ATLANTA – Homer Rice, who as athletic director hired some of Georgia Tech's most successful coaches and implemented the school's Whole Person Program, has died. He was 97 years old.
Rice died Monday, according to the school.
Rice was Georgia Tech's athletic director from 1980 to 1997. Her notable hires included 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 athletics department.
Rice coached high school, college and NFL football 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 coached 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 considered the model for the NCAA Life Skills Program. The Homer Rice Award is presented annually to an FBS athletic director in recognition of his 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 Angel Cabrera said in a statement released by the school. “In a time of profound change in athletics, Homer's message and legacy of excellence are more important than ever.”
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement that 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 continues to resonate with not only me, but all 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 sports administration.
“He was my mentor then and has been my entire adult life,” Swofford said in a statement. “I had the privilege of serving for 17 years as AD with him in the ACC while he was at Georgia Tech and I was at UNC. Simply put, he was the best Athletic Director I have 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 recently and wrote several books on leadership success.
Georgia Tech dedicated a statue of Rice outside Bobby Dodd Stadium in 2021. Dodd and John Heisman are the only other Georgia Tech athletes to be commemorated with a statue.
Rice's wife of 64 years, Phyllis, died in 2013. He married his second wife, Karen, in 2015.
