Marc Weiszer goes through Mark Richt’s new contract and makes a nice catch with this:
Here is some new language that wasn’t in the previous contract:
–“It is expected that the recruitment of junior college student-athletes will be kept to a minimum, as determined by Richt and the Athletic Director.”
As Weiszer notes, it’s not as if Richt invests a lot of scholarships in JUCO transfers, so this is more of a non-issue issue perhaps. Still, I bet Nick Saban doesn’t have time for that shit in his contract. I wonder how prevalent that provision is across the SEC. And who in Athens was bothered enough by this to insist on adding the provision to Richt’s new deal.
Get The Picture 
I would never agree to a term in a contract that is this vague. “At a minimum”? What’s a minimum? That term is to be defined by both the employer and employee? What happens if Richt thinks three Jucos are the minimum and the AD thinks it’s none? I’m pretty happy to have Big John Jenkins on the team… what’s the deal with this? Given that both parties get to decide what “a minimum” is, it seems to be a toothless clause and therefore might as well not even be there.
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Perhaps Ol’ Mikey Adams likes it in there.
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A reference to Jackie Sherrill as being above the minimum amount of acceptable JUCO might have cleared up some of the ambiguity.
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Very strange. Not that the Georgias/LSUs/Bamas are bringing in a ton of JUCOs every year — its usually what, 2-3 at the most? But still, why limit yourself if it helps.
Though, “at minimum” is vague enough that I don’t think you’ll ever see that clause really enforced. Sounds like something for the academic types to pat themselves on the back over.
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My guess is that it’s there to ensure that recruiting levels are kept consistently high. Juco’s are used as band-aids; having to rely on them a bunch could be an indicator that your recruiting sucks.
Then again, who knows?
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So you think somebody in B-M has decided he needs to keep tabs on the quality of Richt’s recruiting?
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The ‘minimum’ standard is set mutually by the AD AND Richt…
Unless the agreement gives the AD the right to veto Richt if they don’t agree (which would basically make putting the word ‘mutually’ into the agreement completely unnecessary and/or in conflict with the rest of the agreement), no one has really done anything that changes who is in charge of recruiting. It’s a complete throw away.
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Yet somebody thought it was important enough to add to the contract. Why so?
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Any way you slice it, this has Mike Adams’ stink all over it.
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Adams is on his way out and will be gone before either Richt’s or the AD’s contracts are up again. He certainly has power on campus, but he’s also a lame duck. Time to start laying the blame or the credit for these things where it truly belongs: McGarity’s desk.
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It looks like a statement of policy in the contract that would be unenforceable.
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Window dressing? The wording of the clause permit Richt & McGarity to determine what the JUCO “minimum” is. And it’s only “expected” they do so. What are the remedies for violating this provision anyways? I’m guessing it’s not a termination event. Are damages for a violation liquidated? If not,what could UGA possibly recover if Richt accepts 3 JUCO LOIs?
To me, looks like we want to sound like a serious academic institution. While leaving Richt enough room to bring in needed key players from JUCOs.
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Billable hours?
I kid…
Seriously…who knows. I would guess that there is some general language that says that Richt’s conduct and duties are whatever the AD reasonably assigns to him….
So the only reason to add this in is because there was some chatter about recruiting junior college players. BUT…that still leaves you with two scenarios.
Either Richt had heard chatter about limiting JUCO recruits and wanted to protect himself from the general language of AD’s discretion and his agent added it in OR you could read it in the manner that folks here and in the media are reading it, which is B-M wanted language in there about JUCO’s and this worthless, unenforceable sentence was the best compromise they could get after negotiating with Richt’s agent.
My best guess? Somebody at UGA had a bee in their bonnet (or someone got in a huffy about a prior Juco player…can’t players circumvent some of the entry requirements (SAT, ACT, etc?) from HS by going JUCO?) and wanted to make sure they had their little pet issue covered rather than leaving it covered under the ‘catch all’ and they probably ended up with less ability to actually enforce it than if they hadn’t brought it up in the first place. That’s just a guess…but it seems logical.
It’s all speculative…but that’s my best guess.
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Perhaps the AD, Adams and Dr. T.L. don’t want Richt to be able to cobble together a JUCO number that could affect his bottom line(W/L) and keep him here through unexpected injury to team members as has happened in the past and that started the whole damn downturn problem.
I don’t trust any one of the Bd and admin souls that take over 6 mos to fit together a contract. Looks like Weiszer thinks the same way by researching the word-smithing.
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Richt is expected to take “any and all actions necessary to comply with and to implement the policies of the Association and University relating to substance abuse and to class attendance by students subject to his control and authority, and to use his best efforts to ensure that all personnel and students subject to his control and authority comply with such policies. Richt shall remain current as to the content of such policies.”
When asked about the dope testing, showing up for class and staying current on policy content when Mark should be “doing the things that I love the most, which is study the game of football and be an expert and be on the cutting edge,” Princess Leia says
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Not that I don’t believe an effective JUCO transfer or recruit can benefit a team, but to make it a primary focus like Auburn has for 30 years is disgusting.
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I don’t see how it would apply but could it have anything to do with the Chris Sanders/Nick Marshall type players?
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Help me out here, doesn’t the university accept juco graduates as regular students?
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Some of my best friends in college attended two year colleges before transferring up to UGA. Admittedly, there reasons for going JUCO weren’t academic-related as it would be for a football player (they wanted to stay close to home initially), but the point still stands.
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So this is what the hang up was all about! I can see lots of billable hours being consumed defining minimum. After all the bills were paid, the lawyers then decided to compromise and leave the recruiting of Jucos at a minimum.
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