Benjamin Hazel ’23MBA: Turning Connection into Momentum

How a UCF MBA graduate transformed mentorship, opportunity and relationships into a career shaped by community.

When Ben Hazel ’23MBA talks about his grandfather, he does not start with football.

He starts with people.

Growing up, Hazel grew accustomed to strangers approaching him in public because of his famous grandfather. Sometimes it happened in grocery stores, sometimes on sidewalks or in museums. Once they learned he was the grandson of John Mackey, the Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end and former president of the NFL Players Association, the reactions followed a familiar rhythm: recognition, then a story.

ABOVE: Kelvin Johnson, UCF basketball coach; Adrian Branch, former NBA star and NBA broadcast analyst who visited UCF to speak to the basketball team; Head Coach Johnny Dawkins and Benjamin Hazel. Johnson grew up with Hazel’s father and coached Hazel in middle and high school.

What stayed with Hazel was how personal those stories were.

“These weren’t just fans,” he said. “They were people who had actually met him. People who remembered him as a person.”

Mackey played in an era when professional athletes lived inside the communities they represented. He was approachable, visible and deeply connected to the people around him. Decades later, Hazel was still hearing about chance encounters and shared moments. It left an impression long before he had the language for it.

That understanding deepened as Mackey’s health declined. Mackey was diagnosed with dementia and, after his death during Hazel’s freshman year of college, was found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Watching a degenerative disease slowly take hold clarified something essential.

“With a brain disease that’s degenerative, what you notice are the things that last,” Hazel said.

Even as much faded, relationships endured. Names of teammates. Bonds formed years earlier. Love that remained unmistakably intact.

The experience reshaped how Hazel thought about success. Achievement mattered, but impact mattered more. What did people carry with them after the noise quieted? How were others treated along the way?

ABOVE: From left: Benjamin Hazel ’23MBA, Tacko Fall ’19, Joseph Hazel (Ben’s father), and Chad Brown ’19.

That lesson followed him to Princeton, where Hazel played basketball and studied sociology. Sports were never forced on him. His family encouraged exploration, from football to basketball to track. When Hazel did talk football with his grandfather, the advice was simple.

“Just try your best,” Mackey would say. “Do that, and you can sleep well at night.”

After Princeton, Hazel entered financial services. It was a logical path that aligned with his interest in data and strategy. But during the pandemic, he began to reassess what he wanted next. He was drawn away from traditional financial services and toward work that felt more connected to how organizations actually operate.

That search led him to the University of Central Florida for his MBA.

ABOVE: Ben Hazel holds a “fat head” of former UCF star Darius Johnson ’24. Hazel has known Johnson all his life. “It was surreal to coach him and see him have the success he had at UCF and the love he received. I had to take a picture with the “Fat Head” that the student section had made for him.”

Hazel did not attend UCF as an undergraduate, and he admits he did not know what to expect. What surprised him was how quickly the university felt less like an institution and more like a community.

“The love from the UCF community has blown me away,” he said.

Some of those ties ran deep. UCF men’s basketball coach Johnny Dawkins grew up with Hazel’s father. Assistant coach Kelvin Johnson had coached Hazel in middle and high school and trained him through college. In a full-circle moment, Johnson sought out Hazel for a graduate assistantship as an assistant basketball coach, where he later helped coach Johnson’s son.

What followed, he said, was an immersion into a network built on trust and reciprocity.

ABOVE: For his last game as a UCF staff member, Ben Hazel (at right) stood with Coach Johnny Dawkins and Hazel’s brother.

At UCF, Hazel found classmates who became collaborators, professors who remained invested beyond the classroom and alumni who viewed mentorship as a responsibility rather than a favor. Doors opened not because he asked for them, but because people noticed his curiosity and work ethic.

After earning his MBA, Hazel joined Loyal Source Government Services, a Research Parkway-based company with close ties to the university. He quickly realized how often his professional path intersected with fellow Knights.

Hazel, now a pricing resource manager at Experis, a global tech consulting firm, reflects on his trajectory

“Almost everything that I do is through UCF,” he said. “That’s not an exaggeration.”

Even his entry into sports broadcasting came through that same ecosystem. While serving as a graduate assistant, Hazel expressed interest in on-air work, despite having no formal broadcasting experience. Instead of being dismissed, he was welcomed.

Former UCF men’s basketball standout B.J. Taylor encouraged Hazel to shadow, learn and take chances. Producers offered candid feedback. Broadcasters shared behind-the-scenes insight. Hazel was trusted with live games.

“You’re part of the family,” he was told. “If you want to explore it, we’ll help you explore it.”

Now in his second season covering games, Hazel credits those early opportunities with shaping his confidence and direction. The experience reinforced a lesson he first learned by watching his grandfather’s life unfold.

Legacy is not inherited. It is built.

Today, Hazel is actively involved with the John Mackey Award, which honors the nation’s top collegiate tight end. The award reflects Mackey’s excellence on the field and his advocacy for players’ rights and well-being, values Hazel is proud to help carry forward.

Still, when Hazel reflects on his journey, he returns to the same constant: relationships.

From strangers who once stopped him in public to share stories about his grandfather, to Knights who opened doors simply because he was one of their own, Hazel has learned that the strongest networks are built on genuine care.

At UCF, he found a place that understands that instinctively.

For Hazel, being a Knight is not about where you started or even where you finish. It is about how you show up for others, and what people remember when your name comes up years later.

That, he says, is the legacy worth building.

ABOVE: Ben Hazel, here with Andrew Montana ’25, a graduate of the Nicholson School of Communications. Hazel says the school invited him to curate the production of a full-fleged pregame show that airs on ESPN+. “This is another live example of the powerful things that UCF offers its students,” Hazel says.