by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
We all face crossroads in our lives and, for Michael Huyghue, the pavement widened last year.
Stay with the Jaguars as a senior vice president? Take a job with the National Football League office in New York City? Go out on his own?
Answer: Go out on his own.
“When I was thinking of leaving the Jaguars for a job in the (NFL) commissioner’s office, I went through the process of what ‘leaving’ would mean,” he said. “I knew I wanted to get out and do something else. I was tired of having my schedule predetermined: training camp starts here, the preseason starts here and move into the Radisson with the players, the season starts, the Super Bowl, the combines ... and the circle joins.”
The NFL office?
“I looked at the lifestyle here and what my family had,” he said. “Did I want to leave? No. So I decided to stay.”
His career change came at a time when he had committed to one of the city’s highest-profile positions: chairing the Jacksonville Chamber’s Cornerstone division, which shapes our region’s future by attracting new businesses, growing our workforce and improving the quality of life.
“It’s hard enough to run Cornerstone without having the pressures of starting a new business,” says Jerry Mallot, the Chamber’s executive vice president who directs the Cornerstone initiative. “But, it was like he wasn’t making any changes in his life. He really got into it and has done a great job.”
Family considerations led him to leave the hectic world of the Jaguars. Sunday, he could enjoy the game from his Club seat instead of running all over the stadium doing the gameday chores that face all Jaguar employes.
“I have three kids,” said Huyghue. “For me, Thanksgiving was coming home at 3 in the afternoon, having what amounted to a ‘cosmetic’ dinner and going back to work the next day. The NFL works on holidays. It’s entertainment for those with the days off. On Christmas Day, we were in the office at 10.
“Now, I’m still gone a lot, but I have time to be with the family in a real family setting. My daughter is in the YMCA Indian Princess program and we went to the Camp Immokalee campout. The kids had a ball. It rained something awful, but it was fun. I couldn’t have done that before because the Jaguars would have been playing.”
His business, Axcess Sports and Entertainment, has taken off. Based in Independent Square, Huyghue and his staff have recruited top professional athletes. They provide full services to them from contract negotiations to public relations to even psychological testing. In today’s world of high-paid, high-profile athletes, good advice is needed at every step.
“The sports agent business was a natural; I had been on the other side of the table for about 10 years — eight with the Jags, the others with the Detroit Lions — and I thought I could make a success of it,” said Huyghue, a Cornell graduate who got his law degree from the University of Michigan. “So far, it’s been great. We started as a football company and now we’re into golf and television. We’re looking at other areas we could represent.
“We target the marquee athletes. There are only 32 first-round NFL choices and there’s a lot of competition among companies like ours. I think we have an advantage in that I’ve been on the other side of the table. That can make us attractive to athletes.
“We’ve been able to pick up some good players in our first year, Jaguars like Marlon McCree, Zach Weigert and T.J. Slaughter, Gary Walker (ex-Jag now with Houston.)
“Golf is a natural. There are big companies which represent golfers but none have a presence here, and some very good players who live here. We have Fred Funk and Len Mattiace among the 5-6 players and we’re looking for more. It’s our fastest growing division.
“We also have gotten into television. We represent (Ch. 4 sportscaster Sam) Kouvaris, for instance. It’s the same process with different settings; he’s a guy with talent in an industry who’s looking to get a better contract. No different than the football player, just a different setting.
“There’s a tremendous amount of competition. There are some 2,000 people registered with the NFL as agents and there are 20 or so big companies in the business. We compete against those, but the mom and pops also are a presence.”
His Cornerstone experience has shown him how the city has progressed.
“It has been an exciting year, much more exciting that I would have anticipated. I’ve worked with the Chamber in the past on economic development and there was always the thought of being an ‘NFL city,’” he said.
“We’ve grown past that. The NFL is just one part of the equation on why this is a city to live and work in. The Super Bowl is coming; that’s another part. There are so many things that make this a great place. We aren’t perfect, but the city is working through the areas that need help.”
He’s enjoyed helping lure businesses here.
“We have a sense of who we are as a city and we share it,” he said. “It’s impressive to host business people who are thinking of moving here. We have dinners and business leaders get up and talk about what it means to work and live in Jacksonville.
“It means a lot when visitors have company leaders talking about why they live and work here. Compare it to football: when I was with the Jaguars, we would recruit free agents from other teams and I always would get them with our players. You want to know what your peers think. This is not to say that you don’t pay attention to the staff people, but the emphasis comes from others who are like you.”
Michael Huyghue
Present: President and CEO of Axcess Sports & Entertainment with offices in Independent Square.
Immediate past: Senior Vice President of Football Operations for the Jacksonville Jaguars (1994-2001.)
Education: Undergraduate degree from Cornell University, law degree from the University of Michigan.
Professional memberships: Bar associations in Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey. Sports Lawyers Association
Boards: MPS Group, Cornell University, Edward Waters College, Jacksonville Country Day School.
Residence: Ponte Vedra Beach.
Family: wife Kimberly and three children: Kristen (8), Kathryn (6), and Tyler (2).