Release Date: Monday, April 5, 2004

INCOMING UGA ATHLETIC DIRECTOR DAMON EVANS TO SPEAK AT SPECIAL 'TERRY THIRD THURSDAY' LUNCHEON IN ATHENS

ATHENS, Ga. — Damon Evans, successor to University of Georgia athletic director Vince Dooley, will be guest speaker at an April 15 luncheon hosted by the Terry College of Business at the Athens Country Club.

Evans, who is currently serving as UGA's senior associate athletic director, will deliver a speech entitled "Is College Athletics Big Business?"

Evans graduated from the Terry College of Business in 1992 with a degree in finance and earned his master's of education in sports management from UGA in 1994. When Vince Dooley retires June 30, Evans will succeed him to become the youngest athletics director in the Southeastern Conference and its only African-American athletics director.

As an athlete, Evans' resume coming out of Gainesville High School in Hall County included earning first-team all-state honors in football, being named most valuable player on the basketball team and setting a school record for the 220-yard dash in track. He played football for the University of Georgia from 1988 to 1992, playing in the 1989 Peach, 1991 Independence and the 1992 Citrus bowl games.

He interned with the SEC in 1993 as a compliance and academic affairs assistant before taking over as director of compliance and operations at the University of Missouri in 1994. In 1995, Evans went to work for the SEC as its director of compliance. He was promoted to assistant commissioner for compliance in 1997 before coming back to UGA as an associate athletics director in 1998.

Evans served from 1998 to 2001 as a member of the NCAA Division 1-A management council, the highest governance committee attainable by an athletics administrator. He is also chair of the UGA academic task force charged with reviewing academic credentials of prospective student-athletes.

Evans became senior associate athletics director in 2000, serving as second in charge of UGA's athletics program, with its 21 intercollegiate sports teams, more than 500 student-athletes, 206 staff members and a $45 million annual budget. In December 2003, UGA president Michael Adams announced Evans as the next athletics director.

Tickets for Terry Third Thursday with Damon Evans are $30 per person and include lunch. Reservations are encouraged due to limited seating and can be made online at www.terry.uga.edu/ttt/ or by phone at 706-583-0397.

The April 15 luncheon will serve as the "kick-off" for Terry Third Thursday in Athens, a new executive speaker series to be hosted twice a year by the Terry College of Business to give alumni and friends of UGA an opportunity to hear from accomplished leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators who are setting the agenda locally and globally.

The Athens program is an outgrowth of the Terry College's highly successful "Terry Third Thursday" held monthly in Atlanta. More information about the Terry Third Thursday executive speaker series is available on the Terry College of Business website at www.terry.uga.edu.

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