The ‘prettiest little’ game day experience. How one Georgia G5 woos donors.
No huddle: How Georgia’s top-tier college football programs are navigating the fast-changing competitive landscape
College sports is fast becoming professionalized. Star quarterbacks and pass rushers now attract seven-figure paychecks through revenue-sharing deals with their schools. Players in search of better compensation or playing time can now switch teams through a quasi-free agency process known as the transfer portal. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will explore how Georgia schools at various competition levels are navigating this changing landscape in this periodic series.
Today: Georgia Southern is leveraging a high-quality game day experience — and a personable president — to stand apart and attract donors.
STATESBORO ― Kyle Marrero arrives outside what iconic football coach Erk Russell dubbed the “prettiest little stadium in America” three hours before the start of every Georgia Southern home game. He’s the university president and the ringleader of one of the fan-friendliest game day experiences in sports.
Georgia Southern is among college football’s lower-profile programs determined to overcome its standing in the sport’s changing landscape. The challenges are plain: membership in a league without a rich media rights deal, a relatively small and less-than-affluent alumni base compared to the Georgias and Georgia Techs, and a rural geographic location.
With Marrero’s blessing and support, Georgia Southern is leaning into the new era. His shoe leather, too. Over the course of more than six hours on a game day, he covers tens of thousands of steps. He wears blue-and white sneakers — Georgia Southern colors — with his suit and tie. After kickoff, he bounces between the field and the president’s skybox like an expertly struck onside kick.
Ask athletic director Chris Davis for advice on shadowing Marrero on game day, he just smiles before answering: “Wear good footwear.”
Marrero, now in his seventh year leading the school, has pinpointed the game day experience as where Georgia Southern can stand out — and, in doing so, increase donor giving. The Eagles lag their major college peers in fundraising, a gap that only continues to grow in today’s landscape. They’ll spend anywhere from $1.1 million to $1.5 million this year on player compensation, also called revenue share, far below the $20.5 million their higher-profile peers will dole out.
But in recent years they’ve put in the infrastructure to attract big donors. game day tailgate suites are designed into a covered practice facility across from the stadium. Scoreboards, lighting and sound systems, fireworks and other pyrotechnics turn team entrances and timeouts into a show. And then there’s Marrero, an ambassador du jour for all things Georgia Southern Eagles.
“Every touch matters,” Marrero said, punctuating each word.
Game day glow up
The shed-like practice facility bears Anthony Tippins’ name, but the crowd in his tailgate suite is so shoulder to shoulder that he stands outside the gate. And as Marrero approaches, Tippins is the first to greet him.
Tippins is a division president for Coolsys, a refrigeration and HVAC company. He and his wife Natalie contributed $2 million, at the time the largest gift in Georgia Southern athletics history, toward construction of the Tippins Family Training Facility, which opened in 2023.
The practice complex includes a full-length artificial field, all under roof — a must in South Georgia, a region plagued by late afternoon thunderstorms during football season. Football teams typically practice in the hours before sunset.
But on game day, the 31 tailgate suites that ring the practice field are put to use. The playing surface is dedicated to recruit hospitality and a play area for suite owners’ and guests’ kids, who throw footballs, hit blocking sleds and tackling dummies, and burn off young energy.
“When we decided to incorporate these into the facility design, we were concerned we wouldn’t be able to sell them,” Tippins said. “Then they all sold, and we were still getting calls. We should have done a second deck.”
The tailgate suites, modeled after the tailgate “balconies” off Mississippi State’s baseball venue, Davis Wade Stadium, are a value-added revenue stream for Georgia Southern, fetching as much as $16,500 apiece each season. More important, the suites give Georgia Southern a premium game day feel, in contrast to the blue-collar persona that’s long marked a program where the team arrives at the stadium in dirty yellow school buses and sprinkles water from a drainage ditch, affectionately called “beautiful Eagle Creek,” on the field turf for luck.
Georgia Southern has been able to thread the needle between those grassroots traditions and the economic realities of today’s college football landscape. The team still arrives via the buses — the dirtier and more mildewed the better — but at the far end of what they call “The Tip,” where the players can parade past the tailgate suites.
The team, led by the cheerleaders and marching band, walk the length of The Tip, past statues of coach Russell and Freedom, the recently deceased bald eagle mascot, before entering the stadium. The parade is a game day highlight for alumni and fans, rivaling that of the students’ pregaming at The Blue Room, a bar and event venue next to the stadium.
At the center of it all is Marrero.
“We are at a watershed moment for college football — either you keep up with the Joneses or you don’t, and if you don’t what do you do to make your program special?” Tippins said. “President Marrero is our answer. He’s the best president in America.”
Making game day memorable
Up in the president’s stadium skybox, Marrero moves from guest to guest like a running back picking his way through defenders and into the open field.
The game has kicked off, and the suite is packed. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who handled the pregame coin toss duties, is taking some of the social pressure off Marrero. Jones is in full politician mode — the Republican is running for governor in the 2026 elections — and many of the VIPs want to interact with him.
Marrero keeps a mental tally of who he’s yet to greet and thank before ducking down to the field. He’s a participant in most of the tributes that happen in the end zones during each first half timeout. A salute to the athletic department’s top academic performers. Presenting awards to the members of the Eagles’ women’s rifle team, NCAA championship qualifiers last academic year. Thank yous to faculty and staff.
In between, he turns his attention to the football performance. The Eagles came into the game with a 2-3 record, below many fans’ expectations. For the first time this season, fourth-year coach Clay Helton is under scrutiny.
At a news conference earlier in the week, Helton fielded questions about his team’s play by acknowledging fan frustrations and offering reassurance: “A championship remains the goal; that needs to be the standard here.”
Georgia Southern is not meeting that mark on this night. By halftime, the Eagles are down 28-3 to a conference opponent. Fans aren’t booing or chanting “fire the coach,” but they are leaving for home early. Asked about dealing with disgruntled fans, particularly the generous ones who can help build the program, Marrero says the backlash to this point is limited to criticism on social media.
But for Georgia Southern to increase its recent fundraising success — $41 million for athletics over the past four years — requires what Marrero and other university leaders call “alignment” between the athletic department, university administration and foundation boards. There’s no bigger potential wedge than the coach of an underperforming team.
As one donor said earlier that night, the biggest sin is not to win.
Helton remains in good graces for now, and Marrero’s focus is on being a good host. He recruits a dozen or so marching band members for a brief performance in the president’s skybox between the third and fourth quarters, then makes the rounds with those guests he missed earlier.
He’s confident even those disappointed with the game’s outcome — a late rally falls short and the Eagles lose 38-35 — will fondly remember the experience.
“My favorite thing to hear is when someone who hasn’t been to a Georgia Southern game in a year or two comes back and is like ‘Wow, this is just cool,’” Marrero said. “The game day environment is just a giant celebration of what Georgia Southern is.”
Correction
This story has been updated to correct biographical information about Anthony Tippins.
About the Author
Adam Van Brimmer is a journalist who covers politics and Coastal Georgia news for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
