At fall commencement exercises this weekend, 24 current or former Georgia Tech athletes earned their degrees, including a former Yellow Jackets linebacker who returned to Tech after a lengthy NFL career.

Former Tech linebacker Daryl Smith, who was a four-year starter and a captain of the 2003 team, completed his business administration degree after returning to campus in 2017. A second-round pick to Jacksonville in 2004, Smith played 13 seasons in the NFL, starting 184 games and playing in the postseason three times. He was a two-time All-Pro selection by Pro Football Focus.

The other graduates:

Baseball

Keyton Gibson (business administration)
Carter Hall (business administration)
Paul Kronenfeld (business administration) (returned to Tech after playing minor-league baseball)
Jake Lee (business administration)
Robert Winborne (business administration)

Football

Christian Campbell (literature, media and communication)
Brentavious Glanton (business administration)
Jalen Johnson (master's – building construction)
Tyler Merriweather (master's – building construction)
Malik Rivera (master's – quantitative and computational finance)
Zach Roberts (master's – building construction)

Men’s tennis

Andrew Li (business administration)

Spirit program

Piero Chiappina (physics and electrical engineering)
Kevin Ward (mechanical engineering)

Men’s track and field/cross country

Avery Bartlett (computational media)
Lionel Jones (computational science and engineering)
Eamon McCoy (music technology)
Michael Reilly (computer science)

Women’s track and field/cross country

Rebecca Entrekin (biochemistry)
Dasia Smith (environmental engineering)
Jeanine Williams (biochemistry)

Volleyball

Kodie Comby (business administration)
Coral Kazaroff (nuclear engineering)

About the Author

Keep Reading

“We started out in this thing trying to make this the most no-frills, no-fun, blue-collar, workmanlike thing,” Georgia Tech coach Brent Key said. “It’s almost come full circle, and, like, this has become cool again.” (Daniel Varnado for the AJC)

Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Featured

Mathew Palmer, a former Delta Air Lines employee, at his home in Atlanta on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025.  Palmer was fired less than two weeks after writing a post on social media about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (Natrice Miller/AJC)