Gators THE game for student rep on athletic board

by Murray Poole

Come Thursday of this week, University of
Georgia students will be shutting down their normal
campus routine and begin their annual migration
south to St. Simons Island, Amelia Island and
Jacksonville, Fla.

The occasion, of course, is Saturday’s annual
clash with the hated Florida Gators on the banks of
the St. Johns River, at Jacksonville’s Everbank Field.
And one of those students heading for a contest
that could have a big say in whoever wins the
SEC’s East Division title this season is Ryan Scates.

And in Scates’ case, he’s a third-year student in the
university’s touted school of law who maybe has a little
more insight into Georgia football and all things
Bulldogs athletics than does even the most avid UGA
student sports fan.

That’s because Scates presently serves on the
Board of Directors of the Georgia Athletic Association
as the university’s student representative.

And while you will find no one these days
who’s a more loyal Georgia Bulldog than Ryan Scates,
he said that wasn’t always the case.

“I’m from Kennesaw, Ga.,” Scates said. “My
wife, Kiel, and I both went to Kennesaw Mountain
High School and we graduated from there in 2006,
and then much to the dismay of my family I went to
Georgia because you see, I grew up a big Tennessee
fan. But since I did come to Georgia, my allegiance
has changed accordingly.”

Scates graduated with degrees in political science
and speech communication in 2010 and now,
as mentioned, is in his third and last year of law
school. Ryan and Kiel first met in elementary school
and then dated off and on at Georgia before becoming
man and wife following Scates’ first year of UGA
law school. Kiel Scates is presently a special education
teacher at North Oconee High School.

Scates, during his undergraduate days and
early years in law school, did work for Bulldawg Illustrated.
“I worked for Bulldawg Illustrated for just
under four years,” Scates said. “I started off as an intern
and then finished as editor of Bulldawg Illustrated
Athens. I then left Bulldawg Illustrated because
I took a job this year working for the governor’s executive
council in Atlanta, from January through
May.”

Scates, like everyone else in Bulldog Nation, is
eagerly anticipating Georgia’s opportunity to hand
the BCS 2nd-ranked and unbeaten Florida Gators
their first defeat Saturday afternoon in the CBS nationally-
televised game, a win that would catapult
the Bulldogs into the driver’s seat for the East Division
crown.

“I definitely think for people my age Florida is
the premier opponent Georgia plays every year,” declared
Scates. “It’s always really special to go Friday,
sometimes Thursday if you’re lucky, on to St. Simons
to get ready for the game. Like I said, I grew up a big
Tennessee fan and so one thing that’s stayed constant
being from a family of Tennessee Vols and then becoming
a Georgia Bulldog, is that you hate Florida.
That’s the game you have circled every year and obviously,
playing in Jacksonville it’s a bowl-game type
atmosphere and Florida is our biggest rival, bar
none.

“Florida is unbeaten this year so this is a huge
game for Georgia,” Scates continued. “And I think
sitting in Columbia in the third quarter of our game
with South Carolina, it would have been hard to believe
that Georgia would be in the driver’s seat or deserve
to be in the driver’s seat in the SEC East and be
in position to go play in Atlanta again but if we win
Saturday against Florida, that’s the position we’ll be
in. And being a die-hard Georgia fan, you’ll take that
although I definitely think the Georgia alums and
fans deserve a season where Georgia controls its own
destiny from start to finish and we don’t have to sit
around and wait for other teams to beat the teams in
front of us to be able to go to Atlanta.”

In the following question-and-answer session,
Ryan Scates talks more about his background and
his role on the Georgia athletic board.

What is your future occupation?
I hope to be an attorney after taking the bar in
August. Right now I’m a law student and have
worked in several law offices for the past several years
and I’ve worked for different agencies like the governor’s
office. And, also, I guess in my former life, I
was a newspaper editor.

How many years have you served on the
UGA athletic board?
I was put on the athletic board at the May
meeting this year. Every year one student is appointed
to the athletic board. The student government
association puts three names before the athletic
board for consideration to see who would be elected
by the board to be the student rep and this year I
was one of those three names and I’m very thankful
that the board had confidence in me to choose me
for this position. We have two student-athletes, Chris
Burnette (football) and Noel Couch (gymnastics),
serving on the board and they don’t have a vote but
I do have I guess the honor and burden of voting for
the other 35,000 students that are enrolled at Georgia.
Obviously, athletics is a huge part of the college
experience and what Georgia means to everybody
that goes to school here and so I take that very seriously
and I’m happy to have a vote on the athletic
board.

Where did you grow up and what made it
special?
I grew up in Cobb County, Ga. and the special
thing is all the history in Kennesaw. Obviously, the
Battle of Kennesaw Mountain happened in Kennesaw
and being able to have all those great historical
resources nearby and going to the national park and
learning about the Civil War and everything, it’s been
incredible. When my parents built their house when
I was in high school and we were excavating, we saw
several artifacts, like paraphernalia from the Civil
War and that’s definitely one of the unique things
about northwest Cobb County that I take pride in.

What has been the most exciting part for
you serving on UGA’s athletic board?
It’s definitely the opportunity that athletic Greg
McGarity has given me to voice student concerns to
the different staff members in the athletic association.
As soon as I was put on the board I had been
forwarded a ton of different concerns about the
things that the athletic association does that relates to
students and Greg and Frank Crumley and Claude
Felton have all been instrumental in helping to address
those concerns to see how we can best serve
students and make sure we’re reaching them in the
best possible way. That’s been very exciting for me to
get that help and encouragement as we go about
that.

What has been the most exciting aspect of
your career studies thus far?
Definitely working on the governor’s legal team
during the 2012 legislative session was an incredible
experience. I got to be a part of some substantial legislative
efforts that the governor was pushing through
including criminal justice reform and constitutional
amendments that will be before the citizens of Georgia
on the November ballot. So to be able to do that
kind of thing and to kind of see the law you study
in school come to life through the legislative process
and to have impact on it at the executive level is a
thrill that I will always cherish.

What do you think are the biggest challenges
for Georgia athletics in the near future?
I definitely think we have a new and different
kind of student attending UGA today than we did
five years ago, 10 years ago and 15 years ago The
Hope Scholarship has radically changed the culture,
the environment and academic integrity of the university
and all for the better, but as our students have
become more sophisticated I think the athletic association
will always have a challenge in finding the
best way to engage the students. I think that’s been
reflected in maybe addressing some of the student attendance
at football games so maybe we can find
different ways of doing a better job of getting students
excited and be Bulldogs for life, not just a
Georgia fan during the four years they’re here but to
be like the lifelong Georgia fans we’ve had and taken
so much pride in for decades before. As we have
more students, we have students maybe like me that
didn’t grow up being Georgia fans so we’re always
going to have a challenge to kind of figure out how
to reach them to make them lifelong supporters of
Georgia athletics.

Your favorite UGA sports moment?
My first away game working for Bulldawg Illustrated
was the 2009 Georgia-Tennessee game and
growing up as a big Tennessee fan it was special
being able to cover Georgia and that game in particular
from the field at Neyland Stadium. And even
though Georgia got blown out (by 45-19) that day
it was a really great experience to be able to see operations
of how our football team works up close
and personal and that definitely got me hooked on
thinking of ways how we can make athletics better
for everybody, from the casual fan buying tickets on
the day of the game to the student-athlete that’s completely
committed to all things UGA. So that day was
definitely a watershed moment for me and from that
day moving forward, I’ve never been so proud to be
a Dog.

Tagged: murray poole, university of georgia athletic board, ryan scates