Quick Chat: Michael Bennett

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Michael Bennett, the former Georgia wide receiver, is probably best remembered around these parts for his critical touchdown catch against Florida in 2011. It's a fitting and fine lasting memory.

The Bulldog (2010-14) from Alpharetta, Ga., lined up in the slot on the left side on fourth-and-5 at the Gator 20-yard line, with Georgia trailing 17-3 in the second quarter and needing to make something happen. It did: quarterback Aaron Murray pumped-faked once and then lofted the ball to the front left corner of the end zone.

The 6-foot-3 Bennett effectively boxed out the smaller defensive back all over him and made the catch for a 20-yard touchdown. Georgia rallied to beat the Gators, 24-20, and Bennett's big grab was a big reason why.

After catching 134 passes in his Georgia career and a couple of short stints with the Cincinnati Bengals, Bennett is now successful in the real estate business in Atlanta. He works for the firm Cresa and was its Rookie of the Year in 2017. During a Quick Chat on Thursday morning, he talked about that catch against Florida, succeeding in real estate, coaching at Marist and much more.

Here's some of what he had to say:

Frierson: Does it feel like your playing days were just yesterday still or has there been enough time now that it feels like 10 years ago already?

Bennett: I think the latter; it definitely feels like it was a long, long time ago, watching film or highlights of back in 2011 or '12. It's just crazy, and to think that it was seven years ago or eight years ago, it's wild how much you mature and to be where I am in my career now.

Football is definitely a big part of who I am and who I was, but now, if I go out there and try to run a route now, it would feel weird. For so long it was like, oh yeah, let's go run routes. Now that I'm coaching at Marist, as a community coach, it's helped me kind of get back into football and find that love for it again, so that's been good.

Frierson: What exactly are you doing at Marist, coaching receivers?

Bennett: Yeah, it's been great. Obviously, real estate is the day job but in the fall I've got to get out there (at Marist practices) at 4 o'clock, and I'm the receivers coach for the varsity team. We've had a couple of really great seasons: we lost in the state championship two years ago and lost in the semis last year. We've got a really great team and a great group of kids and coaches.

The reason I did it is really two-fold: one, I just love the game of football and I wanted to be around it and I wanted to give back because I had a bunch of great coaches when I was growing up that gave back to me. I know you basically don't get paid anything to do that so it's kind of a service opportunity for me. It's also a great networking opportunity, to meet a lot of great folks in the Atlanta area and hopefully grow my business in real estate.

Frierson: What drew you to real estate and what do you think has been the key to the success you've had so far?

Bennett: When I got cut by the Bengals for the second time, I came home and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I stayed in shape and hoped for a call for about two or three months, and then it got to the point where my wife looked at me like, "OK, we need to make some money." And I agreed with her, we did need to make some money.

I decided to hang 'em up around Thanksgiving of 2016 and I started networking like crazy, meeting with all my buddies that I played with that were in the corporate world and meeting with people I knew throughout the Atlanta area growing up here.

A buddy of mine, he's still probably my best friend, Brandon Burrows, who I played with at Georgia, he was in real estate. He was like, you need to meet with this guy, Jeff Henson, who also played at Georgia, in the mid-2000s, he was a long-snapper, and he's been killing it, doing a lot of industrial and office leasing.

I met with Jeff and Jeff sold me on real estate. He was like, you've got to be a personable guy, you've got to have a good work ethic; athletes do really good in real estate because it's competitive. Every day you can't be scared of going and talking to people, and it's all commission so there's no cap to what you can make. But you can also make zero dollars (laughs). It works if you're an athlete because in athletics you have to fight and claw for your spot every year, and it kind of fired me up hearing that.

Jeff gave me the name of 20 guys in the Atlanta area in real estate and I just started cold-calling, and he gave me guys that had a Georgia connection. ... About halfway through I talked to Bubba Chrismer, who's the managing principal at Cresa.

I met with him and he introduced me to Jim Bob Taylor, who is my ...

Frierson: I have to interrupt to say that Bubba introducing you to Jim Bob is just fantastic. Carry on.

Bennett: (Laughs) Isn't that funny? Welcome to the South. So Bubba, he played baseball at Georgia [1979-80], so there's a Georgia connection there; he introduced me to Jim Bob, who is the head of industrial for Cresa and has been my mentor and partner for two-and-a-half years.

Jim Bob, we met that first day and we hit it off right away. He played quarterback at Georgia Tech in the '80s, so he's a big football guy, too.

To get to the other part of your question, about the key to success in real estate, I've had a really great mentor in Jim Bob and I can't get back to that enough. I've had a partner that every day will answer any question that I might have.

The other part of it is just being aggressive and not being scared of talking to people. Every day, I'm cold calling; I take listings that we have around an area and I go door-to-door, cold-calling and showing up: "Hey, I'm Michael Bennett, I'm listing a building down the street, just seeing if you guys are interested in any additional real estate; do you know who handles those decisions?"

A lot of people don't like to do that, a lot of people are scared to do that, for a lot of people it's just not in their comfort zone — and it's not in my comfort zone, believe me. I'm not a natural extroverted cold-caller. I don't get up every day energized to do that, but my fear of calling on people and my fear of getting rejected is always overridden by my fear of not being successful.

I also enjoy saving companies millions of dollars through managing their real estate transactions. As a corporate real estate expert, I create incredible value to their bottom line by negotiating lease rates and sales prices on their behalf. To me, that is very fulfilling.

Frierson: When I googled your name, it brought up your highlight video on YouTube; the first play that's on there is the fourth-and-5 play against Florida. Is that the play that immediately comes to mind when you think about your career?

Bennett: I would say that's probably the highlight of my career at Georgia, for sure. It was my redshirt freshman year, I had just started playing a lot and while I had confidence in myself and had scored a touchdown earlier that year against South Carolina, after that touchdown against Florida ... it just gave me a ton of confidence that I can play in this league and do really well and succeed. That definitely stands out, for sure.

Frierson: Was that play designed for you all the way, because it looks like it was?

Bennett: Yeah ... I was playing the Y position and it was a slant-and-go, so I kind of do one little step in and then to the corner. We had worked on that all week and Aaron put it in a great spot.

Frierson: It always seems like for as great as a fourth-and-5 touchdown catch is or a run to a championship, what student-athletes really remember down the road are the relationships they built and the good times they had with their teammates. Have you found that to be the case?

Bennett: Sure, yeah. I'd say my closest guys at Georgia are Hutson Mason, Brandon Burrows, Parker Welch — the four of us were roommates: Hutson and Parker were quarterbacks and Brandon was an outside linebacker and defensive end. All those guys were in my wedding, I was in Hutson's wedding and I'll be in those other guys' weddings.

I was at a Terry College of Business event a couple of weeks ago and I saw a bunch of guys I played with before, like Brandon Boykin, Rennie Curran, Brandon Smith, Richard Samuel and a ton of those guys. It's just an instant connection again; it's really cool. It's all the stories (laughs), you get together and you start telling the stories of stupid stuff the coaches would do or whatever. It's just a lot of fun.

(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)

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.

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