Barnes didn't question the Vietnam War, but as president of the Student Bar Association he did take a stance against an ineffective law professor.
|
Barnes didn't question the Vietnam War, but as president of the Student Bar Association he did take a stance against an ineffective law professor.
|
oy Barnes (AB '69, JD '72) is the 24th UGA graduate to serve as governor of Georgia. Following this year's legislative session, the governor reminisced about his college years with GM editor Kent Hannon, and Kathy Pharr, editor of UGA's law school magazine, the Georgia Advocate.
Q: Was it a foregone conclusion growing up that you would attend the University of Georgia?
BARNES: I never knew you went anywhere else. I was the first one in my family to go to college, so I just assumed when I was in high school that if you went to college, you went to the University of Georgia. That was the only place I applied.
Q: What do you recall about your college years at UGA?
BARNES: I came to the University in the fall of 1966. I lived in the sub-basement of Reed Hall, and they were just building the upper deck of Sanford Stadium. They were driving the piles right there, and it kept us up. In November of my freshman year, there was a big demonstration against Lester Maddox, who was running for governor. That was of interest to me; it was the first time I'd ever seen that kind of thing.
Q: The demonstrations prompted by the Kent State shootings also took place while you were in school. Were you politically active back then?
BARNES: When I first got to UGA, women had curfew. When they went to phys-ed, they had to wear opaque coverings. All of that changed while I was there. I remember the Kent State demonstrations, but I was a typical Southern kid—you didn't question too much. If the government said you went to war, you went to war. I was in ROTC, but I watched the demonstrations.
Q: You served as president of your second-year class and then as Student Bar Association president. Was the SBA active then?
BARNES: It was very active. We had a corporations professor who was a great lawyer, but a lousy teacher. I went to the faculty as president of the Student Bar to say that nobody should get a grade—that it should be pass/fail. The faculty finally ended up agreeing with us, and we got pass/fails for that course.
Q: Any particular faculty members stand out?
BARNES: Perry Sentell. You can't be one of Perry's kids and not have an overpowering memory of him. My daughter Allison had him for Torts, and she's got him for Municipal Corporations right now. I never had Dean Rusk, but he tried to get me to take International Law, which he was just cranking up at the time. I said, "Look, Mr. Rusk, the only international law I'm going to have is between Marietta and Dallas, Ga." Several years later, I had a case where a fellow had his hand substantially cut off in a machine manufactured in China. I was trying to find out if I could sue the private company where it was manufactured. I could not get any information. I called Rusk. He said, "You're not going to be able to get to these folks. They're pretty well insulated." And he was right. But when he called me to give me the information, he told me, "I thought you were never going to have any international law practice." He remembered that all those years!
Swearingen puts growl in NAA
A mere pup when the BellSouth exec became president, the National Alumni Association now has 15,000 members—and an Atlanta presence.
By Kent Hannon
hen Carl Swearingen hoisted the presidential gavel for the first time, UGA's National Alumni Association was just getting started.
The membership blackboard at Alumni House had the number "2,617" scrawled on it when Swearingen became NAA president, succeeding Sonny Seiler, on July 1, 1997. And that number was inflated because one of those 2,617 members was Seiler's ward, Uga V—and he's so busy making movies, magazine covers, and personal appearances that he can't remember to pay his dues.
 Carl Swearingen (ABJ '67, MA '69) must have a twin. How else could the outgoing NAA president have spent so much time on campus of late while being promoted to senior vp at BellSouth's corporate headquarters? |
|
"We now have in excess of 15,000 members," says Swearingen, who completed his two-year term on July 1. "And we're adding three significant projects to the list of member services. We're establishing an Atlanta presence with the Atlanta Center—which is scheduled to open this fall—and we're finalizing plans for both the new Georgia Club golf and resort complex on Highway 316 outside Athens, and for the new Alumni Center overlooking Lake Herrick in Athens."
To say that Swearingen and UGA's alumni relations staff have been busy is an understatement. And Swearingen has managed to lend a great deal of his time, energy, and expertise to these projects, despite being recently promoted to a senior vice president position at BellSouth's corporate headquarters.
"It's been a busy time, but very inspiring and fulfilling," says Swearingen, who has seen a lot of Georgia sporting events during visits to Athens—and, thus, was able to keep tabs on his daughter Jill, who is a UGA athletic trainer.
Located in the Atlanta Financial Center, at the intersection of West Peachtree and Highway 400, the Atlanta Center is a place where people can hold meetings and entertain business clients. If they have a couple hours to kill, between meetings or flights, they can plug their laptop into one of the center's carrels, surf the Net, or get some work done.
The Atlanta Center is significant for two reasons, says Swearingen:
"First, it benefits the University's senior administration, its deans and department heads—and NAA members—because it gives them access to a beautiful, 10,000-square-foot office suite and mini-conference center in the heart of Buckhead. No other university has this kind of setup, not LSU in New Orleans or Michigan in Detroit.
"Second, it shows that the National Alumni Association is for real. With 205,000 graduates—80,000 of whom live in metro Atlanta—the sky's the limit for this organization."
Talk about a tough act to follow. To learn who's accepted the challenge of leading NAA into the next century, visit this page. (For information on how to join, visit the Alumni Relations website.)
Man with a "high ceiling"
Thanks to Hank Aaron, Paul Egins is on track to run a major league baseball team someday.
By Gary Libman
|
 Egins (BS '90) was an athletic trainer at UGA and later for the Atlanta Braves. He now heads the Colorado Rockies' minor league system.
|
After spending Christmas at home in Columbus, Ga., in 1987, Paul Egins had loaded his car to return to grad school when the phone rang.
"Hello, Paul," said a voice on the other end. "This is Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves. I have your resumé, and I am interested in interviewing you for an athletic trainer's position."
For a moment, Egins, who grew up idolizing Aaron, was speechless. "He was a hero. We all wanted to be Hank Aaron or Willie Mays," says Egins. "When I could speak again, I said I would be interested."
Egins (BS '86) drove to Atlanta for an interview with Aaron, who offered him a job. Egins had worked as a trainer at UGA, and he did it for two more years in the Braves' minor league system before moving to the Atlanta front office in player development and scouting. Hired away by the Colorado Rockies in 1991, Egins worked in that same capacity until 1977, when the Rockies named him director of their minor league system.
Egins lives a baseball fan's dream. Although he last played organized ball in a Babe Ruth league at age 16, he now oversees 160 players on six minor league clubs, plus one team in the Dominican Republic and another in Venezuela—which puts him on the general manager's track. With luck, he could wind up running a major league team someday.
"He learned from the bottom up how to negotiate contracts and hire and place his staff, as well as to evaluate players and staff," says Rockies general manager Bob Gebhard. "Those are pretty important if you're going to be a GM. There's certainly been a learning curve, but he keeps getting better at it."
Egins, 35, says much of the credit belongs to baseball's all-time home run leader. Now a senior vice president with the Braves, Aaron has mentored Egins from the day they met. In fact, Egins just attended Aaron's 65th birthday party.
"He filled in the gaps for me because I was not a professional baseball player," says Egins. "I'd ask him, 'What did you think about that hitter?' or 'In this situation, what would you expect the pitcher to do?' He gave me all the information he had attained and it really meshed."
Interviewed at the Rockies' spring training site in Tucson earlier this year, Egins watched Rockies stars Larry Walker and Dante Bichette shag balls in the outfield. His desk was covered with notes for a meeting with his 35-member staff. He made more notes later, as the Rockies took on the Cubs in an exhibition game. "Oooh, nice breaking ball," Egins cooed after one of his protegés struck out a Cubs batter with a nasty curve.
If all this leads to a GM job down the road, Gebhard won't be surprised.
"We often refer to Paul," Gebhard says, "as having a high ceiling."