by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Tony Boselli is best known as a retired football player. Not many know that he’s also involved in the building industry.
Besides being a former Jacksonville Jaguar, Boselli is an owner of IF marketing and advertising agency in Texas that specializes in marketing and sales for developers all over the country.
“I feel your pain,” he said at last month’s meeting of the Northeast Florida Builders Sales and Marketing Council’s breakfast meeting at the University of North Florida. “Within the first two months of the year we had our biggest clients, which are homebuilders, cut their marketing budgets by 50 to 100 percent and we had to figure out ‘How we are going to make this work?’
“I think all of us understand how difficult it is. I say that because I think you can really find the true character of individuals and companies when it is tough. It’s easy when things are going well. But, I’m excited that the room is filled up and I actually hope it’s not because I’m here, but because the market is getting better.”
It was indeed a large turnout - it’s no secret this town loves its football, but you’d have to hope it was a little bit of both that brought the crowd out.
“I hope business is getting better,” said Boselli. “I don’t know of any industry that has been hit as hard by this. I guess we’re not allowed to use the word ‘recession,’ so I’ll say ‘tough times’.”
He was the Jaguars’ first draft selection in 1995 and starred for the team through 2001, when he went to the Houston Texans in the expansion draft. A shoulder injury ended his career and he returned to Jacksonville.
Boselli talked about perseverance and how important it is to keep your head up in the face of adversity.
“If we learn to persevere, not to give up and continue to fight, it changes us and makes us better people,” said Boselli. “It makes us stronger and it builds our character. It shows what kind of integrity we have and it prepares us for the next thing and the next stage of life.”
He learned that lesson playing football and in his post-football career.
“I learned so much from football because I can remember so many times in the first quarter of the game all of a sudden you are down by two touchdowns and you are looking around and their crowd is just screaming at you,” he said. “They are calling you names, telling you what a bad person you are and talking bad about your mother. In those times, you have a choice of what to do. It would be easy to give up and quit. But, I thank God we didn’t.
“I find a lot of my strength in my faith. I think the people who succeed find a way to keep persevering, not giving up and making adjustments. They ultimately get where they want to go.”
Boselli is taking the same energy that he used to put on the football field and putting into the youth of Jacksonville through his Boselli Foundation.
“But, I’m not doing it alone,” Boselli makes sure to point out. “It’s not just me. I’m part of a team. It is because of the relationships I’ve formed over the years.
“Relationships are the most powerful things we have in our life. They will be most valuable asset to you at the end of your life. It won’t be how many houses you sold, or how big your bank account is, it will be the relationships that you have built and that you have.
“There is power in relationships. You can accomplish way more as a team then you can as an individual. All the success that we’ve had with the foundation is not because I’m so really smart person. And it’s not because I’m that great of a guy. I do believe it is the obligation of every person in our community to give back.”
The Foundation opened the first Tony Boselli Youth Life Learning Center, an after-school program in early 2007 and planned to do just one, but through his relationships he is able to do more.
“It has now opened the doors to hopefully have three by the end of the year,” said Boselli. “It has led to so many more opportunities - not for me individually, but for the Foundation and for us as a city to find ways to partner together to address some of the issues and challenges that we face.
“All that happened because of the power of relationships, working together as a team and persevering in the face of adversity.”