[5] His longest tenure as an athletic director though came at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he served from 1980 to 1997, and was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa.

He took a $62,000 a year pay cut to leave the Cincinnati Bengals, despite stiff opposition from Paul Brown who strongly favored Rice staying with the Bengals, in pursuit of fulfilling his life's mission of building an athletic program with the student-athlete Total Person Program as a cornerstone.

[6] The seven-pillar program focuses on personal growth, academic success, and career preparation in addition to athletic achievement.

[8] Notable hires of Rice's include Bobby Ross (football), George O’Leary (football), Bobby Cremins (men's basketball), Jim Morris (baseball), Danny Hall (baseball), and Bernadette McGlade (women's basketball), who is Georgia Tech’s first full-time female coach.

Rice joined John Heisman and Bobby Dodd as collegiate sport award namesakes affiliated with Georgia Tech Athletics.

[6] His experiences teaching the class of juniors and seniors helped shape his book "Leadership Fitness: Developing and Reinforcing Successful, Positive Leaders".

[6] Rice taught the class as a seminar based on group discussion and invited guest speakers with high-level experience in various industries to speak and share lunch with his students.

[9] On Homer’s 12th birthday, his father gave him the book on goal setting “I Dare You”, which Rice attributed as an inspiration for his lifelong work cultivating the system for leadership and success described in his publications.

[6] At the age of 17, Rice joined the US Navy to fight in World War II, where he served on the Pacific front in the Philippines, seeing combat and running supplies until a brush with malaria ended his time there.

[6] After the war, Homer attended college and played football at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky where he received his Ph.D.[12] After graduation, he sold insurance while starting his coaching career at Wartburg Central High School in Tennessee, as well as coaching the local prison team in exchange for borrowing their equipment for the high school.