Gators Q&A: Savannah Bailey, Senior Director of Player Relations and GatorMade
Thursday, October 5, 2023 | Football, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When you walk through the front doors of the Heavener Football Training Center, stairs leading to the second floor await across the lobby.
At the top of those stairs is the office of GatorMade, the place where Savannah Bailey spends much of her time. Bailey is the senior director of player relations and GatorMade.
Bailey spent five seasons at Clemson as director of life skills and community service with the Tigers' P.A.W. Journey program prior to taking a job on Billy Napier's staff at Florida. Her role is wide-ranging, but at its core GatorMade is focused on creating and implementing opportunities for applied leadership and professional development of Gators football scholar-athletes.
Bailey met with reporters earlier this week to shine a light on the program. Here is a Q&A from the press conference (edited for length and clarity):
Q: How has social media and constant attention/evaluation of players impacted your approach?
A: I've worked with college students for about 10 years now. The external pressures have really heightened. [Outsiders] intensely scrutinize our guys for the 12 days they think they know them. Imagine being with them 365 and seeing that full growth process and what it looks like for them to become their own person, to be able to apply that in-game and out.
Q: Is their an effort to expand GatorMade into the other sports?
A: We already do that. Traditionally, with other universities, we have an overall student-athlete development department, and they service all our Olympic sports, so all the other 500 athletes we have. When you think about a football roster we have about 120, which is the size of about six different Olympic sports teams. That's why we have the specialization. But it's one of those [situations] we share in communication every single week. Who is our corporate contacts? What are we doing, working on? What are the trends, the learning outcomes? While we get to sometimes be the guinea pig or the trendsetter for something — that's the influence of football. That doesn't mean it doesn't directly impact other sports. When we had our trip to Nike, I took 10 of my guys and six women athletes. Not just football. How do you spread the wealth and just the imprint of being a Florida Gator?
Q: How has NIL (name, image & likeness) increased pressure on players, the competition to build your brand?
A: I think if anything, it just adds a little bit more heightened awareness to what it is you put out in the world. It's always been important to folks like me, but at this point, it becomes a heightened one for companies and for people to really see the value and the impact that sports has. If anything, they're getting to conduct themselves as businessmen. They're going into contracts and selling themselves and providing their platform. They have to do so in a professional way. If not, you can get fired. It's the real-world context. To me, if anything, it provides the application to what it is we've always been teaching.
Q: Does it seem like NIL is something additional on their plate?
A: That's a personal choice. You'll see some guys really engaged in that space, and some that aren't. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to that. NIL is just an opportunity, and it's a matter of which one are you going to take. There is also an opportunity to get better at everything every day. We all have the same 24 hours. How do you spend it? It's for us to help them to digest that.
Q: What have you learned from the players since GatorMade was implemented here?
A: Yeah, first year is drinking from a fire hydrant. It was new place, new everything. I wanted to come in and institute stuff immediately, but also realizing, without the relationship piece, whatever you're trying to build is going to fall flat. I got to take that valuable step back and say, 'okay, how do I make sure they understand what this is and who it's for?' It's for them. That's the purpose. So, in the second year you're going in with a lot more buy-in, a lot more trust, student feedback. The stuff we have planned for spring 2024 is based off of feedback from this team, the guys that will be on the trips and doing those things. It feels a little bit more built-in. That's the whole point, the ownership piece there.
Q: What does is say about Coach Napier that he puts such a emphasis on GatorMade?
A: This is the part when you ask about, 'oh, how are you going to respond?' That comes from an internal force that you have for yourself. What motivates you. Who are you as a person. All the questions you're asking [after last week's loss] come from the things that GatorMade helps you establish and peel away, and helps them understand. So, when I think of how he prioritizes it — he told me, 'hey, I went after you. I specifically brought you here to help create this' — then I have the privilege of bringing in other people to help mold it into something that's always going to serve the players and our alumni.
Q: Where did you get your passion to work in this area of college athletics?
A: I was a first-gen student. Didn't have a lot of help navigating some of these spaces, and I think a lot of our guys go through the same thing. I've always been surrounded by men my whole life, and prior to working in football, I worked for fraternities in membership develop, so groups of men struggling to find their identity within those large groups and how do you help them figure that stuff out. Coming from the perspective of a woman, the perspective of an educator, you get to add a little bit different flavor to it.
Q: How does have ex-players involved with GatorMade help the current players?
A: This is someone who has lived and breathed and done everything they've done, and then some. So, to me, that's an invaluable perspective, one that I can't provide. One that I have to be particularly cognizant of that they value.
