Rice, Homer Cranston, Dr., 2001 December 05

This is a Living History interview with Dr. Homer Rice, Executive Assistant to the President and Director of Athletics from 1980-1997, conducted by Marilyn Somers on December 5, 2001 and December 10, 2001 at Alexander Memorial Coliseum. The subject of the interview is Mr. Rice’s life and experiences at Georgia Tech. Mr. Rice was born in 1927 in Bellevue, Kentucky. His father was a Methodist minister. He grew up with one older brother. Mr. Rice was a troublemaker when he was little. His family moved to Louisville, Kentucky and then to Pineville, Kentucky. In Pineville, Mr. Rice’s brother excelled in high school sports, Mr. Rice became the team mascot, and he decided that he wanted to be a football coach when he grew up. From Pineville they moved to Middlesboro, Kentucky. He met his wife Phyllis there. Then they moved to Ft. Thomas, Kentucky, where Mr. Rice attended Highlands High School and excelled in all the sports they offered. Mr. Rice joined the Navy during his junior year of high school. He was recruited by Bobby Dodd to play football for Georgia Tech, but he ended up graduating from high school a semester early and going to war. Mr. Rice went to Great Lakes Naval Station for boot camp, where he met football coaching great, Paul Brown. Mr. Rice was in the Pacific during the war. He stayed in touch with Phyllis the entire time he was over there. When he was discharged from the war, he was scouted to play baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He played on the same team as Jackie Robinson his first year in the major leagues. During the fall, Mr. Rice played football for Centre College. He majored in history although he knew that he still wanted to coach football. He earned his Master’s Degree in Education and accepted a job as head coach for a small school in Wartburg, Tennessee. It was a small rural town and a very school. He was a teacher and the only person in the athletic department. He coached every sport at the school. He also had to coach a football team for the near-by prison so that he could borrow football equipment that the school lacked. Mr. Rice left Wartburg and coached football in Spring City, Tennessee, before going back as head coach to his high school. Mr. Rice stayed with his high school for eight years, during which time he turned down an exceptional position coaching for the University of Alabama. He finally left his high school and accepted a job as top assistant coach for the University of Kentucky. After that, he almost had a job with Duke University, but that deal fell through; he ended up coaching at the University of Oklahoma for two years. From there he went to the University of Cincinnati to save their struggling football program. On the side, Mr. Rice sold life insurance to supplement his coaching salary. He was depressed while he was in Cincinnati, but he listened to motivational tapes from Paul Meyers, and they helped him. Mr. Rice left Cincinnati for the University of North Carolina, where he served as athletic director for eight years. After North Carolina, he went to Rice University as head coach and to found a graduate program in athletic administration. Mr. Rice also coached the East-West game in California. He then moved on to coaching in the NFL; he was head coach and later in management for the Cincinnati Bengals. Mr. Rice then came to Tech as director of athletics to salvage the struggling athletic program. Mr. Rice started fundraising for new facilities, put good coaches in place, introduced his total-person concept, and gained respect from other schools in the conference. Mr. Rice is responsible for putting all sports at Tech, not just football, in the Edge Building. Tech was originally last place in everything in the ACC, but at the end of Mr. Rice’s first five-year plan, they were leading the conference. Bill Curry, the football coach, left Tech, and Bobby Ross replaced him. At first, things were rocky under Ross, but they eventually picked up. The goal of Mr. Rice’s second five-year plan was to gain national recognition, and this goal was accomplished by continual success in all sports and a vast improvement in academics in the athletic program. Mr. Rice was central in bringing the Olympics to Atlanta and to Tech. He fundraised to get money to build new facilities to be used for the Olympics. Mr. Rice’s third five-year plan involved gaining national recognition, which the Olympics did. Security was the biggest issue with the Olympics being at Tech. Ross left Tech and was replaced by Bill Lewis; Lewis left during his third season because things did not work out. He was replaced by George O’Leary. In the early 1990s, there were many changes at Tech, including a new president and new coaches for many sports. Mr. Rice tells the story of how Bobby Cremins, the basketball coach, almost went to the University of South Carolina. Mr. Rice was relieved then the Olympics and Paralympics were over. He retired the following spring and was replaced by Dave Braine. There was a nice banquet and half time ceremony honoring him and his family. Mr. Rice teaches a class about leadership at Tech every fall. He has written six books—the first three are about football and the rest are more general leadership books—and is planning a seventh. He is involved in many philanthropic activities and is still very closely connected to Tech. He is enjoying his retirement; he and his wife spend a lot of time at Marco Island or fishing on a ranch in Montana.