Tennessee AD says Tech’s Alpert is ‘exactly the right guy to grow that place’

It’s a position that Alpert feels confident he’ll be able to succeed in, he said, using the metaphor of taking the baton from Tech’s former AD J Batt and continuing to move the Yellow Jackets forward into an era of college athletics that will be heavily weighted in paying athletes.

“It starts with alignment. Because of how quickly things are pivoting and moving, you have to have alignment from top to bottom. And we have that,” Alpert said. “We have this incredible media market in Atlanta, we’ve got businesses when it comes to (supporting) Real NIL and NIL Go. We have a competitive advantage against all of our peers within the ACC and beyond, so that’s really exciting for me. We’ve got great fans, great resources.

“So as you start looking at how can we create competitive advantages and put Georgia Tech on the best platform possible, we have those things here in our backyard. Once we can start to initiate and engage those, we can then create these competitive advantages for our programs and give them the chance to win and compete.”

Alpert certainly has a track record of success when it comes to leading the charge on several major projects, some traditional and some not, during his time in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Tennessee athletic director Danny White spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday and detailed how Alpert was heavily involved in the creation of the school’s TransCard Premier Club, the addition of a party deck in Neyland Stadium’s north end zone, the implementation of the Neyland Stadium Entertainment District and an overhaul of the baseball program’s Lindsey Nelson Stadium.

White said the Premier Club project called for a removal of 100-year-old bleachers at what was once the lower-west club and replacing those with club seating at the stadium’s 50-yeard line, a transition which nets $8 million annually in revenue and was Alpert’s concept from the get-go.

Alpert also was spearheading Neyland Stadium’s north end zone party deck (also known as the social deck and Yee-Haw Ole Smoky Social Deck), a $337 million project that White described as having an NFL feel and being unique to most other college football venues. The Neyland Entertainment District, once completed, will be similar to The Battery Atlanta at Truist Park, and the $109 million renovations to Lindsey Nelson Stadium will increase capacity to nearly 8,000.

Alpert has been instrumental in ushering all those projects along, White added.

“What’s unique about Ryan, I moved him around a couple times, in terms of what he was responsible for in Knoxville as we had staff movement and transition, just because I was so confident that even if he had little to no background in an area he would pick it up very, very quickly,” White said. “He’s very adaptable.”

A graduate of the University of South Carolina, Alpert has made professional stops at his alma mater, plus Miami, Memphis, Florida Atlantic and Missouri. White said he got to know Alpert when Alpert was on staff at FAU, where White’s brother, Brian White, is the athletic director.

Tennessee’s White complimented Alpert’s interpersonal skills, competitiveness and dynamism. White said having the opportunity to hire Alpert at Tennessee was a “no-brainer,” and that “(Alpert) made us better from Day One.”

In recent years Alpert was a finalist to become the AD at Memphis and at Houston.

“This was one (Tech) that just made a lot of sense for him,” White added. “I think J Batt did some really good work, and Ryan can just take the baton and continue to raise it to a higher level. He’s excited about the coaches that are there, the support once he got to know some of the key stakeholders throughout the process. Regionally I think it’s a really good spot for him. I think he’s exactly the right guy to grow that place to higher levels. He’s really confident he can do that and so am I.”