two generous, anonymous families have each given $10 million gifts to support Georgia Tech athletics’ Full Steam Ahead initiative and the Yellow Jackets’ football program, Tech vice president and director of athletics Ryan Alpert has announced.
“We’re incredibly grateful to these two generous families for their investments in Georgia Tech athletics and a championship-level football program,” Alpert said. “Led by these families, their relentless investments in our mission and their belief in our upward trajectory, support of Georgia Tech athletics and Tech football are at unprecedented levels.”
With these transformative gifts, Georgia Tech athletics is well on to set a new fundraising record in the 2026 fiscal year, as donor participation is up 21% in just six months since the fiscal year began on July 1.
Additionally, in just 14 months since the public launch of Full Steam Ahead in October 2024, Tech athletics has received nearly $90 million in new commitments to the initiative. In total, nearly $400 million has been raised towards Full Steam Ahead’s $500 million goal, which is a part of the Institute-wide Transforming Tomorrow campaign.
Georgia Tech continues to display its commitment to fielding nationally prominent, championship-level athletics programs. Notably, Tech athletics has committed to making more than $150 million in investments to its football program over the next several years, which includes the opening of the Fanning Student-Athlete Performance Center in the spring (a state-of-the-art facility that will benefit Georgia Tech’s full body of 300-plus student-athletes), a renovation of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field that will be completed prior to the 2027 season, a continued pledge to provide maximum revenue sharing to student-athletes and significant new resources devoted to expand and enhance staff.
To fulfill these commitments, enhanced engagement and support from the Georgia Tech community is vital.
“We still have progress to make to achieve our goal of consistently competing for championships at the highest levels of intercollegiate athletics,” Alpert continued. “Never in the history of college athletics has success been so closely tied to resources, and now is the time to seize the opportunity to take advantage of the great momentum and energy that we’re experiencing on The Flats.
“Every member of the White and Gold community can play a part. We urge fans to get in the game. Whether it be through gifts to the A-T Fund, purchasing tickets and merchandise, corporate sponsorships – every manner of support is vital to the success of Tech athletics.”
For more information and to make a year-end gift to the A-T Fund, visit atfund.org.
Full Steam Ahead
Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.
Fourth Quarter
Less than two weeks remain for the Georgia Tech community to take advantage of the A-T Fund’s year-end Fourth Quarter Initiative, which gives supporters the opportunity to receive four A-T Fund priority points for every $100 donated to the Athletic Scholarship Fund through Dec. 31. The Athletic Scholarship Fund provides direct support for student-athletic scholarships and is one of the A-T Fund’s highest annual priorities, as it helps bridge the gap between endowment returns and scholarship costs.
Fourth Quarter gifts to the Athletic Scholarship Fund will provide donors with four A-T Fund priority points per $100 donated, which is double the two points normally allotted per $100 given. A-T Fund priority points are used to allocate benefits such as seat locations and parking for Georgia Tech athletics home events, as well as access to tickets for away games and postseason events, including ACC and NCAA Championships, bowl games and the College Football Playoff. To contribute to the Fourth Quarter Initiative and begin collecting four A-T Fund priority points for every $100 donated, click HERE. For more information, visit atfund.org/4th-quarter.
For the latest information on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram and at www.ramblinwreck.com.
Georgia
DA Fani Willis appears before Georgia Senate panel
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testifies before a Georgia State Senate committee in Atlanta as she ends her year-long legal fight over a subpoena and defends her actions in the Trump election interference case.
Posted
Georgia
One of Georgia Tech’s best, Haynes King readies for Yellow Jackets finale
A day after receiving ACC honors, Tech’s senior quarterback refocuses on BYU and the bowl game.
Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King (center) and his family react during a senior night event prior to his final home game Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, against Pittsburgh at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta. (Hyosub Shin AJC)
As Haynes King’s time in Atlanta and as a member of the Georgia Tech football program wanes, the inimitable quarterback is soaking in the last few days with teammates while basking in the glow of winning a pair of individual ACC awards.
King was presented two trophies Tuesday — one for being named the ACC player of the year and the other for being named the ACC offensive player of the year — during halftime of Tech’s basketball win over Marist at McCamish Pavilion. The senior was joined by Tech coach Brent Key, Tech athletic director Ryan Alpert, Tech President Angel Cabrera and the ACC’s senior vice president for football, Michael Strickland.
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