Eddie George: Plans to Practice LA?

By Erik Skindrud, LandscapeOnline.com

Football running back Eddie George has played nine seasons in the NFL and is looking towards the next stage of his career.

The regular “Eddie George Update” in Landscape Architect and Specifier News this football season had several readers wondering if the Ohio State University grad plans to work in the field when his NFL career runs out.

That's the plan, Dick McBride of the landscape architecture and planning firm The EDGE Group, told LandscapeOnline.com. (The firm features the first two letters of its celebrity cofounder's first and last names.)

George, who won a Heisman Trophy playing at Ohio State University, helped create the Columbus, Ohio-based business venture in 2003. From a staff of five, it's already grown to 15-people, including eight licensed landscape architects and six landscape architecture grads, including George.

“He wanted to have something in place when football is over,” said Dick McBride, one of the firm's licensed landscape architects. “Eddie hopes to play for at least a couple more years. He still lives in Nashville (Tenn.), so his role right now is in marketing and business development.”

George played for the Dallas Cowboys this past season and is currently a free agent.

In May 2004, George told the Nashville, Tennessean about his ties to the landscape architecture profession

“People that know me, know my (football) career, I think that helps,” he told the newspaper. “It definitely springboards me into other doors that someone coming out of the school of architecture might not necessarily get. I can use all that to my advantage.”

The NFL's Eddie George helped draw up plans for a redesigned Jesse Owens Plaza at Ohio State University's football stadium.

In terms of design, George has contributed ideas to plans for a redesigned Jesse Owens Plaza at Ohio State University's stadium, the school where he studied landscape architecture and won the most prestigious award in college football.

“It's the house where he won the Heisman Trophy,” McBride noted. “He's very excited to be part of the project.”

But does George plan to work as a landscape architect? The answer to that is up in the air.

“I plan on having a few more businesses in conjunction with what I am doing in the landscape architecture business,” he told the Tennessean last year. “There are some more components I want to add to it to make it more lucrative and create more opportunity.”