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Christopher Lakos (University of Georgia) – 25-Year Award
by John Frierson, UGAAA Staff Writer
Hiking Yonah Mountain with his wife Leslie and their dog Clarence.
Christopher Lakos remains ready for anything.
Now in his 26th year in the Georgia sports communications office, Lakos has seen and done plenty in his career. Among that plenty is serving as the press chief for baseball at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium during the 1996 Olympics.
It was a two-week grind that tested everything Lakos, then just 28 years old, had learned and experienced to that point in his young career. It was 32 games in 13 days and managing a staff of 68; it was the biggest and best challenge of his career.
“There were so many things that happened during the course of those days, I think it prepared me for any possibility,” said Lakos, Georgia’s associate sports communications director.
At the CoSIDA Convention in June, Lakos will be one of 30-plus CoSIDA members recognized at the Special Awards Luncheon for their 25-plus years on the job.
Lakos graduated from the University of Georgia in 1990 with a degree from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. As an undergraduate, he worked for the school newspaper,
The Red & Black, did work at a radio station, interned at the
Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal and interned with the U.S. Olympic Committee in media relations.
The Sanford, N.C., native also spent his senior year as a student assistant in Georgia’s sports communications office, learning under Claude Felton, who was well on his way to the legendary status he now holds after decades of excellence.
“When I graduated I said, ‘I’m going to try this,’” Lakos said of a career in sports communications. “I didn’t have a lot of experience, just that one year, so I figured I needed to be a grad assistant somewhere first, or intern.”
That’s how Lakos wound up at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, working as a graduate assistant. He was in charge of baseball, one of his favorite sports.
“I knew I was going to do baseball and since it was a small office, I knew I was going to get to do a lot,” he said.
Not long after the 1992 collegiate baseball season was coming to a close, Georgia found itself in need of a sports information staff member who could handle baseball. It was a job description that couldn’t have been more perfect for Lakos, then just 24. It’s basically the job description he still has now, 26 years later, with the addition of women’s tennis and a lot of football.
“Those have always been my passion, so it’s worked out great because that’s what I’m still doing,” Lakos said. “I see some of my colleagues around the league and around the country, and they’re like, ‘You’re still doing baseball?’”
As long as Lakos is able to do baseball, he’ll do baseball. He’s been doing great work in the sport for years.
“Of course I knew Christopher and I remember asking our head baseball coach at the time, Steve Webber, to call the baseball coach down [at Louisiana] and get some thoughts on Chris,” said Felton, Georgia’s Loran Smith Associate Athletic Director for Sports Communications, a CoSIDA Hall of Famer who was recognized by CoSIDA for his 25-plus years of service back in 2002.
“And when he came back, Steve said, ‘This guy says Chris Lakos is the greatest ever. He does everything: he does sports information, he handles all our travel, he does everything.’”
A ringing endorsement for Lakos, who said he’d always hoped to come back to the SEC, and hopefully Georgia. Not that he expected to come back to Athens and remain for decades like he has.
“I started here in December of ’92, with the thought being, I’ll be here for four or five years and then move on or move up or something. I didn’t think that I’d be here 26 years and counting, now,” he said, laughing.
There have been some opportunities to leave Athens in the past quarter-century, but no job offer that came his way every felt quite right at the time. Lakos is married to Leslie Andrews, owner of an Athens hair salon, and he clearly loves his life, on and off the clock. And that’s something very important to him.
“When you’re self evaluating, you want to say, ‘Are you doing what you want to do? Are you doing it where you want to do it? Are you happy coming to work every day?’ If you say yes to all those things, then you’ve got a pretty good situation,” Lakos noted.
For Felton, Lakos is one of his staff members that the boss doesn’t have to spend time worrying about how or if things are getting done.
“Christopher is extremely efficient and productive, he can do a lot of things at the same time, and there is never a doubt that it is going to get done and it’s going to get done well,” Felton said. “He works independently, gets very little supervision. He’s exactly the kind of staff member that you like to have, because you never have to worry about something going wrong in an area he’s responsible for.”
Georgia’s sports communications staff has long been regarded as one of the best in collegiate sports, just ask the sports writers that deal with it daily, and one reason is its stability.
Felton, Lakos, Tim Hix, Mike Mobley and Steven Colquitt have all been together for at least 20 years, while Leland Barrow, one of the point men for Georgia football, is still a comparative newcomer, having joined the staff in 2005.
In Lakos’ time in charge of baseball and women’s tennis, he has seen women’s tennis win two NCAA team titles, three National Indoor Championships titles, and baseball went to the College World Series in 2001, ’04, ’06 and ’08. Great experiences, all, as were the many years when he did Georgia’s radio broadcasts during baseball road games.
The most meaningful experience of Lakos’ Georgia career, however, had a much different feel. In 2009, baseball player Chance Veazey was paralyzed when he was struck by a car while riding his scooter. In 2011, Johnathan Taylor was paralyzed after colliding with a teammate while diving for a ball in the outfield.
Two catastrophic injuries led to two inspiring stories of strength and courage and will. Taylor and Veazey both earned their UGA degrees in 2013 and in March were honored before a Georgia game, with a permanent “A Legacy Of Strength” display unveiled at Foley Field.
For his work with the student-athletes, Lakos was recognized with CoSIDA’s 2013 Bud Nangle Award which is presented to an individual outside of CoSIDA or a member of CoSIDA who shows ethics and integrity under unusual or stressful situations. It is a "special circumstances" honor and is not an annual presentation.
“Being around Chance and JT, and getting to see them again this year, and just seeing how they have handled everything, that to me will trump any championship team I could ever experience,” Lakos said.
Savor the moments, Lakos said, the big and the small, whether it’s a conversation with a student-athlete in the dugout before practice or seeing your team go back to Omaha again and again or make it one play away from winning the College Football Playoff.
“Going to the College World Series, each time, is awesome, and I hope any and every baseball SID at some point works somewhere where they got a chance to do that, because it’s an unbelievable experience,” he said.
“I tell people that do go to it, or do go to the College Football Playoff, you’ve got to enjoy it. It’s a ton of work, but you never know when you’re going to be back, so enjoy it.”