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Transcript from "UGA Alumni"

Q:  One thing that we've saved as last because we can use it as a device to wrap it up is during that time that you moved from Dallas to Los Angeles, I believe that very year, you were the president of the Georgia Alumni Society, and I think, the youngest president.  I think you were early 30’s at the time.  Talk about that year and why it was important for you to be involved with that.

TJ: First, I was genuinely honored to be the president of the University of Georgia Alumni Society.  I love the University.  The University meant so much to me.  Those four years were years where I had people who believed in me, faculty members, fraternity brothers, other students who were electing me to all of these positions, so I felt like this was something I needed to do to give back to the University.  I should tell you there could have been a better year than that because I had to commute.  I can't remember how many times I had to fly back and forth between Dallas and--I was trying to think the other day, was it Dallas or Los Angeles--it was Dallas and Atlanta, and get a car and drive over.

Q: You were working with folks like President Fred Davison at the time, I believe Bob Argo was involved.

TJ: Yes, yes, very much so I guess I have always felt that a great University has a really strong alumni.  You can't have one without the other.  You have to support it financially but support with our participation, with our giving back to it.  I enjoyed the year, I enjoyed the opportunity, I enjoyed being consulted about policy matters I had though.  I know I was involved to get Coca-Cola to take the Peabody’s to an entire new level with their financial support in New York, which was a tangential thing.  I stayed much, much closer to the Grady College, served on their Advisory Board, served on the Peabody Board and served on other things there. I think we all have a responsibility to the University and I see that in totally genuine ways.  I don't know that I've ever accepted the opportunity to come and sit in the President's Box, like so many people, see these as opportunities to get things for themselves.  I want to see, a chance to give back to the University and I've just been delighted to see it continued, the trajectory.  Mike Adams and I may have had our differences on things, but we haven't differed on the quality of the University of Georgia.  The ambitions to make it one of the absolute best universities in the country, it makes my degree of greater value, and I am also convinced that I could never get admitted in today with the new standards.

Q: Oh, I am sure you would have met the standards whatever they were.

TJ: (nods)

Q: We want to thank you for your time today.  It's been a great pleasure to have you tell your story.

TJ: Thank you both for all you are doing, all three of you for this project and for the graduates of the University. I've enjoyed it.