Lee McGriff

Get to Know Lee McGriff

I spent my growing-up years in both Gainesville and Tampa, but Gainesville has been my permanent home since 1978. After attending Plant High school in Tampa, I furthered my education at the University of Florida and played football for the Gators. My experience at UF was profoundly wonderful and meaningful in ways that have impacted my life for good, forever more.

Following college, I continued my football career playing professionally for the Dallas Cowboys, Charlotte Hornets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers over a two year period. After my playing days were over, I became a college football coach and landed my first job at FSU with Bobby Bowden. After a year at FSU, I returned to my roots at UF and coached for Doug Dickey and then Charley Pell for five years. These years also had a significant impact on me from a work ethic and organizational standpoint. I have life-long friendships with the guys I coached with and the players I coached. I remain very connected to UF with my regular running workouts at the track and awful rounds of golf at the course on campus, as well as my radio commentary as the “analyst” for all of the Gator football games.

I married my high school sweetheart Margie in 1974 and we have four children: Travis, Britt, Molly and Lacey. So far, we have four grandchildren: Keil, Landri, Preston and Brilee. Our children and their families make Margie’s and my life very full and meaningful.

Following my time coaching, I started my career in insurance in 1983 as an exclusive Nationwide Insurance agent. Today, we are an independent agency and have the ability to work with many different insurance companies. My close friend Mack Williams joined me as a business partner in 1986 and that’s when we became McGriff-Williams Insurance. We take great pride in our agency and the people who work so hard with us to make it a special place. The insurance industry has changed a lot in many ways since 1983, but we’ve enjoyed the challenges and changes and we are very grateful to our many, many loyal clients. We’ve grown throughout our history to uniquely provide personal, business, life, individual and group health insurance within one agency in the Gainesville marketplace.