Hall of Fame
Position: Guard
School: Duke
High School: Elizabeth City, NC (Elizabeth City HS)
Years: 1957-1959
Inducted: 1990
Place of Birth: Washington, DC
Date of Birth: Dec 01, 1938
Place of Death: Montrose, CO
Date of Death: August 16, 2019
Jersey Number: 68
Height: 6-1
Weight: 230
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Mike McGee lettered three seasons on the gridiron at Duke from 1957-59, twice earning both All-ACC (First Team in both 1958 & 1959) and All-America (Honorable Mention in 1958 & First Team in 1959) honors. He capped his outstanding collegiate career by receiving the ACC Player of the Year accolade in addition to the Outland Trophy as the nation's top interior lineman.
Named to both the Silver Anniversary and 50th Anniversary All-ACC teams, McGee also garnered the McKevlin Award as the ACC's Male Athlete of the Year in 1960. He was elected captain of the College All-Stars for their annual game in Chicago, and he also played in the Hula Bowl and the East-West Shrine Game. A second round pick of St. Louis in the 1960 NFL Draft, McGee played three seasons with the Cardinals, starting 36 games.
McGee's storied gridiron coaching career included assistant coaching stops at Duke (1963-65), Wisconsin (1966) and Minnesota (1967-69) before head coaching stints at East Carolina (1970) and Duke (1971-78).
After serving at Duke, McGee earned his Ph.D. in higher education/business administration at the University of North Carolina. He then transitioned into administration and later served as the athletics director at Cincinnati (1980-84), Southern California (1984-93) and South Carolina (1993-2005).
In 1980, he was named AD at the University of Cincinnati. Three years later, the Bearcat football team defeated defending national champion Penn State.
McGee then became the AD at the University of Southern California (USC) (1984-93). During his tenure at Southern Cal, fundraising and overall revenue doubled, USC won at least one national championship each year and participated in four Rose Bowls.
In 1993, McGee joined the University of South Carolina just after the university moved to the Southeastern Conference. His tenure at South Carolina was perhaps his best as the Gamecock program experienced an era of success and accomplishment that was unprecedented in school history. In his final eight years at South Carolina, 13 Gamecock head coaches earned either national or SEC Coach-of-the-Year titles.
In 1985, he founded and directed for 17 years, the prestigious Sports Management Institute, the leading in-service training academy for professional staff in intercollegiate athletics.
McGee also holds membership in the Duke Sports Hall of Fame (1983), North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame (1991) and NACDA Hall of Fame (2010). He was the recipient of the prestigious Homer Rice Award in 2016 from the LEAD1 Association, given each year to a former athletics director who had made a significant and meaningful contribution to intercollegiate athletics. In 2005, McGee received the Order of the Palmetto, the highest honor a civilian can receive in the state of South Carolina.
McGee passed away Friday, August 16, 2019, at his home in Montrose, Colorado. He was 80 years old.
