Mark Richt’s emerging character flaw

I highly recommend that you take a minute and read Kit’s post.  What he has to say there goes for me in spades – except that I’d add to his formula list the development I’ve seen cropping up of late, both here and elsewhere, from people who have no clue grounded in actual knowledge asserting that Richt’s recent shortcomings as the head coach are due to lack of effort and lack of concern because he isn’t living, breathing Georgia football 24-7.

Evidently you can’t succeed unless you’re totally obsessed.  You know, like this guy.

The armchair psychology seems to have kicked up a notch with Richt’s trip to Honduras.  It seems that showing concern for the world’s less fortunate and having sincere religious convictions will get you seven-loss seasons as a direct result.  I’m a Jew (and not a particularly observant one at that) who’s been unhappy with the program’s direction over the past three seasons and I still find this whole line of criticism of Richt’s Christianity obnoxious.

And the flip side of the argument – that the spoils go to the clinically preoccupied – is ridiculous, when you think about it.  Nick Saban, the poster boy for those who think Richt is too balanced to succeed, famously owns a home on Lake Burton.  Maybe he never uses it.  He also took time recently to help victims of the tornadoes that did so much damage in Alabama.  The only difference between that effort and Richt’s is that Saban didn’t have to get a passport.  The coach whose team embarrassed Saban’s in the Iron Bowl and went on to an undefeated, national title-winning season (surely the ultimate proof of complete devotion)  is about to embark on a five-day, four-state tour promoting his new book.  Face it:  relaxed, balanced coaches with outside interests win titles all the time.  (Like Richt in 2002 and 2005, remember?)

I get the frustration some of us have and the burning desire to see Georgia succeed.  I do.  And as I’ve blogged repeatedly, there are things dragging the program down which need to be corrected if Richt is going to survive as head coach.  But the idea that he’s wired to fail and the only way Georgia can become great is to replace him with somebody who doesn’t have a life outside of coaching football – sorry, that’s just something I can’t accept.

Not to mention it’s no guarantee of eternal success, either.

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UPDATE:  Also, this.

“Now that Belin is back home, he only wishes his parents had lived long enough to see it. His father died in 2006, and his mother died Dec. 4, 2010. During what turned out to be the final five weeks of his mother’s life, Georgia coach Mark Richt allowed Belin to travel home one day a week to be with her.”