University of Georgia Athletics
Dog Tales: Floyd Impact Felt All Around Athens
March 04, 2016 | Men's Basketball
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Carla Williams has known Derrick Floyd for about 30 years, starting back when she was a Georgia women's basketball player and he was living in Athens after finishing his career with the Bulldogs. This town has mostly been home to both of them since they arrived as freshmen.
When Williams, now Georgia's Deputy Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator, says the Athens community, or any and every community, can use more people like Floyd, it's said with admiration, love and respect.
"I don't think I've ever seen him without a smile," Williams said. "I can't remember it if I did. But the thing that I really, really love about him is that it's never about him. It's always about whoever it is he's talking to. That's a unique quality."
Floyd played guard at Georgia under coach Hugh Durham in the early 1980s and was a reserve on the 1983 Final Four team — still the high-water mark for the program. Pretty much ever since he's been in Athens working with and mentoring children, first at the Athens YMCA and then the Athens Boys and Girls Clubs, where he has been director of operations for many years.
Floyd can also be found working at just about every Georgia football and men's and women's basketball game. Since 1995 he's been the official scorer at basketball games (except around the holidays when he goes home to Miami) and he also works the SEC men's basketball tournament. In the fall he's on the sideline at Sanford Stadium working with the officials' replay crew.
There might be one or two folks that have seen more basketball games at Stegeman Coliseum in the past 30-plus years, but the list isn't long. And nobody has enjoyed a better view, from his days as a player (1979-83) to sitting at the scorer's table for more than 20 years.
"I have to have that smile, I have to have that passion for the game," Floyd said. "I feel good about what I do because I love what I do."
Last April, Floyd was the recipient of the UGA Athletic Association's Bill Powell Service Award, which is presented for outstanding service to the UGAAA by part-time employees. In 2008, Floyd was one of four recipients of then UGA President Michael F. Adams' Fulfilling the Dream Awards for community service.
Floyd came to Georgia as a highly-recruited guard from Miami, part of perhaps the best signing class in program history. Also in the class were a solid contributor in Lamar Heard and two players that became Bulldog all-timers: Dominique Wilkins and Terry Fair. Floyd, Wilkins and Fair were teammates before arriving at Georgia, having played together in the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic, an event that featured the top high school players in the country.
"Lamar, Dominique and Terry, we all came on this mission to kind of put a mark on the University of Georgia," he said.
Knee injuries as a sophomore and junior derailed Floyd's career, though it did have its high points. As a freshmen he scored 10 of the Dogs' last 12 points in a win over Georgia Tech, scoring a career-high 18 points and handing out five assists in the game. As a sophomore he hit nine free throws in the closing minutes to preserve a win over Ole Miss.
Floyd said his best game was the one in which he tore his ACL as a sophomore, against Kentucky at Rupp Arena.
"I was 4-for-4, I had a couple of steals, a couple of assists [all in the first 11 minutes], and then I tore my knee up coming up the court on a fast break, a 3-on-1," he said. "Back then when you tore your ACL it was a longer process than it is now."
Finally healthy after another knee injury the following season, Floyd played in 30 games as a senior — a veteran off the bench that helped the Bulldogs with his leadership as much as anything. In a way, he was mentoring even then.
After winning the SEC tournament and the magical run to the Final Four, Floyd turned his attention to life after basketball. While finishing school he was playing in a softball league and one of the guys on the team was the youth director at the YMCA, who had seen how Floyd played with the players' children before and after the game.
That led to a part-time job at the YMCA, starting in November 1984, and his course was set.
"My passion became working with kids," he said. "I was a Business major ... and went [to the YMCA] and my whole perspective changed. I just realized my gift was working with kids and that's what I've been doing ever since."
In April 1989, Floyd started working at the Boys and Girls Club. He's not only the director of operations, he's a mentor, friend, father figure and much, much more. Williams said she sees that when Georgia hosts events like the Elementary School Day, when on Dec. 8, elementary schools from all over the area brought students to attend an 11 a.m. women's basketball game.
"He's in the stands before the game and he knows all those kids and all those kids know him," Williams said. "He's going from school to school, section to section, talking to teachers, talking to the kids, and so all that does for me is remind me of how important he is to this community — for generations.
"When you think about how long he's been working with kids, it's generations."
In 1995 Floyd was back in Stegeman Coliseum, only instead of wearing the red and black, he was in the black-and-white top of an official. He wasn't on the court, instead he was courtside as the official scorer. He's been doing that ever since, too.
Floyd he said he never really considered becoming a court official, in part because he knows how tough a job that is, but primarily because he didn't want be on the road a lot and to stop or limit his work with children.
"At that point I'd been doing that for 11 years and my impact was huge," he said. "I realized what the importance of my job was by then."
Floyd is all about the community, and this community is better for it.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.