Life: Revealing Itself as it Goes

PROVO, Utah – Apr 10, 2018 – Life has thrown a few curveballs at Blair Giles. If things had gone according to his plan, Giles would be utilizing his economics undergraduate degree by pursuing a career in the finance industry of New York City.

However, Giles has learned that things rarely go as planned, and he is perfectly comfortable with that.

“Life is meant to be lived by faith,” Giles says.

Today, Giles is teaching a sports management course for BYU Marriott’s Experience Design and Management Department and manages former basketball star Jimmer Fredette’s nonprofit organization, the Fredette Family Foundation, along with his marketing and endorsements through Giles’ company, JBG Sports Group.

“Life is revealing itself as it goes,” Giles says. “When I graduated from college in 2001, I wanted to move to New York City, but my parents needed me to go back home to South Carolina to take care of the family property and business while they were away on a mission.”

His parent’s mission call indirectly gave Giles a calling of his own. After he and his wife, Cynthia, made the move to the Palmetto State, he started working for ClearChannel Radio, which turned into a lifelong career in sports marketing. During his time at ClearChannel, Giles learned that the company’s entertainment division happened to be one of the largest sports agencies in the world, managing over six hundred athletes. This nugget of information sparked his attention because he came from a rich background of athletes—his father played baseball for BYU and was a NCAA basketball referee for thirty-five years, and his uncle played quarterback for BYU when the Cougars participated in their first-ever bowl game.

Knowing that South Carolina had a passionate sports fan base, Giles leveraged his family and professional network to recruit sports Hall of Famers such as Emmitt Smith, Cal Ripken Jr., and Mike Krzyzewski as spokespersons at fundraising events for Lexington Medical Center, one of the radio station’s clients. After this success, Giles left the radio world for good and focused on sports entertainment. He jumped ship, became an entrepreneur, and JBG Sports Group was born.

This career-altering decision led Giles to generating and managing Fredette’s marketing and spearheading the basketball professional’s Fredette Family Foundation, with a mission to strengthen youth and family.

“I knew that Jimmer and his legacy at BYU needed to be remembered past his playing days,” Giles says. “I had worked on behalf of Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi and their foundations, and through these experiences, I realized that foundations were more impactful when they were established during a professional athlete’s career.”

Giles proposed the idea to Fredette, and the organization was started in February 2012. Today the Fredette Family Foundation serves over thirty thousand children in twenty-eight schools across the nation. Starting the foundation for the Fredettes presented more opportunities for Giles, one of which included a teaching position at BYU Marriott.

“When I was asked to teach sports management at BYU, I felt strongly that this is what I needed to do,” sya Giles, who also earned his MPA from BYU Marriott. “The values that we teach at BYU need to be instilled in the world of sports because sports is so ingrained in our culture. We have that obligation to be the light of the world.”

Instilling light in the world is something that Giles has done throughout his career and continues to do as a professor, an entrepreneur, and now a nonprofit manager. Since he has started teaching, Giles has helped students in the experience design and management program get placed in nonprofit and sports careers with the Utah Jazz, the Arizona Coyotes, and others, encouraging each to make a positive impact in the world.

“I love and believe in BYU and its culture and the good we can do in the world,” Giles says. “We have to be willing and accept whatever the Lord throws our way.”