Go West, Young Man... But Don't Come Back!

My name is Gary Spillers. I’m originally from Milledgeville, Georgia where my name is pronounced Gay-ree! I currently live in Atlanta where I am much more sophisticated. I have learned to sip champagne and taste wine with more worldly colleagues instead of chugging beers at happy hour with “Do Do” Hollis and the boys down at THE Milledgeville poolroom. My name has even been “yankeefied” from the Atlanta exposure and is now pronounced Gaa-ry. This book is written about and for people that pronounce my name properly. And that is Gay-Ree. Not that some of you Yankees out there won’t enjoy the stories, I am sure you will.

Gary Spillers has turned a hobby of writing about his college football days and life after college in the ’70s into this masterful novel that blends poignant stories of small-town southern life with hilarious, “mostly true” tales about the excesses of those college years and the escapades of his youth. Weaving through the novel is a love story that takes us back to the ’70s, while road-tripping westward across the country in a beat-up, 1967 Chevy.

Gary Spillers, CCIM, President of Collegiate Ventures LLC, lives on Lake Sinclair, located just north of the beautiful historic city of Milledgeville, Georgia. Gary currently splits his time between Atlanta and Milledgeville in pursuit of commercial/investment real estate opportunities. In his spare time, he enjoys writing “mostly true” tales about himself and his interesting array of suspect friends and the “messes” they used to get into. A native of Milledgeville, Gary starred in all sports while attending Baldwin High School and took his love of football to Troy University, where he became an All-Conference linebacker and was voted team captain his senior year. After graduating with a degree in marketing and business administration in 1970, Gary launched what became a 34-year real estate career. Over the span of his real estate career, Gary earned some of the most prestigious awards and professional designations of the National Association of Realtors and the National Homebuilders Association. He also served as a director of the Georgia Association of Realtors, served two terms as president of a Board of Realtors, and was the founding chairman of the Atlanta Association of Homebuilders Sales and Marketing Council. Gary invented the concept of “Gameday sports condominiums” and carried it around in his briefcase for a decade before it finally became a reality with the 32-unit Auburn Gameday Center. The next developments were BAMA’s Gameday Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (48 units), and Georgia’s Gameday Center in Athens, Georgia (133 residential units and 14,000 square feet of commercial space). The Georgia development was sold out by its completion date in the fall of 2004. Another Gameday Center in Tallahassee, Florida, opened in the fall of 2006 (112 units and 10,000 square feet of commercial space). These developments were featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Trend Magazine, The National Real Estate Investor, and many other major publications. In December of 2006, Gary left Gameday Centers to start his own company, Collegiate Ventures LLC, a commercial brokerage and development company. Collegiate Ventures is currently working on college housing sites and specialty development opportunities throughout the Southeast. But rest assured, book fans: Gay-Ree is not going to let work get in the way of the next great novel or short story! Special Thanks A special thanks to all the editors of this book: Rebecca Teaff, Staci Mae Spillers, Jackie Spillers Johnson, Deborah Fite, Gloria Garrett, Carmen Whitesell, and Virginia Bell. This bunch of good-looking women took what was basically an assault on the English language and molded it into an interesting an enjoyable, fun read.