University of Richmond basketball alum Darrius Garrett talks about the on- and off-court lessons that transfer to entrepreneurship
ALUMNI
Running a marketing business for clients in regulated industries is complex. But Darrius Garrett is used to doing hard things.
The 2012 University of Richmond alum guarded elite basketball scorers in packed arenas overseas, navigated unfamiliar cities where he didn’t speak the language, and rebuilt his sense of identity after an injury. Those experiences — along with his time at the E. Claiborne Robins School of Business and leadership roles on campus — now shape how Garrett leads Double Up Marketing Group, which he founded after retiring from professional basketball.
Garrett’s path from Spider basketball to the business world was never linear. “I’ve always had the entrepreneur bug,” he said. “That never really stopped, even when I played pro basketball. I was always focused on what I would want to do for the majority of my life, because I knew basketball would be just a small fraction of it.”
Learning leadership on and off the court
An Atlanta native, Garrett attended Richmond to major in business and was particularly drawn to finance. “I really liked how it combined entrepreneurial thinking with analytics and data-driven decisions,” he said.
Garrett deftly balanced his studies with his time on the court. By the time he graduated in 2012, he had accumulated 231 blocks, including 107 during his senior season, becoming the university’s all-time leading shot-blocker and setting its single-season record.
Some of his most practical leadership lessons came outside the classroom. For three years, he served as campus captain for Belltower Books, overseeing the purchase of more than $75,000 in used textbooks and managing fellow students during intense end-of-semester buying cycles. It was also his first experience running operations under pressure, handling cash flow, logistics, and accountability all at once.
“In business, you’ve got to add value, solve a problem or people's pain points,” he said. “From there, operations are key. You have to make sure that you can deliver on what you say you're going to do.”
Entering a global classroom
After graduation, Garrett embarked on an eight-year professional basketball career that took him across South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Living and working in multiple countries expanded his worldview in ways no textbook could.
“In a capitalistic society like America, things are pretty linear for the most part,” he said. “But when you're in places like Turkey, Lebanon, Greece, and Poland, you see the nuances of every culture and economy.”
That exposure shaped how Garrett approaches leadership and decision-making today, emphasizing open-mindedness and the importance of considering various perspectives. An Achilles injury overseas further recalibrated his perspective.
“It taught me how temporary everything can be: every job, every career, even some relationships,” he said. “Through challenges, you have to learn to stay grounded and be calm no matter the circumstance.”
Planning for life beyond basketball, he earned his commercial and residential real estate license in Georgia in 2014 — six years before retiring from basketball — and joined an Atlanta brokerage.
Building on a great foundation
Today, Garrett leads Double Up Marketing Group with a lean team of eight, supplemented by AI-driven tools that allow the agency to scale efficiently. The firm focuses primarily on legal and healthcare clients, helping organizations grow through customer acquisition strategies.
The pressure that comes with the job, Garrett said, isn’t unlike professional sports. “You have to be able to manage stress and pressure,” he said. “You have to have a form of optimism without being overly optimistic, which is similar to basketball. You can’t let yourself think you’re going to make every three-pointer you take, but even after you miss, you have to believe you can make the next one.”
That mindset — tracing back to his beginnings as a Spider — continues to inform Garrett’s work, especially when it comes to evaluating risk, scaling deliberately, and making decisions grounded in both information and instinct.
“Getting that experience at Richmond, being around other like-minded individuals dedicated to starting their career in business — for me, it all really laid a great foundation,” he said.