A Head Coach, a Backup Goalie, and the Inspiring Story of a Gift
After his sophomore year at Babson, Greg Boxer ’07 had made up his mind. He was quitting the ice hockey team.
For two years, Boxer had worked hard, but in his heart, he knew he would never be good enough to earn a starting spot. He was a backup goalie, and if he stayed on the team, a backup goalie he would remain.
Boxer went to tell Jamie Rice ’90, the team’s head coach, about his decision. Boxer told him he couldn’t make the commitment anymore, that he was going to join the golf team instead.
Rice, who had just finished his first year leading the hockey team, listened. Then he told Boxer to reconsider. All these years later, Boxer remembers the coach’s words. “I think you will regret this the rest of your life,” Rice told him, “because you are not a quitter.”
Even though Boxer might not be a starter, Rice said that he could still be a leader on the team. By working hard, by being the first to practice and the last to go home, Boxer could set an example to the other players. “I don’t want to see you leave,” Rice said. “I want to see you in the locker room.”
Rice’s words changed Boxer’s mind. More than that, they changed his perspective. “That had such a profound impact on me and how I approached the rest of my life,” he says. By sticking it out on the hockey team, by rising to the challenge, he was better prepared for the demanding times to come in his career.
Having spent years working in the energy sector, Boxer is today the chief financial officer and co-founder of Flywheel Energy. Based in Oklahoma City, Flywheel is one of the largest private energy producers in the country. “I really believe if I had quit, I really don’t think I would be where I am in life,” he says. “I would have established too early in life that quitter’s mentality.”
In gratitude to Rice and the Babson ice hockey team, Boxer has made a transformative gift to the program to endow its head coaching position. As a student, Boxer decided not to quit on the hockey team, and even though he is now long past graduation, that gift demonstrates that he never did.
A Phone Call
Thanks to Boxer’s gift, which contributes to the athletics-focused Champions Forever fundraising campaign at Babson, the hockey team’s head coaching position is now known as the Boxer-Rice Head Men’s Ice Hockey Coach. “This is an extraordinary commitment and one that will forever strengthen a flagship program at Babson,” says Mike Lynch, the Pamela P. and Brian M. Barefoot Associate Vice President for Athletics and Athletics Advancement.
Boxer had asked that Rice’s name be on the endowed position. He also wanted to be the one to tell Rice the news. As the coach was standing in a parking lot in Medford, Massachusetts, ready to speak to a meeting of hockey referees, he received a text from Boxer, asking to talk.
Boxer’s request wasn’t unusual. Rice often hears from former players, who tell him news of their lives, of weddings and babies and jobs. “I try to stay in contact with as many as possible,” says Rice, who has coached for 21 seasons at Babson. “I want to create a program where they have lifelong connections.”
Rice had time to chat before his meeting, so Boxer called him. That’s when he told the coach of his gift, of how the position was being named for Rice, of how much the coach meant to him. Boxer started crying. So did Rice. The coach didn’t know what to say. “It was a very emotional experience,” Boxer says. “It was really, really cool.”
Rice feels humbled by Boxer’s support of him and the team. “It is really hard for me to put into words what this means,” he says. “When you sit back and think about it, it is overwhelming he felt so strongly about his experience here.”
One of the Glue People
Rice takes seriously the responsibility he has, coaching young men during a formative time in their lives. “A lot of it is about developing the depth of their character,” he says. “We are trying to help them be the best versions of themselves.”
When Boxer was a goalie on the team, Rice saw him as one of the ultimate “glue people,” the role players who work hard even though they may never get the spotlight. In tribute to those hard-working role players, Rice likes to show the team the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, which looks at background singers, whose contributions are essential to a band but typically don’t receive the recognition they deserve.
“Role players, backups—they are the ones who toil in the darkness that nobody sees,” Rice says. “They have to be incredibly selfless. They are the true meaning of what it means to be on a team. It’s about putting the needs of everyone else first.”
That describes Boxer to a tee. When the team won its conference tournament during Boxer’s senior year, the captains went to pick up the trophy at center ice as they customarily do. In recognition of all Boxer had done for the team, however, Rice told him to go with them. “It was such a classy gesture,” Boxer says.
Boxer’s hockey experiences have stood him in good stead. After leaving Babson, he started at Goldman Sachs as an analyst in natural resources. The hours were long, and the work challenging. “It was obvious I was not the smartest analyst in the group,” Boxer says. To get ahead, Boxer did what he did on the hockey team: He worked harder than everybody else. “I took all the work ethic that Coach Rice instilled in me,” he says. “I became a top-ranked analyst.”
When he started Flywheel in 2017, he carried forward the values he learned from Rice—discipline, teamwork, humility—to the organization. “I think of coach as my lifelong mentor,” Boxer says. “I genuinely love the man.”
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