Justin Canady currently works for the Loyalty Foundation of the University of Mississippi. As a development associate, he's responsible for raising funds from Ole Miss alumni to support the athletic teams, and works closely with David Metherall, the university Athletic Director.

Justin was born June 9, 1980, raised in Memphis and is the youngest of three brothers born to Arthur and Desiree Canady. The family lives in a four-bedroom home on Court Avenue in downtown Memphis. Justin's father, Arthur, is now a prominent businessman in Memphis, but chooses to live in the downtown area where he has lived all his life. He owns a chain of shoe stores across Tennessee (Canady Shoes, Inc.) and has dabbled in property development too. Both Arthur and Desiree tried to foster a sense of community and responsibility into their three sons, which is why, despite his relative wealth, Arthur insists any business venture must put something back into the community.

In 2000, Arthur and other local businessmen formed a consortium to build an apartment block on the eastern side of Memphis. Some members of the consortium were happy to lower building costs, cram as many apartments in as possible and do everything they could to maximize profits. Arthur led a peaceful protest against such actions and gradually won people over to his alternative vision -- that the apartments should provide a mixture of quality accommodation for different types of family units and that some of the land be set aside for a landscaped play and communal area.

Justin and brothers Dwayne and Sean were active, good-natured boys with just enough mischief to land them in a few scrapes but never seriously in trouble. In 1990 they broke into a construction site and managed to start a Case crawler where the keys had been left on site. Justin was only ten at the time but took his turn at driving and riding around the site in the crawler before losing control. All three brothers jumped off the crawler before it crashed loudly into a tall chain-link fence before stopping. The resulting noise, crashing and clanging was enough to arouse suspicions from people living near the site, who called the police. The three Canady brothers were home and playing in the garden, doing their best to look unsuspicious, before the police even got to the construction site.

Sean, being the eldest, often used to complain to his mom that having Justin tag along was "uncool" and "unfair." Justin, for his part, tried even harder to keep up with his brothers. Justin was inured to being teased and treated like the baby of the family, but only one time did Sean ever scare him. They had climbed about thirty feet onto a small ledge and, while standing there, Sean produced a medium sized rock from his pocket, bent down, and started banging it around Justin's feet, exhorting him to "dance Justin, dance!" Jumping around on the ledge in an effort to avoid the blows his brother seemed intent on acquainting his feet with, Justin was screaming at his brother in fear. Dwayne interceded on Justin's behalf, but the brothers were soon laughing again when Dwayne came out with the statement that "mom is gonna kill you if you kill him."

All three brothers excelled at sports throughout their school careers. Justin's talents were the most visible, however, possibly because having always played with older kids, he always seemed more advanced physically than others in his age group. He was quick and strong, and the three of them played football, baseball, tennis and soccer, which gave him a good skill-set in most sports. Both Sean and Dwayne finished high school and went onto the University of Memphis, but Justin broke with that family tradition when he was invited on a sports scholarship to enroll at the University of Mississippi. During his time at Ole Miss, Justin was the Rebel's first-team kicker and a teammate of James Washington and Dwight Nelson.

In 2001, Arthur Canady was invited to be part of the foundation which Dean Jernigan, owner of the Memphis Redbirds, asked to take over the ownership of his baseball team. The appeal of the project, with all operating profits being ploughed back into the community and local initiatives, was impossible for Arthur to resist, and the whole family can often be seen in their member seats at AutoZone Park. Justin always said if he couldn't play pro sports, he wanted to play for the Redbirds, but neither wish materialized.

In fact all three brothers wanted to give pro sports a chance, with the knowledge that they always had the family business to fall back on to make a living if things didn't work out. Both Dwayne and Sean now work for Canady Shoes, Inc., but Justin has so far resisted the temptation to return to the family fold, telling his father he wants more life experience before taking up a role in the business. He stayed on in Oxford following his graduation in 2002, and his current role at the Loyalty Foundation has earned him much praise for the zeal and success he has brought to fund-raising for the expansions and developments planned for the sports facilities at Ole Miss.

Justin married Beyonce Fairfax in a simple ceremony in Memphis in February 2005. They became parents this year in March when twin girls Desiree and Michelle were born. The girls are named after their grandmothers.