The kickoff to the college football season is one of my favorite times of the year, but for different reasons than most college football fans.

You see, I went to a smaller school in rural Virginia (James Madison – Go Dukes!) and grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There, college football is usually relegated to the back page of the paper in favor of the area’s professional franchises. Recruiting is a one-page overview of the area schools, where it’s talked about year-round down here in the home of UPS’s headquarters of Atlanta. Saturday is the day everyone does their yard work, not tailgate and watch football.

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Some people have the gift of thinking “out of the box.”  Surveying a situation or problem, they have the ability to view it with a perspective which borders between brilliant and crazy.  They always ask, “why can’t we make it bigger/better/stronger/faster?”

Humpy Wheeler knows a lot about doing it bigger and better.  As President and General Manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway, now known as Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Humpy became famous for his outlandish at-track promotions.  Believing that fans expected – and deserved – to be entertained from the moment they arrived at the track until the time they left, Humpy made it his mission to keep thousands of fans on the edge of their seat.  Whether it was military re-enactments, stunt drivers jumping cars in school buses or the mechanical menace “Carasaurus,” he always delivered in a big way. 

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Around mid-March every year, a chronic and widespread delirium spreads across the U.S.that often results in a substantial loss of productivity in the workplace – or so I’ve heard. The cause, of course, is the NCAA basketball tournament, which gets underway March 13.

The championship series will be especially exciting for me this year because UPS is playing a very important behind-the-scenes role in delivering the tournament to college basketball fans.

On March 16, the court flooring that will be used in the 2012 NCAA Final Four will begin a seven-city tour via UPS Freight.  The court, which was manufactured by Connor Sport Court, will stop at select college campuses and UPS facilities to generate excitement about the tournament before finally making its way to the Superdome in New Orleans on March 23, just in time for the national semifinals.

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In 2012 UPS is going to begin a new chapter in our longest standing corporate sports sponsorship program – NASCAR. Today we announced that while we’re coming back next year as an official NASCAR partner, for the first time in 12 racing seasons we won’t be a primary team sponsor.

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It’s hard to believe it’s already time for college football, especially when the temperature here in Atlanta is still hanging in the 90 degree range. But whatever the weather, the kick-off of the first game always transports me mentally to the cool, crisp days of autumn, where the smell of bratwursts and hotdogs on the grill and the distant tweet of a referee’s whistle give me a sense that all is right again with the world.

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UPS is now the official package delivery and logistics sponsor of the Southeastern Conference and SEC events. I had a chance to talk with Doug Gibeaut, director of sponsorships and events at UPS.

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