The BOSS Podcast (The Business Of Southern Sports‪)‬ Roger Manis

University of Georgia Director of Athletics Greg McGarity has announced his retirement effective at the end of the year. His Senior Deputy, Josh Brooks, will take over the duties on an interim basis January 1st of 2021. 

Under McGarity’s leadership, the annual budget of the Athletic Association grew from 89 million dollars in 2010 to 153 million today, and he has overseen more than 200 million dollars in facility improvements.  
The job of an Athletic Director can be a thankless one.  You are the one who hires and fires coaches. You must look out for the welfare of student-athletes, win championships, and  maintain fiscal responsibility. And in McGarity's case,  he wanted to retire earlier in 2020 but the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Out of a sense of duty and loyalty, he decided to stick around for a few more months to help weather the storm.
In this special podcast, we will hear from McGarity and University of Georgia President Dr. Jere Morehead as they meet the media to discuss Greg’s departure, his legacy, and the search for a replacement. 

It was recently announced that the Atlanta Motor Speedway would have two NASCAR races in 2021. From 1960 until 2010, the track hosted two Cup races a season. Therefore, this additional race for Atlanta next season is a return to tradition.

We will speak with Brandon Hutchison, the Executive Vice-President and General Manager of Atlanta Motor Speedway, about that recent development. We will also discuss the way NASCAR has navigated itself through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brandon has been with AMS for a quarter of a century. He started as an intern in the mid 90's, and finds himself as the GM today. It's a great story of working hard to chart a path up the career ladder.

Chris Draft played college football at Stanford University and was drafted in the 6th round by the Chicago Bears. It is hard for a late round pick to "stick" in the NFL long term, but Chris Draft played pro football for 12 seasons at the linebacker position. His long career is even more amazing when you learn that Draft has asthma.

While in the league, he started his foundation to focus on healthy living and mentoring young people. His foundation soon added cancer initiatives to their plans when he lost his wife to the deadly disease when she was just 37. 

In this conversation, we discuss his wife and her fighting spirit. It motivates him to move forward in the battle against cancer, and has taken him around the world. He has been in the White House and visited Parliament in the United Kingdom.

In addition to his foundation, we discuss social justice, football, and just what life is really like inside an NFL locker room. Some teammates are just crazy! He'll give specifics.

Enjoy the latest episode of The BOSS Podcast.

Todd Stansbury, the Director of Athletics at Georgia Tech, discusses the COVID-19 protocols for the Yellow Jackets' home football games. He also talks about the economic impact of the pandemic on the Athletics Department budget, and what they are trying to do to minimize the financial impact.

Let's talk lifestyle! What could be better than hanging out with friends, preparing a nice steak on a state-of-the-art grill, having a great cocktail, and talking sports? In this episode, we are joined by the team behind Rec Teq Grills and Durty Gurl Mixers as they share the phenomenal success stories of their products. We are thankful that they are the sponsors of The BOSS Podcast, and we are also incredibly proud of their success.

It's a fun group that loves their products and they share that fun in everything they do, especially on social media. Oh, and we'll also talk a little bit of sports! Learn what all the fun is about by checking out the lifestyle in this episode of The BOSS Podcast.

Are you ready for some baseball? Jim Powell, the long time radio voice of the Atlanta Braves, joins us in this episode. We will get a status report on the team after 20 games of the shortened season. What's it like calling road games from your home stadium by watching a TV monitor? He'll tell us all about it.

We will also discuss Jim's years in Milwaukee working alongside the legendary Bon Uecker. We'll learn about Jim's love of baseball which started as a child. As a young man, he set his sights on being a major league broadcaster, and he put in the work to achieve that goal. Time to play ball!