Former varsity punter and Tropical Smoothie CEO Charles Watson ’99, a graduate of the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration, established an endowed scholarship in honor of his father—George Albert Watson.
His gift supports the university’s Undergraduate Affordability Initiative, a priority for Cornell’s To Do the Greatest Good campaign. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You endowed a scholarship in honor of your dad. Can you tell me more about him?
My father was from Binghamton, NY, but I grew up in Atlanta, so I would have never known about Cornell without my dad. I remember watching the Ivy League football game of the week with him, which I would have never turned on without his prompting. That’s kind of where he planted the Cornell seed.
In his glory days, my dad owned up to about 20-25 restaurants. It was a financially up-and-down career. He was a hard worker and expected me to be as well, so I basically grew up in restaurants. I waited tables, washed dishes—all that stuff.
In high school my dad said to me, ‘You’re going to Cornell. We’ll do whatever it takes, it will work out, you’ll see.’ To do so, I needed and had great financial help at Cornell. I have an appreciation from the start for what it took to attend, and how important scholarships are for students.
So what was Cornell like for you?
The first semester of my freshman year was a culture shock as a southern boy. I played football and had a severe ankle injury my freshman year, which required crutches. I’ll never forget the blisters on my hands from crutching up and down the hill. I couldn’t play football, was acclimating to my first Ithaca winter, adjusting to collegiate academics, and finding my way socially—it became a dark time for me.
My mother admitted later I was about one telephone call away from her telling me, ‘Alright, pack it in: You can come home, go to the University of Georgia. It was a good try, but you are just too miserable.’
I am so glad that I stuck it out because, after that, I had an amazing experience at Cornell. I was in a fraternity—Chi Psi. I lived there for three years after my freshman year. I lettered for four years in football, and I was involved in the Sphinx Head and Order of Omega honor societies in addition to hotel school activities.
I was very involved on campus, and I have friends to this day who are just amazing from those groups. They’re all over the country and have varied and different backgrounds. So the rest of the way, I really enjoyed my time at Cornell. I made fantastic friends and got a great education.
What does Cornell mean to you today?
I hate to sound super cheesy, but I really do look at this place as a launching pad for dreams. I utilized my degree and the prestige that comes with it. The Nolan Hotel School, right? It’s got a great reputation to get a career started.
Overall I’m incredibly proud of my time at Cornell. I always advise Cornell students to ‘Use the network. Use the degree.’ It can make your dreams come true. It certainly has for me, and that’s why I wanted to give back. I know there’s another kid out there who needs some help to get started or to get through. That’s what motivated me to give in a more substantial way.
What would this scholarship mean to your dad?
You’d have to have known my dad, but he would have thought it was absolutely hilarious to have a scholarship in his name. He would have been tickled pink. I was able to accomplish things he couldn’t. It’s one of those things where the next generation should do better than the first. Cornell was a launching pad for that.
I never knew that I’d be able to give a gift like this, but my financial circumstances allowed for it. I’m a big education guy. I focus my giving on education because of what it did for me. I support my high school, I support Cornell, and I support the University of Georgia, where I got my MBA. I believe those building blocks of education and the life lessons learned from them really set me up and allowed for later successes in life.
So I want to help other kids who need help to get through it. When someone throws you a rope over the fence, you want to throw it back over. My hope is to continue giving in the name of this scholarship to make it more robust and to help more students over the years. I set the base, now I want to build on it.
Giving is something I want to continue to do. I want to do my part as best as I can.
Is there anything you’d want to tell students today?
I started as a dishwasher, and I ended up a CEO. That’s hospitality. That’s possible. It takes hard work, mind you, but you don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. If you care about people, and you care about service and giving back to others, you can have a ton of success.
There is value and pride—there is passion—in hospitality jobs. I believe that serving others is the highest calling. The gates to the hospitality business are really wide. People can come in, and if you’ve got a work ethic and drive, you can succeed beyond your wildest expectations.