National Football Foundation

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) announced that it will present the 2018 NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award to Murry Bowden, a College Football Hall of Fame inductee from Dartmouth who serves as chairman of Atlanta Hall Management, which oversees the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta. He will be honored at the 61st NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 4 at the New York Hilton Midtown in recognition of his many contributions and specifically his role in building the new Hall in Atlanta.
 
"Murry's work bringing the College Football Hall of Fame to Atlanta has been nothing short of phenomenal," said NFF President and CEO Steve Hatchell. "His background in real estate and his passion for college football created the perfect combination to ensure the project's success. As chairman of Atlanta Hall Management, he played critical roles in actual building of the facility, securing the construction loans, and now its operation.
 
"Murry certainly stands among the NFF's most ardent advocates during the last 15 years, and we are honored to recognize his many important contributions to football, the NFF and the Hall at our Annual Awards Dinner in December." 
 
First presented in 1974, the NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award provides national recognition to those whose efforts to support the NFF and its goals have been local in nature or who have made significant contributions to the game of football either to the manner in which it is played and coached or to the manner in which it is enjoyed by spectators. Bowden becomes the 42nd recipient of the award.
 
After graduating cum laude from Dartmouth with a degree in psychology, Bowden worked on his family's ranch for a year before attending law school at the University of Texas. In 1982, he founded The Hanover Company, a real estate investment firm in Houston where he remains the chairman and CEO. Specializing in developing high quality multi-family residential properties, the company ranks among the top private real estate companies in the United States with 56,000 unit projects at a cost of more than $12.0 billion since its inception.
 
In 2003, the same year he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Bowden joined the National Football Foundation Board of Directors. He helped guide the NFF through one of its most successful periods while serving as Vice Chairman from 2010-16, and he remains involved with the organization as a director emeritus.
 
As the NFF prepared to move the College Football Hall of Fame from South Bend, Ind., to Atlanta, Bowden's experience as a real estate developer and Hall of Fame player gave him the perfect credentials to represent the NFF on the Atlanta Hall Management (AHM) Board, the legal entity established in 2011 to oversee the construction of the new Hall in Atlanta. Bowden embraced the opportunity, taking on the role of chair of the building committee.
 
"I had the skill set and had [building experience], so it was very natural," Bowden said. "I hadn't ever built anything quite like the College Football Hall of Fame. I had built many apartments, but this was something terribly interesting and unique. It's a great building."
 
The state-of-the art College Football Hall of Fame opened its doors in August of 2014 in the heart of Atlanta's sports, entertainment and tourism district. In 2015, Bowden extended his commitment to the Hall's success in Atlanta by becoming chairman of AHM, which continues to maintain and operate the Hall with Bowden still in the lead role. As chairman, he played a key role in securing Chick-fil-A as the title sponsor of the Hall of Fame in early 2018.
 
The College Football Hall of Fame has received universal praise from the media, the community and visitors, who receive a highly immersive and engaging experience with a blend of historic college football artifacts alongside state-of-the-art, interactive exhibits.
 
After growing up on a ranch in Snyder, Texas, Murry Bowden headed to the Ivy League to play football at Dartmouth College. Flourishing under College Football Hall of Fame coach Bob Blackman, Bowden was just as likely to be found at the line making a tackle for a loss as he was deep in the secondary making an interception. His reputation for making plays all over the field earned him the nickname, "The Reckless Rover."
 
Bowden guided the Big Green to the Ivy League title in both his junior and senior seasons, the first two of an eventual string of five consecutive Ivy crowns. The undefeated 1970 team (9-0) was the last Ivy League school to be ranked among the nation's top 20 teams, as the Big Green finished 13th and 14th in the two major polls. That season, the Dartmouth defense ranked in the nation's top 10 in seven statistical categories, including first in scoring defense and second in total defense.
 
Bowden was a team captain and earned First Team All-America honors during his senior season in 1970. His other accolades included the Sport Magazine Athlete of the Month Award and the Alfred E. Watson Trophy, which is awarded each year to the outstanding athlete at Dartmouth College. Bowden was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.
 
"You learn leadership qualities in football," Bowden said. "People are looking for somebody to say, 'Let's go take this mountain.' It is a little bit inspiration, a little bit intellectualism and a lot of brute force. I just think it's a great sport. It's a very difficult sport, but it's played a big role in my development from growing up on a ranch in West Texas all the way to the Ivy League. It helped me get there."