Sept. 25, 2012
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Greg Zolman
Football – 1998-2001
Former quarterback Greg Zolman is a testament to the opportunities Vanderbilt’s football program can provide. A four-year letterman, Zolman took over the starting quarterback duties midway through his redshirt freshman season and started the final three years of his career. Having graduated the spring before his senior season, Zolman began work on a graduate degree by enrolling in Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management. After finishing his senior season on the field, he took the spring semester off to pursue a career in the NFL, and played professionally for three seasons before returning to Vanderbilt to finish his MBA in 2006.
Upon graduation, Zolman moved to New York City and worked for Morgan Stanley for two years before moving to the investment side of Wall Street where he currently works for a prominent hedge fund.
“I feel like I am an example why people should send their kids to Vanderbilt,” Zolman said recently. “Not only do you get to play in the best conference and have a chance to play professionally in the NFL, but you still have a great education to fall back on and achieve that type of success in the business world.”
Zolman departed Vanderbilt as the school’s all-time leading passer with 7,981 yards, a number that has only since been surpassed by Jay Cutler, who redshirted during Zolman’s senior year. His passing yardage numbers as a junior and senior sill rank in the top six in school history.
Professionally, Zolman played on five different teams – Buffalo, Green Bay, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Tampa – and spent a season in NFL Europe.
“After three years of basically playing the journeyman quarterback role and having difficulty finding stability in the NFL, I chose to go back to business school and finish where I left of,” Zolman recalled.
Zolman received his master’s in finance and accounting and was the first graduate assistant to ever work for the Vanderbilt endowment office. It is in this role that Zolman first became interested in working with a hedge fund.
However, Zolman lacked the experience to work with a hedge fund right out of graduate school so he began climbing the ladder in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. There he worked with money market account transactions, debt and equity offerings and provided strategic advice. For the last five years Zolman has been on the investment side of Wall Street and still follows the Commodores from New York City.
VUCommodores.com: What made you move on from football after three years playing professionally?
I realized that the NFL wasn’t a long-term sustainable career (for me). I felt like I gave it a shot and after three years of never being in one place for more than eight months, it was time to do something else.
Greg Zolman: I realized that I had a great education from Vanderbilt and a great opportunity to really capitalize on all the hard work that I did in school. I graduated with honors from Vandy and I did very well academically.
What was your most memorable game at Vanderbilt?
We beat Ole Miss at Ole Miss in overtime in 1999. We were 5-6 and had a pretty good team. We came within one or two plays of going to a bowl game. The season was enormously frustrating that we never got it done, but I feel like we were right there.
My whole career, we were very very competitive. Only a few times did we let games get away from us and it wasn’t close. That was probably the most memorable game. The whole team played really well. I personally was SEC Player of the Week, ran two touchdowns, threw two and we won in double overtime which was our first SEC road win in years (1994 to be exact).
How closely do you follow Vanderbilt’s program?
It is a little bit tough up here, but I still follow it as much as I can. I still try to come back for at least one game a year. There are a group of guys that are Vandy grads up here in my business at different hedge funds and we talk about Vanderbilt football all the time.
You are an avid golfer, when did you become so interested in the sport?
I played sparingly in college and then didn’t pick up a club until a little more than a year ago. I actually just got obsessed with golf last year so I’ve only really been playing seriously for a little over a year.
I took about eight years off from touching a club and I wouldn’t say I am good by any means.
Up until last year I played with Mizuno T-Zoids that I purchased from BrandtSnedeker when he was a freshman. It has been exciting to follow his career and it is great he will be competing in the Ryder Cup.
