Sports Info Director Claude Felton, UGA athletics fixture for more than 40 years, retiring

A University of Georgia athletics institution for more than 40 years who was by the side of head coaches from Vince Dooley to Kirby Smart for their biggest wins, most crushing losses as well as hirings, firings and retirements is now retiring himself.

Claude Felton is making way now for someone else to fill that role, the school announced on Tuesday.

It won’t be easy.

The longtime Georgia sports information director is considered a legend. He has worked with writers going back to the late Lewis Grizzard and Furman Bisher to the next generation of sports writers at the student run Red & Black.

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He’s liked and respected even by grizzled reporters who ask tough questions and loved by those in the sports information world who look at him as one of the best, if not the best, in the business.

“Lots of time has gone by and some unbelievable experiences and memories have come my way,” Felton said in a statement. “I’ve worked with some terrific presidents, athletic directors, some of the greatest coaches and athletes in the history of collegiate sports, and legendary media on all levels from national writers and network television to radio stations and weekly newspapers around the state."

Felton, whose retirement takes effect on Wednesday, has outlasted nearly everyone. He started out in the days when only a select number of college football games were televised, when newspapers were still thriving pre-Internet and continued on through the now social-media driven, fast-changing, click bait world in what’s almost a 24/7 job.

A player was arrested overnight? Felton gets the email from a reporter to get a comment from the head coach.

A rumor about this player getting injured or that player transferring? Felton’s cell phone got filled with text messages.

He even played a role in his own retirement announcement Tuesday by alerting media members that news was coming without giving away that he was the story.

“The best in the business,” Smart said about Felton to open a preseason press conference in 2018.

Felton replaced a legend himself in Dan Magill, the sports information director and legendary tennis coach and Bulldog Club secretary who became a Bulldog historian.

"Claude Felton is one of the most influential figures in the history of Georgia Athletics,” athletic director Josh Brooks said. “His honesty, humility, attention to detail and congenial spirit have elevated all of our athletic programs throughout his 45-year association with the Bulldogs. I know his mentors Dan Magill and Vince Dooley would say ‘job well done,’ as they look back on Claude’s outstanding career. He has meant so much to me and so many others, and we wish him all the best during this next phase of his life.”

The Football Writers Association of America in 2008 named Felton the Bert McGrane Award winner for someone who made a significant contribution to college football.

He will be inducted next month into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.

“He is the consummate professional — well-organized, thorough at handling details and performing his job with an objective approach.,” Tim Gardner wrote in the FWAA’s online newsletter in 2014. “Felton is quick to deflect any credit for his efforts while devoting his attention to getting out information about the Bulldogs’ newsworthy deeds.”

Players who Felton used to promote now are coaches including Smart, a former All-SEC safety at Georgia in the 1990s.

Another defensive back who was a teammate of Smart and became an SEC head coach brought up Felton’s name when Georgia didn’t have a depth chart in its weekly game notes.

Will Muschamp, then the South Carolina coach, joked:  "Maybe Claude Felton's slipping, I don't know. I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with Kirby."

Felton is from Savannah and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1970 and a master’s degree in 1971 from UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. He received the college’s John Holliman Jr.. Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.

He became sports information director in 1979 and has also held titles of assistant athletic director, associate athletic director and senior associate athletic director. Prior to that he worked with sports and public relations at Georgia Southern.

At Georgia, he promoted Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker (with direct mail), three-time All-American David Pollack and was there when a walk-on kicker named Rodrigo Blankenship became a folk hero.

He was inducted into the Collegiate Sports Information Directors of America Hall of Fame in 2001 and stayed on for 15 seasons of Mark Richt and eight of Smart as UGA football coach.

He was inducted into the Savannah Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005 but not for his performance on a field or court.

“I was pretty good at a lot of sports but not great at any,” he told the Savannah Morning News in 2009. “But tennis is probably the one I had the most long-term success.”

Felton sat next to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey in 2020 in Nashville when the league announced it was cancelling its men’s basketball tournament due to the pandemic. He ran the postgame interviews at the tournament for years and has also done the same at some SEC football championships. He served as media coordinator for 18 NCAA championship events.

It's not clear if Georgia will hire someone to fill Felton's role or if Steven Drummond, hired in September as executive associate athletic director for strategic communications, will assume the job.

Georgia six times under Felton was named to the FWAA’s Super 11 for excellent media relations by a sports information department.

Now that he’s retiring more tributes are sure to roll in for Felton who Georgia says has been sports information director during 136 SEC titles and 47 national championships.

Said Felton: "I’ve been blessed with the greatest group of full-time staff members, graduate assistants, and undergrad students I could have imagined who have done remarkable work and are responsible for always somehow making me look good."

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Longtime Georgia sports information director Claude Felton retiring