GAINESVILLE, Fla —Bri Wade had only recently found out that there was a role and a path for women to participate in sports but now she had to convince her mother. A native of Byram, Mississippi, Wade had stayed close to home attending Mississippi State University, where she planned to study biochemistry, before changing to marketing to pursue a career path she had never considered.
One day on campus, another student approached her for a “dinner with the head football coach.” The dinner, it would turn out, was to help entice students to sign up and be hosts for football recruits who were going to be visiting campus. Wade took the job and her first game was right after Mississippi State was ranked No. 1 in the country in the first-ever College Football Playoff poll.
She didn’t know what she was getting into, but she quickly learned that she loved working with people and meeting their families. She worked on Dan Mullen’s staff until she graduated, working five years in total for the Bulldogs’ football program.
Like many recent college graduates, it wasn’t going as quickly as we’d like. Wade had a contact who put her in touch with Jacob LaFrance, who was the director of player personnel for Billy Napier at Louisiana. Only 23 years old at the time, Wade interviewed with Napier and was named the Director of On-Campus Recruiting for the Ragin’ Cajuns in February of 2020. That first job provided its own set of challenges, how does the Director of On-Campus Recruiting do their job during a pandemic when schools can’t host recruits? Wade helped design and create the virtual on-campus. She helped secure back-to-back No. 1 recruiting classes in the Sun Belt. When Napier was named the head coach of the Gators, Wade was worried about her job. She had done well but Napier, her guy, was leaving. The day of the official announcement, Napier, in passing, asked Wade if she’d ever been to Gainesville. When she told Napier she hadn’t, he nonchalantly asked, “Well do you want to go?”
She joined Napier’s inaugural staff in Gainesville as the Gators’ Director of On-Campus Recruiting & Special Events. She was promoted in the summer of 2023 to Director of Recruiting and External Engagement. Wade and Katie Turner have been a dynamic duo providing unique official and unofficial visits for recruits and their families. No visit is the same, due to their attention to detail. Now, she’ll be joining our team here at Florida Victorious.
Wade is leaving Napier’s staff but she isn’t leaving the Florida Gators, merely changing hats. As the Vice President of Marketing for Florida Victorious, Wade will work closely with football and the other 10 sports we work with at Florida Victorious.
“I’ve only operated in the football world. Something that is so rich about Florida is how great of an athletic program we have,” Wade said. “The amazing student-athletes we have, the amazing stories, their amazing backgrounds, and getting to work with even more people. That excites me.”
“Of course, working in the recruiting world and just seeing how things have changed over the years, post COVID, and with NIL going into play, I see how important that piece is in the recruitment process. Of course, it’s not everything but it is a very important piece in the recruiting process,” Wade said. “Just seeing that peaks my interest and excites me to be able to move over to this side of things and to help. I think I can bring a unique lens or outlook to it because I’ve been inside and I see what recruiting looks like. I think I’ll be a great bridge between the two because they go hand-in-hand.”
Recruiting has changed a lot since an 18-year-old Wade was recruited on campus between classes to help the Mississippi State football team. Now, with that marketing background, Wade will be able to continue helping the Gators by running the marketing efforts for Florida Victorious as we move into a new age of NIL in college athletics.
“I get to kind of reconnect with that because I did really enjoy being a marketing major because that is my roots. I get to fully dive into being a creative and get to explore that side of things outside of the recruiting realm,” Wade said. “I feel like recruiting you’re kind of restricted because you have all of these compliance rules and things but I feel like with being able to in charge of marketing for Florida Victorious, I have a lot more flexibility and I can get really creative and I can do some really cool stuff. I’m super excited about that.”
This isn’t a goodbye to Gator Nation from Wade, far from it. Billy Napier is her guy and now, working with Florida Victorious, she’ll have a new opportunity to help him and continue making an impact for the Florida Gators.
