I see another Greg McGarity PR campaign has been launched. He’s tough, but often misunderstood. Just ask him.
“You have to understand that the decisions that you make will always be challenged by everyone,” he said. “Maybe not challenged, but questioned. …I’ve always felt like any decision that’s made is made in the best interest of the institution. Sometimes that’s not in the best interest of an individual or a team or a coach or what have you. …I think sometimes people assume, they guess. They might read what’s on social media and then they form their opinion at that time. A lot of people voice frustration, they don’t understand. We are basically limited at times to talk about it until it’s all over. The hope is people would trust you to make the right decisions.”
The funny thing about this is that events of the past six months have overtaken the concerns about a dysfunctional program many of us had last December. Immediately after the bowl game, this comment would have had me stewing. Now, I find that I can’t get worked up about it anymore. So feel free to keep spinning, Greg. As long as everyone associated with the program appears to be rowing in the same direction, the rest doesn’t matter to me.
Get The Picture 
I still don’t think Todd did anything wrong other than break a rule the NCAA put in place arbitrarily. While McGarity had his hands tied in the matter, the program had a chance to stand up for athletes’ rights to name and likeness in the aftermath and didn’t do it. I still don’t think he did a good job of managing the process publicly with the fan base or privately with the team.
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My biggest criticism of the handling of the Gurley situation will always be that they let the belief hang out there that surely it wasn’t going to be more than a 2 game suspension. Once all the facts came out, it shocked me that they had let that belief hang out there. The fans believed it, the media believed it, and while the coaches may have known the reality – I’m certain that the players believed it too. So when the final verdict came out, it was almost like Gurley had been suspended a 2nd time. The players had rallied admirably the first time, but just took the wind out of their sails the 2nd time.
At the end of the day, we just got outplayed in Jacksonville. But you’ll never be able to convince me that had the players just known from the beginning that they had to prepare for likely 4 games without Gurley, the mindset of the team would have been different going into that game, and possibly we see a different result. I mean I know McG and company didn’t just want to concede the 4 games straight out of the gate, and I’m not saying HE was responsible for the belief of a max 2 game suspension, but once that belief was obviously out there, he and the others involved let that belief grow, and it came back and bit us hard. That’s the part that will always irk me about how it was all handled.
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The absolute worst to me was the statement he made on Thursday when this came out which basically boiled down to: “Ehhhh…we’ll get to it on Monday”
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I know the Senator, along with others here, and I don’t see eye to eye on this, but I thought McGarity mishandled the PR from the beginning of the Gurley-gate. I thought his 1st press release the morning of the Missouri game until the complete mishandling of what the team was led to believe after the Arkansas game was lacking, but my real problem with this is that this wasn’t his first rodeo. The UGA AA completely mishandled the AJ Green situation. Once it was proven that AJ wasn’t in Miami, the AA should have told the NCAA investigators to leave the premises that there was nothing else to see, or an attorney for AJ should have said he is not answering any more questions. Instead, they tell AJ to answer all of the questions and give up any documents the NCAA wanted to examine.
I don’t want us to run around covering up like others have and do, but I would like to see our administration stand up to the NCAA for once.
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Yeah I don’t disagree with you. But specific to the Gurley situation, I don’t think any PR in the world would have changed the 4 game suspension decision from the NCAA. And based on our experience with AJ, they KNEW that the dollar amount involved called for at least a 4 game suspension, it was gonna take a minor miracle for anything less (of course the general public didn’t know how high the dollar amount was at that point, hence the reason everyone believed a 2 game suspension was all he’d get). But having the facts of the case in front of you, and not preparing the team mentally for what was obviously the most likely outcome, I just think that was a huge, huge mistake. And I do wonder where Richt’s input fell on that decision to not fill the team in. But my guess is that even if he wanted to (and I have no idea if he did or didn’t), he wouldn’t have been allowed to.
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Reverend, I’m not saying that any PR would have changed the suspension time, but it would have done a lot to prove to the UGA faithful that we were standing by a good young man. Instead, the 1st press release sort of threw him under the bus (IMO). The NCAA led the university to believe that all they had to do was petition for reinstatement, and it would be granted. Bad idea when the NCAA enforcement people had been defanged by others and needed a scalp.
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Gotcha, didn’t mean to
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Oops, my screen jumped and I tapped “post comment” on accident.
What I was trying to say was I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth, my apologies. 🙂
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No problem, Rev. 😉
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IT was very poorly handled, and I’ll never believe it didn’t have an effect on the team in Jax.
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I think Greg was over his head last year managing baseball, softball, swimming, his own staff, track, basketball, and equestrian. I think when football had needs, Greg decided to assert his alpha and try to prove he was in charge of something- sign of weakness.
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Essentially Greg is a yes man. Maybe we finally got the kind of guy who will demand he give the right kind of “yeses”.
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A bean-counting yes man, though. One that has to qualify each yes with a grimace at its cost.
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Personally, if I’m a employee under McGarity, I’ll always wonder about his decisions. Will always appear weak to me and unable to do what really needs to be done at the very start.
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“needs to be done” means, what’s best for the team and not for himself alone.
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Perhaps he’s just misunderstood. The AJ Green suspension was frustrating. Gurley Gate even more so. I just don’t get it.
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It is good to see some local media writing positive things about our program. It’s a luxury other SEC programs either take for granted or work hard to enforce.
Rarely are athletic directors beloved. The good ones realize they best they can do is earn respect.
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Be careful, Bulldog Joe…don’t feed Spurrier.
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Steve and Urban Meyer are definitely in the “work hard to enforce” category.
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Hey, it could be worse — could be Steve Patterson.
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Nobody can control The Tao of Steve
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Foley telling McGarity that its lonely at the top is very true. I believe McGarity felt beholden to Adams to keep athletics and the budget in its place without worrying about winning big and hopefully that attitude no longer exists. Everything except the winning big seems to now be in place. Only time will tell if that happens.
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