• Pair of Bears lead Miami Dolphins, Utah Jazz franchises

    Jeff Ireland and Dennis Lindsey

    If you attended Baylor in the late 1980s/early 1990s, you had not one, but two future major league general managers as classmates.

    Jeff Ireland, a record-setting kicker on Baylor’s football team from 1988-91, has served as general manager of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins since January 2008 and recently had his contract extended through the 2014 season. At 3-0, the Dolphins are one of just six undefeated teams left in the NFL as they head into a Monday Night Football showdown against the New Orleans Saints tonight.

    As a kicker at Baylor, Ireland set the program’s single-season and career records for field goals made. (Aaron Jones has since broken Ireland’s season mark, and Jones is on pace to break the career mark sometime this fall.) After graduating, Ireland spent a decade as an NFL scout and three years in the Dallas Cowboys’ front office before joining the Dolphins.

    His classmate, Dennis Lindsey, BSED ’92, was named general manager of the NBA’s Utah Jazz in August 2012. Lindsey played point guard for Baylor from 1988-92 before spending 11 years in the Houston Rockets’ front office and five seasons with the San Antonio Spurs. He’s been tasked with leading the Jazz through a rebuilding process that began with this year’s NBA draft, for which he and the franchise have been widely lauded.

    Sic ’em, Baylor GMs!

    [To read about more prominent alumni in pro sports (and other fields), visit the About Baylor website.]