by Roscoe Nance
Special to boxtorow.com

Dream big and work hard. That has been Tony Wyllie’s formula for success as the Texas Southern University alumnus has climbed the NFL front office ranks in public relations to his current position as senior vice president, communications for the Washington Redskins.

In his ninth season with the Redskins, Wyllie serves as a PR advisor to owner Daniel Snyder, team spokesman, and liaison between the franchise and the local and national media.

Along the way, he’s built an impressive resume: he’s a five-time winner of the prestigious Pete Rozelle Award, presented annually to the NFL’s best communications department by Pro Football Writers Association; a 2017 inductee of the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame; winner of the SWAC Alumni Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Texas Southern’s Outstanding Alumni Award.

How did Wyllie reach the pinnacle of public relations? It’s a journey that started with conversation with his cousin, a magazine article, and good old fashion hustle.

Finding his passion
Wyllie began his college career as biology major with aspirations of going to medical school. But that all changed after a conversation with his older cousin who was in medical school. His cousin shared some of his struggles, which caused Wyllie to reconsider his career path.

“I said, ‘That’s not for me,’’’ Wyllie recalls. “He said, ‘Hey, you need to be working in sports. I’ve known you all your life. You need to be doing something in sports.’ That planted the seed.’’

The next day, Wyllie read an article in Black Collegian magazine about taking a love for sports and making it a satisfying career. It also discussed the growth of sports management programs and how they were trying to open the door for African-

“It really got my attention,’’ Wyllie says. “I wasn’t an athlete. I was five-feet nothing, weighing a hundred and nothing, and I didn’t have a speck of athletic talent. But I had a big, big love for sports. I was like, ‘Wait a minute. You can still make a living doing this?’ When I read that article, the light kind of went on.’’

A few days later, Wyllie went to the Texas Southern Placement Office to research sports management programs across the country and found material from a number of schools. Many of them wanted applicants to have a journalism background. At that point, he set a goal to become a front office executive for a professional sports organization or a newspaper or TV sports reporter, and he switched his major from Biology to Journalism, even though he was a second-semester senior.

“You can imagine how my parents felt,’’ Wyllie says. “They thought I was crazy. They thought I was going to be a career student. They didn’t quite understand. At that point, the Wyllie Scholarship ended. They thought I was nuts.’’

Wyllie’s first assignment in his new major was to choose someone he wanted to emulate and write a story about them. He selected Houston Astros General Manager Bob Watson, the only Black GM in professional sports at that time. Wyllie called Watson at the Astros’ office in Houston, but Watson was at spring training with the team in Kissimmee, Fla. A few days later, Watson returned his called, and they talked for three hours.

The conversation was eye-opening.

“All I knew was what I saw on the field, the players and coaches,’’ Wyllie says. “I didn’t realize they had support positions and all the people who make up a sports organization. The last thing he said was, ‘If you really want to do this, you can do it.’ That stoked a fire in my belly. That was all I needed to hear.’’

Wyllie discovered a sobering reality from the conversation: you literally have to start at the bottom as an intern and work your way up to reach the executive level.

Starting from the bottom
Since the Wyllie Scholarship—a.k.a. his parents’ financial support—had ended, Wyllie had to hustle to pay his way through school. He waited tables at a local restaurant and worked in the Sports Information Department at Texas Southern.

He sharpened his journalism chops by writing for the school newspaper, as well as the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Post and The Associated Press. He also worked at KHOU-TV, the CBS affiliate in Houston, hosted his own TV show on a public access channel, worked with the Astros’ PR Department, and was a correspondent for ESPN’s Black College Sports Today.

Wyllie’s big break came when Houston Oilers Publicity Director Chip Namias hired him as a game day intern in 1991.

“Everything changed for me,’’ Wyllie says of meeting Namias at a Texas Southern basketball game during which the Oilers were recognized at halftime.

With the internship, Wyllie saw how an NFL communications department operated, and he also met several scouts. One of them offered Wyllie, who was considering pursuing a master’s degree in Sports Administration to make himself more marketable, some sage advice. The scout told him: “You can have a Ph.D. But if you don’t know somebody, you’re not getting in.’’

Getting a foot in the door
When it came time for Wyllie to apply for his next internship, he pulled out all the stops. This was in the pre-Internet era, so he bought a copy of the Sports Illustrated Almanac, which listed contact information for all of the professional sports organizations in America, printed 400 copies of his resume and mailed one to each franchise.

“If you were a sports organization, you got a resume from me,’’ he says. “My reasoning was the more darts you throw at a target, the better your odds of hitting it. I wanted to show I was willing to do whatever was necessary.’’

Wyllie got a bunch of rejections, and just one interview request. It was from the New Jersey Nets.

The unpaid internship would have meant driving his 1980 Toyota from Texas to Brooklyn, N.Y., living with his grandmother and driving back and forth to East Rutherford, N.J., daily. Wyllie was willing to make that sacrifice to get his foot in the door.

Unfortunately, he bombed his interview with the Nets, so he returned to school and sent out more resumes. This time, he got a response from San Diego Chargers Publicity Director Bill Johnson. Wyllie says he still has the letter which read in part, “We do provide an internship with a small stipend with room and board.’’

He was elated until he got to the last sentence, which he says “almost killed me.” It said, “The applicant is responsible for all transportation.’’

“I couldn’t afford a plane ticket,’’ he says, but added, “This is why I love Black colleges.’’ The dean of the Communications department called him into his office and handed him an envelope containing a Delta Airlines ticket to San Diego.

“I don’t know how he found out about it,’’ Wyllie says. “He said, ‘You worked too hard to let something like this stop you. Go out there and do it.’’’

That wasn’t the only act of serendipity that came Wyllie’s way. He went to the Placement Office and explained his interview fiasco with the Nets, and that he couldn’t afford to blow the opportunity he was getting with the Chargers. Robert Jones, one of the staff members, took Wyllie to the Galleria Mall and bought him a suit. Jones also scheduled three consecutive days of mock interviews to help Wyllie prepare.

Wyllie got the internship. The Chargers’ Rob Boulware took Wyllie under his wing in the summer of 1992, and Wyllie was convinced that a career in communications was the ticket for him. He had his foot in the door with the internship. But that wasn’t enough. He wanted to be all in.

Charting a path to the top
Wyllie took initiative and crashed the NFL’s public relations directors’ meeting hoping to land another internship. Many of the PR directors he had previously mailed his resume to were at the meeting. When it ended, six teams called to schedule interviews.

“I felt like Jesus Shuttlesworth,’’ Wyllie says, alluding to Ray Allen’s character in the Spike Lee Joint He Got Game. “I had choices.’’

Wyllie narrowed the field to two teams: the reigning Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys and the Oilers, the team that gave him his first opportunity. He chose the Cowboys after flying to Dallas where he met owner Jerry Jones and Cowboys stars and future Pro Football Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith and Michael Irving. He chose the Super Bowl champs, not because of their star power but because he believed they offered him a better opportunity for full-time employment, and it represented a new challenge and a new city for him.

“That was like grad school for me,’’ Wyllie says. “We were the Beatles. Everywhere we went there were thousands of people. We were the rock stars.’’

After the Cowboys repeated as Super Bowl champs, Wyllie got a shot at a full-time position – but not with the Cowboys. It came with the Los Angeles Rams. He went from an intern with the Cowboys to assistant director with the Rams, and he took on more responsibility when the team relocated to St. Louis in 1995.

After three years with the Rams, Wyllie became the youngest PR director in the league when the Tennessee Titans hired him at age 37. In 2000, only eight years after reading the magazine article that set the course for his career, the expansion Houston Texans hired him as vice president for communications

Wyllie celebrated by taking his parents to an Astros game where he ran into – of all people – Bob Watson, the man who inspired him to become a professional sports executive.

“I thanked him for inspiring me and for calling me,’’ Wyllie says. “He didn’t have to do that. That’s why whenever I get calls from college students I always make sure I take time to talk to them. That conversation changed my life.’’

Wyllie joined the Texans two years before they signed their first player and spent most of his time promoting activities on the business side of the organization.

“That taught me a lot about corporate communications,’’ Wyllie says.

Texans owner Bob McNair arranged for Wyllie to enroll in the Executive MBA Program at Rice University. Six months after graduating from the program in 2007, the MLB’s Texas Rangers interviewed him to be team president. Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan eventually got the job, but Wyllie says going through the interview process “opened my eyes and ears.’’ He added, “I guess my fastball wasn’t good enough.’’

Soon after, Wyllie joined the Redskins in his current position.

“I thought what better place to be,’’ he says. “(President Barack) Obama was taking office. That opened a whole other door. That put me on the global stage being in Washington.

“There is never a dull moment with the Skins. Fans are true fans. I’m behind the scenes but I go places and they know my name. That just shows their passion. This is a big market. I was prepared for it through all the experiences I’ve had in my career. If this would have been my first director’s job at the age I was in Tennessee, this place would have swallowed me up.’’

Wyllie doesn’t take his success for granted, nor does he credit himself for ascending to the level he’s attained.

“I was very fortunate to work with good people and to learn from the best in the business,’’ he says.

As for what’s next in his career, he has no idea.

“Whatever God has planned for me, as long as I have fun and it’s in sports,’’ he says.

Note: This is the second in a series on HBCU graduates who run PR for pro sports teams. Our first piece was on Cavs PR man BJ Evans.