There are commences and stops, straightaways and bends along the route. But Hathcock, who used his elementary faculty several years here, never ever genuinely remaining. His heart generally remained nearby mainly because of the Gators. It failed to make a difference that he created his household and created a vastly profitable small business in Valdosta, Ga., where most locals bank loan their loyalty to another Southeastern Conference powerhouse.
Hugh’s father, the late Douglas Hathcock, passed his passion for the Gators down to his son. Hugh did the exact same when his boys came along, scheduling relatives journeys to Sugar Bowls and Final Fours with sons Brandon and Gage, and nephew Seth Rountree, whom Hugh explained is “like my son.”
All these Orange & Blue memories more than the yrs trace back again to Hugh’s formative yrs.
“My earliest Gator memories are my dad using me to look at Spurrier enjoy when I am like 5 a long time outdated,” Hathcock said. “Without the need of him, I would in no way have been a Gator admirer.”
Hathcock’s father labored for Western Electrical in those days, and the relatives finally moved to Valdosta, wherever Hathcock went to superior school. When the time arrived for college or university, Hathcock found his way back again to UF — but not for long.
He attended for a semester. His curiosity in Gators sports activities still burned deep, but there was a massive earth outside the house town boundaries, and Hathcock dreamed of earning his mark as a businessman.
“At that position, I didn’t sense like any university was going to teach me how to be an entrepreneur,” Hathcock claimed. “My family members was quite middle course. My mother and father worked their ass off, but they experienced no dollars. I grew up with no income, so individuals who improve up with no funds want to make income.”
Just before a dive into the aspects, know that Hathcock designed more than enough cash to not too long ago pledge a $12.6 million contribution to Gator Boosters, the greatest single economic present from a donor in the organization’s historical past. To realize and honor this activity-transforming present, in early December the UF Board of Trustees accepted the naming of the Hugh Hathcock Suite Tower at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and the Hugh Hathcock Basketball Intricate at the UF Basketball Follow Facility. Parts of the present will be earmarked for renovations to the basketball practice facility, while the balance will assistance the UAA Amenities Grasp Approach. Gator Boosters has obtained commitments of $148.8 million in non-public guidance toward the grasp approach.


Hathcock’s loyalty to the Gators goes well past his most-latest gift.
“This record-setting reward is a different illustration of Hugh’s unwavering commitment and help,” reported Phil Pharr, Gator Boosters Executive Director.
As his 5 young children grew up, the UF soccer and men’s basketball groups served as consistent companions. Two of his daughters attended UF, together with one set to graduate in late April.




— Hugh Hathcock (@HughHathcock) February 27, 2020
The Hathcock family members manufactured journeys normally to the UF campus for sporting events. They traveled to bowl online games near and considerably. They celebrated national championships and acquired to know coaches and players.
Doug Brown, Deputy Government Director of Gator Boosters, has known Hathcock considering that he was setting up out and has watched Hathcock’s business profession blossom. No subject his station in life, Hathcock always kept interested in what was happening with the Gators.
“Hugh is a Gator to his core,” Brown explained. “For many years he has supported us in so numerous techniques. He is a terrific Gator and we have to have a full lot far more just like him.”
The Gators grew to become section of the Hathcock spouse and children.
“Even when I was in my 20s, just starting to make cash, I was even now a time-ticket holder,” Hathcock claimed. “When they did the Touchdown Terrace, I was just one of the initial types to [contribute]. You are not ready to truly do the points you want to do until you strike it large. They understood me again when my companies had been just tiny companies.”
Hathcock’s company vocation is the serious tale listed here. In the mid-1980s, he began a company termed Contemporary Beginnings to enable car dealers close to the place connect in a extra personal way with buyers. He came up with a straightforward nevertheless amazing strategy.
“It was cookies that we place in 2.5-pound designer canister bins, and we had a card method that I put the dealers’ identify on it,” Hathcock claimed. “It was a thank-you card. We went to car or truck dealers all throughout the United States telling them when they bought a vehicle, we would ship this can of cookies with this card technique.”
Hathcock started out compact. His father and other relatives users even helped bake the cookies. The plan was a substantial strike and progressed into a organization termed eLead, which established and integrated CRM (client romantic relationship administration) technologies to build a database for client referrals, support visits, and several duties associated with the automotive industry.
Fresh new Beginnings grew to sign up more than 3,000 dealerships to use the service in its 1st five years. It opened a call centre in Valdosta that grew to become the major in the region in the vehicle industry. As soon as Hathcock pivoted to the more technological eLeadCRM, the enterprise serviced a lot more than 5,000 dealerships throughout the U.S.
“I was producing mobile phone phone calls for every thing from company visits to shopping for a motor vehicle to equity calls,” Hathcock reported. “Then, in 2000, I made the first CRM. This is actually what I did to make the funds to give this gift. In the car or truck market in the late ’90s, there was no CRM. I acquired a company in Destin, and I developed this program enterprise and produced an automotive CRM, and I was the first to sector with it.”
ELeadCRM grew into an market huge for the subsequent two decades until Hathcock sold the organization in 2019 to CDK World for $550 million.
But Hathcock’s story would not conclusion there. In its place of retiring to a recliner, Hathcock is enthusiastic by a enthusiasm for shaping the foreseeable future of the automotive sector. He introduced a new company in 2020 called Velocity Automotive Alternatives and subsidiary ReconVelocity. The company is centered in Destin, in which Hathcock now life, and features a technological innovation centre in Atlanta.


In accordance to its mission assertion on line, Velocity Automotive Methods is “focused to aiding dealers rework how they have interaction with their buyers and their business enterprise by offering evolving software package answers that streamline and renovate how dealerships share info with their clients and build operational effectiveness for rising gross earnings.”
Hathcock claimed the enterprise is escalating and has signed up 1,000 dealerships in its to start with two yrs. Hathcock and enterprise executives not too long ago traveled to Las Vegas this month for the Nationwide Car Sellers Association once-a-year trade display to endorse their hottest technological know-how.
You could say lifetime is excellent for Hathcock. He just lately married Kalah McCoy. She has blended seamlessly into Hathcock’s Orange & Blue-tinted lifetime around the previous 3 several years. McCoy attends Gators gatherings with Hathcock and was with him at football coach Billy Napier‘s introductory press meeting in December.
Hathcock explained the timing was right for these kinds of a substantial economic reward to the Gators.
“I marketed my firm above three yrs back,” he claimed. “When you appear into that type of cash, that helps make it a superior time. There are plenty of excellent thoughts, but you have to set a whole lot of excellent people today all over you, and you have to execute. I hardly ever experienced any individual finance me. I never ever took associates in. I in no way took any investors. To just take a company from zero and be a inadequate place boy from Gainesville and then Valdosta, it truly is been quite fantastic.
“You never aspiration that when you commence anything, that it is really heading to transform into anything that makes you just about a billionaire.
A much diverse daily life than Hathcock realized rising up. The one regular has been his loyalty to the Gators.