photo by: Courtesy of Greg Goff

Greg Goff speaks to attendees at the Baker Athletic Hall of Fame induction event on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, in Baldwin City.

Greg Goff made a pivotal decision in 1973 that shaped the course of his life.

As he recounted upon his induction to the Baker Athletic Hall of Fame on Oct. 3, Goff was a couple years removed from a memorable pair of seasons playing basketball for the Wildcats — he was a team captain, double-figure scorer and assist leader — and had been coaching high school basketball. Then he had the chance to become a graduate assistant at the University of Kansas under head coach Ted Owens.

Leroy Montgomery had overlapped with Owens when Montgomery was the athletic director and Owens was the men’s basketball coach at Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma. Montgomery’s son Mike (who went on to play five years in the NFL) had been a teammate and friend of Goff’s at Dodge City High School — and so the opportunity to join Owens arose, Goff said.

“It was a real treat for me to have that opportunity,” he said in his speech at the Baker induction ceremony. “I passed on that opportunity, and chose the car business, because I had been a coach’s son.”

Goff’s father, Don Goff, had served as a high school coach for years, and the family had relocated several times as a result, to towns like Sedan and Chanute in Kansas and Dinuba and Visalia in California.

“We moved ourselves with farm trucks and big farm tarps,” Goff said. “We didn’t have anything, we didn’t own houses. That’s OK, I benefited from that. It made me stronger, tougher, more resilient. But the bottom line is I chose the car business because I didn’t want to drag Linda (Burke Goff, his wife) and our children yet to be born through that journey.”

So Goff opted for selling cars with his father in Dodge City, sending him down a different path that led, ultimately, to the Hall of Fame induction in October.

“I wanted my kids to have a college education, I wanted my kids to have a 529 plan, I wanted to help them with a down payment on their first home,” Goff said. “So really, in the end it was an easy decision.”

It wasn’t easy at first for Goff Motors to get revved up. As he recalled at the ceremony, the Goffs eventually acquired an American Motors and Renault dealership in Dodge City and “sold five new cars a year the first three years.” Goff went door to door attempting to grow the business.

“Dad and I would look at each other, ‘Hmm, well, we can always go back to teaching or coaching,’ but we were just teasing one another,” he said. “I never, ever looked back, I never said a word to one single person in my life about having that opportunity, because I had the chance, I did not take it, I chose the car business.”

It rewarded him in due time as the dealership steadily added brands to its portfolio and grew over the ensuing decades.

“You can do anything in the business world you darn well want to do,” Goff said. “It’s about the three P’s: It’s about positivity, perseverance, it’s about persistence.”

Whatever the case, it put Goff in a position to contribute to various projects at Baker, including the Liston Stadium Complex in 2007 and more recently the men’s basketball locker room renovation unveiled in 2020. In 2024 he established a fund at Baker to help students meet their financial needs: “If we have a young student who’s made it clear that they may have to not come back second semester, I mean, college is very expensive. I like to step up and help them with tuition or with books or with an airplane ticket.”

“I think the most important thing that I do is meet with them individually and reach over and grab their wrist and tell them, ‘Pass it along to the next generation if you are so blessed,'” he added.

The Goff and Burke families also serve as the namesakes of the basketball court at the Skinner Student Activity Center at Dodge City Community College. The Goffs have three sons, Travis, Jarod and Derek; Travis is, of course, the KU athletic director.

As Goff said at the conclusion of his Baker Hall of Fame induction in October, he was recently diagnosed with a glioblastoma — an aggressive brain cancer. But he declared that he promised his sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, “Greg Goff is living 10 more years, got it?”

photo by: Courtesy of Greg Goff

Greg Goff speaks at the Baker Athletic Hall of Fame induction event on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, in Baldwin City.