HPI
“In football, you expect to win, and you play to win every week. It will be no different as we build out this team,” said Colt McCoy. “If you look at any good organization or team, it comes down to finding people with common goals, passion, and a shared vision. I’ve always loved playing quarterback, and HPI is letting me do that as we build out the Fort Worth presence. Real estate has no boundaries. I’m excited about this next chapter.”
Former Texas quarterback Colt McCoy will be at AT&T Stadium in Arlington on Friday to watch his beloved Longhorns play Ohio State in a College Football Playoff national semifinal.
The fellas of Austin’s acclaimed 40 Acres, after all, are playing right in his own backyard.
McCoy and his family have put down roots in Fort Worth after a nomadic career in the National Football League that took him to five cities, coast-to-coast, in 14 years. The West Texas boy, who grew up in Tuscola, has made his home where the West begins.
“These are all my people,” he reminded, to which I say, “Amen to that, Amen.”
McCoy has been tapped to launch the new office of HPI, the full-service real estate firm with roots in Austin and Dallas.
“We moved here before I had this opportunity,” McCoy said, “and I think that that really just shows me that I'm right where I'm supposed to be. The Lord led us here and I couldn't be more excited.”
Fort Worth, he said, was the first choice he’s ever made on where to live, at least as a non-football playing adult — he did, after all, make the decision to go to UT and become “legend Colt McCoy.”
HPI was founded in 1992 with four employees and one million square feet. Today HPI employees more than 200 people in Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and now Fort Worth, serving 900 clients across almost 30 million square feet.
Fort Worth has always been on HPI's map, according to Hunter Lee, HPI partner and senior managing director. Industrial will be the firm’s initial focus, but HPI has plans to build a full-service platform in Fort Worth, from third-party leasing and management to development and acquisition.
McCoy’s brother Case, another former Longhorn, is a partner with HPI’s Tenant Advisory platform.
“Everything we do starts with people, and Colt McCoy is the ideal leader,” said Lee. “I’ve never met anyone more ‘as advertised’ than Colt — as a person, as a father, and as a man of faith. He’s honest, community-minded, and wants to make an impact in planting the HPI flag in Fort Worth.”
McCoy rose to stardom at UT out of Jim Ned High School as a three-star prospect. (Who was Jim Ned, you ask? A Delaware Indian chief who served as a scout for the Texas militia in the Republic of Texas. “His services were used infrequently, possibly because of his ‘refractory’” — that is, obstinate — “nature.”)
McCoy’s first order of business on the way to the NFL was replacing the legendary quarterback Vince Young, who led the Longhorns to their first national championship in more than 35 years. But McCoy did it with a record-setting career, ultimately winning every significant award presented to college quarterbacks.
McCoy capped his college career by leading the Longhorns to a perfect 13-0 mark as a senior and a berth in the BCS National Championship Game against Alabama. A shoulder injury forced McCoy to the sidelines. He watched as Alabama beat Texas 37-21.
Ask any Longhorns fan, anywhere in the world — drunk or sober, of sound mind or unable to make reasoned judgments — and they’ll tell you Texas would have won that game with McCoy playing all four quarters. It is an integral part of the UT legend of Colt McCoy.
McCoy went off to the NFL, first with Cleveland, spending most of his NFL career as a backup, passing for almost 8,000 yards and 34 touchdowns. He also played for San Francisco, Washington, the New York Giants, and, lastly, Arizona.
“Ultimately for me, I think I could still be playing,” McCoy said. “I was playing well, but I tore my elbow up and I had a surgery. When I came back, it was one of those sort of career enders where I couldn't throw the ball the same. It didn't feel right. It still hurt.
“You kind of knew that it was over at that point, which was hard. That was a hard one to go through. But ultimately, I couldn't be mad for too long. I had to figure that out. The hardest part for me was figuring out what was next.”
Naturally, he had opportunities to coach. That’s in the blood. His father, Brad McCoy, was a longtime football coach and teacher in Texas’ public schools. McCoy also had options to work in an NFL front office.
“Or did I really want to kind of get out of the game and go do something on my own?” McCoy said. “I really just felt the Lord leading me and helping me figure out my priorities and leaning on some of those places that I shadowed and interned to figure out what I really liked.”
McCoy said when he came into the league 14 years ago, he watched as older veterans struggled with retirement and life out of football. What they would be good at? Where they wanted to live?
“All those things,” he said.
Those observations opened his eyes to his own future and the days when something, like, for example, his elbow, might not work anymore. There is a time for everything. Ten or so years ago he began using his off-seasons learning about other industries. He shadowed others at family offices learning about investing and constructing deals. As a West Texan, oil and gas was of interest, and he spent a lot of time learning that world.
Real estate was another.
“I really fell in love with real estate and specifically some things within real estate, but just really the broad idea of all the different sectors of multifamily, of development, of managing and leasing, of office, and industrial. There's so many ways that are unique and different within the real estate world.”
“And having the opportunity to start my own company and run my own business alongside some great partners from Austin and Dallas, who've been doing it at a really high level for a long time, I just really felt like this was the path I wanted to go and in a place that I wanted to be, which is Fort Worth.”
The fastest-growing big city in America, he reminded me.
“I've always made it a point to be a part of the community, to be involved, and give back,” he said. “I don't see this playing out any differently. It's close to home [in Tuscola], where my parents still live. It's close to my wife's parents. It has just been fantastic.”
In short, these are his people. His move here and this opportunity were “the perfect storm.”
“I want to build something extremely special in Fort Worth that I'll be very proud of. I know this will get harder before it gets easier for me, likely, but there's a big drive for me from that point to really go out and do something extremely special. I couldn't be prouder to do it with HPI.”