The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/382426
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? BY JOHN BORTON T ony McGee doesn't like read- ing stories about former football players who couldn't adjust to life outside the game, and whose lives took a downward spiral. He cer- tainly wasn't going to become one. The former Michigan tight end certainly made the most of the op- portunities football afforded him, finishing his U-M career with a flourish and getting his degree be- fore spending 11 seasons in the NFL. The end of his pro career just meant the beginning of a new journey. Now as the chief executive officer of HNM Global Logistics, a freight forwarding firm based in Orlando, Fla., McGee has caught onto the post-football life in a big way. "We're doing well, we're grow- ing, we're developing people, feed- ing families," McGee said, regard- ing a firm that made the Orlando Business Journal's Fast 50 list, as one of Central Florida's fastest-growing privately owned companies. "It's a process." It usually is, which is something that McGee found out in his first several seasons at Michigan. The tight end out of Terre Haute, Ind., entered his senior season with pre- cisely four catches on his U-M ré- sumé — a nine-yard grab against Michigan State in 1990, and three more for a total of 39 yards in 1991. So when then-Michigan assistant coach Cam Cameron approached him with a seemingly outland- ish statement in the days prior to the 1992 campaign, McGee nearly cracked up. "He called me over before the sea- son started and said, 'You're going to catch 40 balls and get drafted,'" McGee recalled. "I got a huge laugh out of that, because things really hadn't fallen into place for me from a playing standpoint, to that point." What the talented young tight end didn't realize, he grasped in hindsight, was that he was being watched even though a loaded ros- ter hadn't resulted in big production from him. Heading into his senior season he came across a publication ranking him as the nation's eighth- best tight end. He found more dark humor in that projection, until he began to re- alize the reach of the organization in which he found himself. "It goes to show just how strong the Michigan program was back then," McGee said. "We had so many scouts coming to check out other guys, I guess they got an op- portunity to see me in practice. The scouts get paid for a reason. They understand what your potential is, sometimes better than you do. "Going into the season, there was a script set up for me. All I had to do was play along and do my part. That season was a memorable one." WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Tony McGee Made The Most Of Football, And Has Flourished Off The Field