UF players Riley Simonds, left, and Derek Wingo during a visit to the Kennedy Space Center and NASA headquarters. (Photo: Courtesy of NASA)
GatorMade Program Reaches Far Beyond Field
Tuesday, October 3, 2023 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They are on the same team, but their work resides in separate worlds.
As Gators head coach Billy Napier spoke to the media Monday afternoon, unpacking an unpleasant loss and facing pointed questions, Savannah Bailey listened from the back of the room inside the Heavener Football Training Center.
Bailey is senior director of player relations and the GatorMade program, one of Napier's first hires when he took over the program. She is invested in wins and losses but in more of a real-world way. Savannah Bailey
"I can tell you, just in the brief time we've been here, it has made a significant impact on our young people," Napier said of the program. "The desire here is to have the best player-development program in the entire country. I think we're in the process of creating that."
Since Napier established GatorMade and hired Bailey, the program has taken players on service trips to Greece and South Africa, business education trips to Atlanta and New York, and leadership visits to the Disney Institute and Nike headquarters. The program is also involved with the charity and public-service events players regularly attend in the local community.
Bailey spoke to the media Monday after Napier's press conference to spotlight the second annual GatorMade Week, which emphasizes the program to raise awareness among University of Florida fans, alumni, educators and potential business partners.
Speaking in front of reporters whose interest primarily lies in what happens on the field, Bailey was asked how GatorMade can help players off the field in the middle of the high-pressure season that invariably has its ups and downs.
"I heard a lot of questions asking about energy and leadership and maturity and adjustments and those kinds of things, and all of that comes with knowing who you are, what you're capable of, and being able to communicate and share that amongst the team," Bailey said. "That's GatorMade's hand in the season. While we don't have the result we want, this is still the growth process of young men. There are still people going through adversity, having to handle and adjust to that, and go about life and really push forward.
"That's all life is, is a series of transitions and how you handle them. That's what we equip them to be able to do." Gators Riley Simonds, left, and Derek Wingo stand outside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA during an internship through the GatorMade program. (Photo: Courtesy of NASA).
GatorMade touches every player on the roster, from well-known players such as Trevor Etienne and Princely Umanmielen — both went on the service trip to South Africa last summer — to reserve offensive lineman Riley Simonds.
Simonds earned his graduate degree in the spring and is now getting a master's in business entrepreneurship. He wants to run the business side of a company he plans to start with his brother, who is in orthopedics and would run the medical operation.
Simonds and teammate Derek Wingo attended a week-long internship at NASA over the summer and met with organizational leaders and experts. They tagged alongside Jarrod Bales, a UF graduate and now education and outreach specialist for NASA's Launch Services Program.
The experience opened Simonds' eyes to how a large, world-renowned organization is structured.
"The biggest thing I took away is that you don't have to be extraordinary to accomplish your dreams or to work through an organization that is as successful as NASA,'' Simonds said. "My perception [of NASA] was just astronauts and engineers working away in a lab. Now that I see it, it's an organization that has many components that go hand in hand that work together to create a rocket launch."
That was the goal of Bales and NASA when reaching out to state universities to gauge interest in the program.
"We were excited that UF's GatorMade program was able to participate,'' Bales said. "It was a very involved internship. We are responsible for all of NASA's science and robotic missions. We're sending satellites and spacecraft to study the Earth. All kinds of things throughout the solar system."
Simonds and Wingo capped the week at NASA by participating in an outreach event at Astronaut High School and sharing the experience with students. They took questions and spoke about their daily lives in the UF football program and how it prepares them for the day when they are done playing.
"It was second to none,'' Simonds said of the NASA internship. "Astronomical."
That attitude is why Napier and Bailey consider the program so important.
Of course, they want to win games, but they want to build better men and future leaders.
That has been GatorMade's mission since it was launched, one player at a time.
"We are at every meal, practice, team meetings, all that stuff. 'I see what you're going through. I see how you carry it on your shoulders. And, hey, I didn't make that play or whatever else.' How do you provide that sense of encouragement or even that space just to process it?" Bailey said. "Maybe they don't want to talk at all and just sit somewhere for a second and collect their thoughts. I think that's something that's wildly underrated. Do you create the environment where someone feels comfortable enough to process what they have just gone through, maybe come up with some solutions, or even just be back to being a person?
"They're going to be a person a lot longer than they're a player. How do we make sure that comes first?"
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