2021 Case Study:
George Holley
Neil’s brief primer: George’s father was a high school football coach and his grandfather was an attorney, so maybe being an agent was always his destiny. He played Division II football at Adams State, then played indoor football while in law school at the University of Denver. Still, he couldn’t deny his passion, so he took a job coaching defensive line and linebackers for his alma mater. Eventually, however, with a wife and a mountain of student loans, he “could no longer justify making $27,000 per year with a law degree.” After conferring with a friend and former teammate who promised to provide financial and emotional backing, he went ahead with his plan and passed the exam last summer.
Active NFL clients: Montana State OT Lewis Kidd signed as a UDFA with the Saints after the draft.
Why did he become an agent?: “I love the game. I missed being around the game. That’s really it, at it’s most fundamental level. My love of football and missing it, and that’s really it.”
Day job: Senior Trial Deputy District Attorney for Mesa Count in Grand Junction, Colo.
His take on the NFLPA exam: “Nuanced. Nuanced would be my word. Not hard, but nuanced. You can’t just take the (CBA) and dive into however many pages that is and expect to know the concepts. That’s not the way life works, at least for me. In order to do the work, the (ITL practice exams) flush out the nuanced nature of the exam As long as you do that, and know where everything is in your paper materials, it’s a relatively simple process. But it’s nuanced.”
Hardest part of being an agent: “I think there’s two things. One is recruiting, as a new guy. And No. 2, it’s developing trust from those people on the NFL teams.”
He felt like he’d had a successful first year as a contract advisor when . . .: “the most obvious answer is, when I got someone on a 90, but I think that some things are more important, and at the end of the day, my guys knowing I worked my tail off for them, and we’ve got a relationship that will last for years to come (made it successful). I think that’s gonna be more important in five years.”
Lesson he learned that he wished he’s known before he got certified: “Every (random person) that thinks he knows football wants to be an agent, and there’s so much money in it. You’re dealing with the top people in the world. When you jump into this, you are competing with the best people in the world at their jobs, immediately, and that’s just the reality of the situation.”
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