- November 7, 2025
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Love for a longtime job began to fade for Magdi El Shahawy. Three decades of work in athletic administration took a toll, and he struggled to find meaning beyond the dollars and cents of it all.
He sensed burnout and recognized the symptoms. Family was always paramount in his mind, but the time spent with them didn't reflect such a priority.
It was unsustainable — he knew it. On July 10, 2023, he took to Facebook and shared his decision to step down as Georgia’s deputy athletic director for student athlete support services.
“Sometimes with people who are struggling, there’s a lot of shame in coming out and saying things,” El Shahawy said. “But it helped me to get out there and talk about it openly. I kind of felt a little bit of a calling to do that.”
Still, he never ruled out getting back in the game. He maintained confidence in his ability.
When a new opportunity arrived, he took it, knowing in his heart it would be compatible with his commitment to a wife and three children.
El Shahawy walked up to the podium at the Sarasota High School Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Oct. 26 to rousing applause. The 1986 graduate gazed upon a packed room at Michael’s on East and smiled, eight months removed from reentering the workforce as San Diego’s associate athletic director for academics.
He was last to speak among a class of distinguished Sarasota alumni. The group featured Lois Webb, Jim Tollerton, Shawn Hocker, Mike Bennett, John Lilly and the 1989 boys’ wrestling team.
“I’m humbled. It really is one of the greatest honors I can think of in my life,” El Shahawy said. “This community meant everything to me.”
He’s now a resident of Redondo Beach, California, alongside his wife, Wealthy, and three children, Micah, Madison and Mila. All of them flew to Florida on the night of Oct. 25 for the following evening’s festivities.
The year 2025 has become memorable in more ways than one for El Shahawy, but fittingly, he began his acceptance speech with an anecdote from the Sailors’ 1985 football season.
Sarasota defeated Manatee during that regular season. That alone was significant considering the Hurricanes had won the 1983 FHSAA Class 4A state title. It was even more significant considering how it put the Sailors in position to win a district championship.
But El Shahawy and Co. fell to Riverview in the final week of the season, forcing them into a three-way tiebreaker that didn’t go in their favor. Sarasota didn’t qualify for the playoffs.
Manatee went on to win the 5A state title in 1985 — defeating two teams along the way who the Sailors had defeated — as Sarasota watched from afar.
“I’d like to say, ‘I know guys, we would have done it that year,’ But it was still special and I wouldn’t trade anything,” said El Shahawy in his speech. “Other than maybe having a chance to win a state title."
He played for the Sailors from 1983-85 under Charlie Cleland, the winningest coach in program history, as well as defensive line coach Tom Whitehurst, who El Shahawy thanked first in his prepared list of names. Much time transpired between the two while sitting in Whitehurst’s office and chatting about football, life and anything in-between.
El Shahawy was a tri-sport athlete, also earning varsity letters in weightlifting and track & field. But it was football that took him places.
He went on to play 15 games for Florida State across the 1987 and 1988 campaigns. At one point, his time there overlapped with eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders.
Sports were indeed El Shahawy's passion. Former Florida State defensive line coach and assistant head coach Chuck Amato saw that and suggested pursuing a career in athletics.
“My first response was, ‘I really don’t want to coach,’” El Shahawy said. “I really didn’t see that being a lifestyle for me.”
But coaching was not the only avenue. He stuck with Florida State and earned a PhD in Athletic Administration in 1999 after getting his start as a graduate assistant in athletic compliance with the university from 1993 to 94.
El Shahawy journeyed out of state for his first full-time job out of college — Michigan State senior associate director for student athlete support services in 1999-2000.
Journeying even farther resulted in what he still reflects on as the “greatest work-life experience” of his extensive career.
He served as USC senior associate athletic director for 18 years beginning in 2000. During his time there, El Shahawy oversaw a rise in graduation success rate for student-athletes from 68% to 90%. And the Trojans’ 2003 national championship in football was a bit of extra gravy.
It was also in Los Angeles where he underwent evolution as a leader, adding lessons from coach Pete Carroll — among others — to the foundation set by Whitehurst and Amato. He grew even further by watching Georgia football coach Kirby Smart from 2018 to 2023 and reading up on servant leadership from author John Maxwell.
“You take elements from what you see that people do,” El Shahawy said. “And sometimes, just as much as it’s good to learn what to do, sometimes you learn what not to do. I learned through my own mistakes.”
But throughout his career, he’s never forgotten what was once written in the Sarasota locker room during his high school days — he who fails to prepare, prepares to fail. He spoke it once more at the induction ceremony.
While passing down that message to his children, he taught them four keys to success in life. He called upon his youngest son, Madison, to share the fourth near the end of his acceptance speech.
Do extra.
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the word extra,” said El Shahawy in his speech. “And I do believe that if you do extra, you don’t have to be the best athlete and you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room — I certainly wasn’t either of those. I credit Sarasota for this foundation of doing extra every day.”
There was plenty of extra time to be with family when he left work for over a year. There’s extra time in his new position, which allowed him and his loved ones to make the cross-country trek back to Sarasota.
Facebook, which he often uses to stay connected with his home community, now serves a different purpose than to share his struggles.
It’s the means by which El Shahawy shares the everyday joys and memories made with his wife and kids.
