ATLANTA, Ga. – William “Bill” Raines Battle III, founder of the Collegiate Licensing Company and former University of Alabama director of athletics and collegiate football coach, has passed away at the age of 82.
Battle founded the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) in 1981, launching an industry and serving hundreds of universities, conferences, and bowls to protect, manage, and market college logos and brands on merchandise. He served as its president and CEO until 2002.
Under Battle’s leadership, CLC propelled the growth of the collegiate licensing industry to nearly $4B in retail sales, second only to Major League Baseball, according to License Global magazine’s ranking of global licensors. In recognition for his pioneering innovation in licensing, Battle was named to the National Collegiate Licensing Association (now known as the International Collegiate Licensing Association) Hall of Fame in 2000 and the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association Hall of Fame (now known as Licensing International) in 2008. CLC was acquired by IMG in 2007.
“Bill’s impact in the licensing world cannot be measured. However, his biggest legacy is the genuine friendships and partnerships he fostered across the college licensing and athletic landscape through his humility and genuine caring for our people, partner institutions, and licensees,” said Cory Moss, president of CLC, a division of Learfield. “Bill was truly loved! He has been a major influence on my life personally. I am so grateful and thankful for him. His legacy will continue to inspire all of us at CLC. To say he will be missed is an understatement.”
A native of Birmingham, Ala., Battle attended The University of Alabama on a football scholarship and was a three-year starter at end from 1960-62 for the Crimson Tide under legendary head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. Battle was part of Coach Bryant’s first national championship team in 1961 and was named to UA’s All-Decade Team for the 1960s as first-team tight end and second-team defensive end.
In 1963, Battle began his coaching career serving as a graduate assistant coach at OU and was an assistant coach at the United States Military Academy while serving a two-year military tour in 1964-65. In 1966, he moved to the University of Tennessee, where he was an assistant coach for four years. He was named head coach at Tennessee in 1970, and, during his seven-year tenure, his teams went 59-22-2 and won four out of five bowl games.
In 2013, after successfully running the CLC business, Battle returned to Tuscaloosa where he served as director of athletics for four years. During his tenure, Alabama produced three NCAA team national championships, 10 SEC team championships in five different sports,15 NCAA individual champions, 43 Academic All-Americans, including six Academic All-Americans of the Year and 16 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship awardees. Following his tenure as athletic director, Battle stayed on at Alabama as special assistant to The University of Alabama president.
In addition to the licensing related halls of fame, Battle is also a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame (1981), the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame (2011), the Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame (2016) and the Alabama Business Hall of Fame (2017). Battle was also honored by the National Football Foundation, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame and was recipient of the 2005 Paul W. Bryant Alumni Athlete Award.
Battle earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and minor in psychology from The University of Alabama in 1963 and a master’s degree in education from The University of Oklahoma (OU) in 1964. In May of 2017, Battle received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from The University of Alabama and an Honorary Doctor of Law from Birmingham Southern College.
Battle served on the boards of the Bryant-Jordan Student-Athlete Foundation, The University of Alabama A-Club Educational & Charitable Foundation, the Crimson Tide Foundation and the National Football Foundation. He and his wife, Mary, also served on UAB’s Stem Cell Institute Board.
A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, December 5, at Canterbury United Methodist Church, 350 Overbrook Road, Mountain Brook, AL.
Media Contact:
Tammy Purves, CLC, tammy.purves@clc.com, 770-799-3275.