Matt Rhodes somehow always wanted to end up playing baseball at UCF.
Growing up in Orlando (Bishop Moore High School), it was a goal that made sense.
"My parents had (UCF) season tickets at the Citrus Bowl for football," says Rhodes, an all-state high school pitcher. "I started going to baseball camps at UCF in late elementary school when the field was back behind where the rec center is now.
"I took pitching lessons in high school from Craig Cozart, a UCF alum who was the pitching coach at UCF for a while.
"So I was pretty tied in. UCF was always on my radar."
After originally heading to Charleston Southern with a handful of his local buddies from an area travel team, he detoured to Tallahassee Community College for a year.
"Originally, I was set on getting out of town—see the world, see something different," he says.
"South Carolina sounded like a cool place."
Then Rhodes transferred to UCF for his junior and senior seasons in 2004-05.
He was back where he belonged.
A mid-relief specialist, the 6-2, 170-pound righthander made 31 combined appearances over those two years (one start in 2005, 4-4 combined record) with 46 strikeouts in 41 innings.
He helped the Knights to a 42-18 record as a senior in 2005 after a junior season in which UCF finished 47-18, won the Atlantic Sun Conference regular-season title (with a 24-6 league mark) and won three games in the NCAA Championship regional in Tallahassee under coach Jay Bergman.
Following his graduation in 2005 with a business degree, Rhodes began a career in the construction industry, ultimately opening Rhodes Building Company in Longwood.
"I worked in the industry for a couple of summers during college—my father-in-law is in the industry as a mechanical contractor and I had worked for him," he says. "I liked the construction industry and graduated with a business degree. After graduating I worked for three different general contractors before starting my own business in 2012.
"I was 28 and started the business with $8,000 in cash. My wife Christina is also a UCF alum—she's a nurse practitioner. We were young and we said, 'Let's take a shot at it. It's going to be a long-term thing.'
"You don't start in a business and expect it to turn into something overnight. Ten years later here we are. We provide construction services for some great clients throughout the state and we're doing some work on campus which is really cool for me as a former student-athlete."
When the Knights' baseball program a few years back made plans to upgrade its locker room at John Euliano Field, Rhodes found a perfect way to sustain his involvement with UCF Athletics.
The improvements—new LED lighting, refinished lockers with branded seats, new shower room fixtures and tile, new carpeting and a repainted training room—came via $140,000 worth of donations from various UCF benefactors. Rhodes made a personal financial contribution to the project and his company provided the manpower for the renovation.
"I think that you'll start to see more proud alumni like me back on campus as this athletic department continues to build momentum," Rhodes said at the time.
"I felt like it was a great time to make a contribution and that our company had the right skill set to help make this a reality.
"Anyone who played here understands how this athletic department continues to grow. We have a lot of national notoriety over the last few years. I would encourage alumni to get back on campus. It doesn't just mean giving money. Come out and support the teams and the student-athletes because UCF is going big places."
His firm regularly gives back to the community through support of local organizations like Canstruction Orlando (a novel plan to build a structure out of canned foods via donations to Second Harvest Food Bank), local youth sports organizations and through participation in construction-related projects like Drew's House (demolition and complete renovation of a home in Tangerine, Florida) and Habitat for Humanity.
"I bring the family out to several weekend baseball series every year, we have a field cabana for football games and we went to seven or eight basketball games this year," Rhodes says. "I want to create that same love for UCF athletics that my parents did for me at a young age."
Rhodes' experiences make him a firm believer in the long-term value of athletics.
"I tell anybody who will listen that sports in general were a huge part in making me the businessman I am," he says.
"The basics and the fundamentals I learned as a student-athlete really translate from athletics to business. My experience as a student-athlete made me the team builder and leader that I am today.
"The student-athlete experience was big for me and that's why I try to stay as involved as I am."
Rhodes is doing just that.
This is a recurring series of feature pieces on former UCF student-athletes.