June Deadrick leads College Football Playoff Championship benefiting the Black Community

From the small town of Palacios, Texas where her love for sports grew from the Friday night lights magic of football, June Deadrick has become a leader in the sports world. Recognized as the first African American woman to chair a postseason collegiate bowl game in the nation (Texas Bowl), she continues to break the glass ceiling. She is now the chair of the host committee for the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship set for Mon., Jan. 8 in Houston.

The Defender got an exclusive interview with Deadrick to talk about how the CFP National Championship will impact the Greater Houston area Black community.

Impact of Sports

Taking a holistic perspective of sports, Deadrick looks at sports as a stepping stone to opportunity.

Deadrick: The business of sports impacts every aspect of a person’s life, from the athlete to the team owner. We look at communities, especially communities of color, and so many of our young people have the opportunity to advance their education through athletic scholarships. It’s true. We have so many young people who, but for that athletic scholarship might not be able to reach that next level of their education. And then for many of them, they don’t go into professional sports. They’re not going to be professional athletes, but it’s a means of getting that education so that then they can come back to their community and be a teacher or a business leader or an elected official. But when we look at the way sports impacts our community and the business of sports, it’s not just the team on the field.

Impact on Business

Referring to the $27 million impact when Houston hosted the Final Four, Deadrick says it is not just the hotels and rental cars that benefit but the local restaurants and “mom and pop” institutions. But the CFP added another dimension that helps Black businesses benefit from the big game.

Deadrick: When you think about any type of a big sporting event coming to your town, obviously that’s a huge economic impact and a huge infusion of monetary gains for your community. We wanted to highlight and impact our local minority-owned businesses and we created a program called Buy Houston: By Houston Supplier Diversity Program. We encouraged minority women-owned businesses, historically underutilized businesses to apply, get certified through us so that we could share that information with some of the larger vendors that were coming in. As of today, I don’t have the exact number, but we have spent just a little over $1 million with local Houston hubs. We’ve had people who are doing janitorial services, florists, balloon artists, advertising agencies, almost any area that you could think of. We have utilized those businesses, plus restaurants, caterers, and all kinds of things.

Impact on Education

Over a quarter million dollars in donor certificates have been issued by CFP to school districts throughout the Houston area to help teachers buy much-needed classroom supplies plus they did 10 makeovers upgrading libraries, media centers, and technology centers.

Deadrick: One of the things that the CFP does is they focus on education and teachers, but they allow each community where they bring the championship game to create their own special education program. For Houston, we had three things we wanted to concentrate on, the three Rs: recruitment, retention, and recognition of our teachers. Our educators are some of the least recognized and respected people in our society right now. Yet they are the hardest working people in our community. And with the help of the CFP, we were able to create a program called “Houston Loves Teachers.”