Former Gamecocks Talk About Life After College Sports in Moore School Webinar

Managing the transition from athlete to professional in something outside of college sports is something all student-athletes will deal with at some point. That was the topic of a recent Darla Moore School of Business webinar, which was titled “Business of the Game,” and featured Moore School and South Carolina football alumni Moe Brown (2006-2009), Ryan Succop (2005-2008), Tommy Suggs (1968-1970), and Parker White (2016-2020). The event was moderated by former Gamecock and professional baseball standout Michael Roth (2009-2012). To see the full video, click here.

Tommy Suggs

Each recognized different attributes that contributed to them being a success on the field for the Gamecocks that carried over into life after college.

“The one I like is the value of competition,” said Suggs, a former quarterback who is president and CEO of HUB Carolinas and is also the long-time radio color analyst for South Carolina football broadcasts. “I love competing. I love knowing that you have to have a team. It’s also the value of leadership. Leadership comes in all forms. In my business life specifically, I’ve always felt like 97-percent of the world are followers. There is a very small percentage that are leaders. Good quality leadership is invaluable.

“There is so much you learn from football or a team sport. I learned a lot, and I was always trying to transition that into my business and personal life. There are values you learn in a team sport. What I was able to learn there, I transitioned into my 25 years of banking before I went into insurance.”

For former wide receiver Moe Brown, using the skills he acquired as a student-athlete helped him compartmentalize a hectic schedule, on and off the field.

“As athletes, you wake up in the morning, go to workouts, go to class, go back to workouts, go back to class, go to the field, have practice, go to study hall, call your girlfriend and let her know you care about her, and you repeat this over and over again,” said Brown, who is the lead consultant at Process First Consulting, LLC. “Each one of these items requires a high level of focus and attention. The expectation is for you to be good at all of these things. Being able to compartmentalize has been essential in taking what I’ve learned as an athlete as well as a student and being able to balance all of those things and give maximum effort.

“That has really given me a leg up in the corporate world and always being coachable, responding under pressure, understanding the importance of process and how you take yourself through every objective you are trying to reach. A lot of that goes back to the four years I spent at the University of South Carolina.”

“Without being resilient, it’s going to be tough to get to where you want to go in life in business or in sports.”
– Parker  White

Parker White recently finished his playing career as a kicker with the Gamecocks last fall and is now in graduate school, working on his MBA. As someone who is now learning to make the transition to life after sports, White notes the importance of resiliency.

“Everyone is going to have rough patches in their life that they’re going to have to get through,” White said. “Without being resilient, it’s going to be tough to get to where you want to go in life in business or in sports. I’ve learned that in having tough times in off-season workouts or really tough exams. It’s always about the next kick. You can’t change what’s in the past. You have to be resilient and move on.

“If your team isn’t resilient, as soon as you lose a game or hit a bump in the road, you’re going to crumble.”

“Everyone wants to be at the end result of the process without going through it,” said Brown. “It’s that dedication to the process and always wanting to be better.”

Moe Brown

For former Gamecock kicker Ryan Succop, who has played the last 12 years in the National Football League and won a Super ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers earlier this year, it’s adversity on the field that has prepared him for challenges off the field.

“As I’ve gotten older, one of the things that I’ve realized is that every time I’ve gone through adversity in my life, the Lord has used that to grow me,” Succop said. “When we go through adversity, we can do one of two things: we can let it get us down and defeat us, or we can learn from it and grow from it and mature as a person.

“I had a bad senior year at South Carolina, and I remember thinking specifically, why now? It turned out to be a blessing. It ended up putting me in Kansas City, where I played for five years. You look back on it, and you realize there’s a purpose behind it. Likewise, this past year. I had six great years in Nashville (Tennessee Titans). I got hurt, and I didn’t play well. Then the opportunity opened up in Tampa. It showed me how much I appreciate the game. It showed me in that offseason that I worked harder than I had probably ever worked. I ended up in Tampa and had probably the best season of my career, and you know the rest; we won the Super Bowl. If I hadn’t gone through that adversity, none of that would have happened. When you get through it, there’s a reward to that. There’s fulfillment. I am grateful for the times I’ve experienced adversity.

“I enjoy that process. I love competing. We want to do the best that we can in everything we do. You want to work at it, and you want to give it your all. You almost get more out of the process of doing those things than winning the game.”

Few people will find instant success in their chosen field, and Tommy Suggs used a metaphor with another sport to show the importance of effort and tenacity.

“I’ve always felt like life and business is like basketball,” Suggs said. “What I mean by that is, you really have to take a shot. You can’t win 0-0. So, don’t be afraid to take a shot. More importantly, it’s all about rebounding. How do you handle the bad shots? Everything doesn’t go perfectly. You lose. You miss a field goal; you walk a batter; you drop a pass. It’s all about rebounding.”

“You have to be self-aware in order to correct a mistake,” added Brown. “Everything happens for a reason, but the reasons are determined by the actions that you take.”

The former Gamecocks encouraged current students to take advantage of the resources available to them at the University of South Carolina including mentors, advisors, and tutors to help prepare them for the next step in their lives. They were also appreciative of what they learned at the Moore School.

“What was great about the Moore School is that the professors had real world experience and they taught in that way,” Brown said. “They took the academics and applied it to real world situations so that you can get a feel for what it would be like when you got out into the real world. All those skills going through the Darla Moore School of Business really prepared me when football did not go well. “