Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage is going back to college.
The veteran motorsports promoter is heading back to his alma mater, Middle Tennessee State, this weekend to receive the school’s highest alumni honor.
Gossage will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award, which according to a media release, “is presented to an alumnus representing excellence and distinction through their professional career, loyal support and service to the broader community.”
Gossage will accept the award during MTSU’s homecoming celebration Friday at 4 p.m. ET. He’ll also be honored at a variety of other activities on campus over the course of the weekend.
“It will be great to see the homecoming parade and the crowds along East Main and the pride the students have,” Gossage said. “It’s just really great to see that this was the place I picked when I was coming out of high school and look at how it has succeeded.
“It’s obviously doing something right. The university and Dr. McPhee (MTU president Dr. Sidney McPhee), they are doing things right. That’s why I’m proud to say I’m from Middle Tennessee.”
A Nashville native, Gossage earned a degree from the school’s former College of Mass Communications. He is in his 21st year of running Texas Motor Speedway.
“As I think back on Middle Tennessee State, it was a great place to learn and a great place to grow up,” Gossage said. “It’s one of the most fortunate decisions of my life.
“Thirty-eight seasons later, I’m still in the racing business and it has been very good to me. It’s exploded at a level and grown at a pace that I could have never foreseen.
“But I was fortunate to be at the right place, at the right time with the skills I had learned at Middle Tennessee. I was able to apply it and have success.”