Chip Towers suggests that’s Georgia’s AD’s basic strategy these days.
The Georgia football team is coming off a 7-5 season. Everybody knows that. The men’s basketball program is in its usual spot, firmly on the NCAA tournament bubble. The women’s basketball team finds itself in unusual territory, pretty much out of the postseason conversation halfway through the conference schedule. Gymnastics opened the season unranked but is just underway. Nobody knows what to expect of baseball.
This is not where UGA athletics ever wants to be. If you’re Athletic Director Greg McGarity, you know this and you’re praying for improvement.
And soon.
Eh, as long as the money keeps rolling in, I think Greg’s sleeping pretty soundly at night.
Get The Picture 
Like most SEC schools, if football is good, the AD’s job is secure. McGarrity will prosper if Kirby does well.
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Vince Dooley presided over the Goff and Donnan eras. Maybe that’s a day gone by, but I would suggest a better measure of an AD is the ability to build a strong all-around athletic program especially in the sports no one cares about. One thing to say about Dooley is that he built the Georgia athletic program into a powerhouse. I think we were consistently among the highest finishers in the Sears Cup for a program that fielded as few sports as UGA does.
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I agree, outside of football, UGA did pretty well overall. And to be fair, Dooley wanted to put Donnan on a shorter leash while Adams undercut his authority by giving Donnan a raise. Also – just because I don’t know, did Dooley hire Goff, or was that transition in place before Dooley became AD? Might not be fair to pin Goff on him.
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He didn’t hire Goff, but it seems that once Erk and Sheridan turned the job down, Dooley had to have some influence over the selection.
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Dooley also brought in Richt. Which is in our top 3 coaches of all time. ADGM, for whatever reason, has seen the departure of Yoculan, Perno & Richt during his tenure. 3 Tremendous coaches. And, so far, his choices in replacement haven’t knocked our socks off.
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I’m pretty sure Yoculan left before McGarity was hired.
Dooley did great with the Richt hire, but I can remember a time in the mid-to-late ’90s when a significant portion of the fan base was ready to run him out of town because of poor hiring/firing decisions.
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Remember the “it’s time to can the Auburn man” bumper stickers around that time?
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I don’t know that Dooley would have survived the ’70’s if the internet had been around.
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And you’re right Senator. Yoculan left in ’09. Florida Agent GM arrived in ’10. I stand corrected.
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I met her once. Intimidating………
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Richt said having Dooley down the hall from him in his early years was a benefit. Kirby doesn’t seem to have the same type of person as a football sounding board.
My point is that performance in football won’t make people tolerate incompetence in the AD’s office. Then again, if the powers that be are getting from that individual what they want, it doesn’t really matter.
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The real issue is that it is more likely that McGarity will fire coaches and replace them before he gets the boot, which he has shown a pretty crappy track record for.
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I doubt McGarity is sleeping well. Durante are Stricklin are his hires, and they better win in sports in which we’ve had elite (gymnastics) and pretty good (baseball) success.
And there’s no excuse for B-ball. And I don’t know who to hire. College B-ball coaching seems more like a merry-go-round than it did 20 years ago. What we want and need is our Billy Donovan. There’s no reason we can’t become what Florida became in hoops. They had the same history and trajectory as us, basically, until Donovan came on the scene. But it’s all about ‘crootin’, and we ain’t got enough good players, plain and simple.
I suspect the B-ball hire will be his last chance at one of the big sports. Alumni like full coffers, but make no mistake, those jokers want to win in everything. And there’s one guy in charge of hiring coaches to win.
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They better win, or what?
McGarity’s been the AD since September 1, 2010. Can you name a single title any coach he’s hired has won in six and a half years?
He’s already starting to recycle some of his initial hires.
I would suggest what you think the influential alumni want and what they actually want don’t align.
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Eh…I don’t know. Kirby winning big can help a lot. And he will win big, but I suspect the new b-ball coach will be his last shot, whether that means resignation or retirement.
The Mark Richt Athletic Department Stability Train left the station, and that marked a commitment to winning at a new level. I do believe Mark’s overall stability set a kind of peace around the whole department. That’s over.
McG is about 65-66 years old, too. I don’t imagine he’ll do this till he’s 75. Maybe 2-3 more years? I’ve got 2 names for you:
Frank Ros
Matt Stinchcomb
I want one of those dudes running our Athletic Department. One understands big business, the other understands media. Both are critical in modern college athletics.
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I don’t think McGarity’s quite that old. I also don’t think he’ll be canned before retirement age.
As far as your suggestions go, who knows… except I expect the decision will be to promote from within. UGA’s athletic department has always been about grooming leadership.
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bwahahahahaha! Good one. Although you forgot to put “leadership” in ironic quotations.
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He should be tarred and feathered for the mess the gymnastics program and the baseball program have become. We have pretty much pissed away our recruiting advantage and tradition of winning big under his watch in gymnastics, and the baseball program is a laughingstock with the built-in advantages of Cobb County baseball so close.
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But he’s not.
Despite everything, McGarity managed to raise the entire cost of the new IPF from donor contributions.
I’ll let you decide in the vast scheme of things whether the reserve fund or on the field excellence has a higher priority among those who call the shots at B-M.
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We know the answer to that question. It’s the damn reserve fund.
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If they hadn’t started giving 1:1 (or better) Hartman Fund points for gifts to the IPF, they’d have never raised that much money.
I wish they’d give say, 1 Hartman point for every $10 in gifts to the academic side of the university.
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But what does having a big reserve fund do for anybody, especially the big donors to it? Capital not deployed is just a wasted asset. I don’t think these business leaders boast about how big the reserve fund is. It’s something else…not sure what…but don’t think that’s the core driving philosophy of the guys pulling the strings. Sadly, it’s not a championship sports culture driving them either.
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http://onlineathens.com/sports-local-news-uga/2012-09-14/uga-foundation-manage-part-uga-athletics-68-million-surplus
The UGA Foundation controls the surplus. Very few people know what it is ‘invested’ in…
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And yes, maximizing the amount of money transferred from Georgia athletics IS the core driving philosophy.
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It kills me to see bulldog fans all in a huff about the gymnastics program. What about equestrian?
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And yet despite the god awful on-field results and numerous foot in mouth off the field gaffes, there are people around here who can’t understand why many of us think he should’ve been put out to pasture a long time ago. Sigh
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To me, UGA has never even begun to live up to its full athletic potential. We’ve always been underachievers relative to resources at our disposal. A primary reason for this has been men’s basketball, IMO, as programs like gymnastics and tennis can’t really atone for a missing basketball program.
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My understanding is that ADGM was brought to Athens from UF because of the success that program was having winning championships. It looks like we would have more to show for it than the Pruitt Indoor Practice Facility.
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He was brought in because Michael Adams was comfortable with him.
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If Pitino doesn’t take the Celtics job then Tubby doesn’t leave for Kentucky and Georgia bball becomes what Florida is today. imho
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Tubby has always been a subpar recruiter. Billy Donovan, he ain’t.
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Georgia needs a competitor in charge of athletics. With all of the money pouring into a mediocre athletics program just think what the reserve fund would look like if major teams were winning some championships. The culture of the program needs to be switched from one of bean counting to winning. It needs a dynamic guy with coaching experience to light a competitive fire under everybody right down to the janitor. McGarity is terrible but he’s really just the figurehead of a problem that was created by Adams. By the way, where is the president in all of this? Adams was everywhere but Morehead lays low. The whole thing is run like a recreation program. Participation over winning. Like Towers said we do deserve better but we don’t seem to know it.
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I say this not to cause a stir but because I believe it…Georgia needs a Trumpish AD. A guy who is HIGHLY competitive, dynamic, active and demanding of results. Love him or hate him, the guy demands results.
I wonder if Bobby Knight is available (not as a coach, but A D ) THERE is a guy that would demand results. Hate him? Maybe so but you’d love him if he were dedicated to UGA. He would have went on the field and broken a chair on Penn Wagers head and then made CMR run laps for being a pussy..all during the game.
While I mostly kid about Knight, his IS the kind of personality Georgia needs to stir up all the complacency that is solidifying in the bottom of the athletic programs. Another weak-sauce McG type won’t cut it.
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Trump’s major accomplishment in athletics management was to engineer the implosion of the USFL.
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And to ruin Hershel Walker’s CFB and NFL legacies.
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Nice non-sequitur. And since HW signed with the USFL, largely giving it credence, we should dismiss him as a failure too, I suppose.
I didn’t suggest Trump become the AD..he’s got bigger fish to fry.
I pointed to his personality type as being hyper-competitive, and then moved to Knight, who is a true sport’s figure.
It occurred to me that any mention of Trump would bring some snark, even if I qualified my remarks in the first sentence. I could have used, Patton, Saban, Larry Bird, Ali, Lombardi, Derek of GTP, or a dozen other examples instead of Trump, but then, I would have been knuckling under.
Forgive me it I protest too much.
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Ugly, it wasn’t offered as snark. And I didn’t think you meant Georgia should hire Trump himself.
However, I don’t see how Trump’s track record in athletics makes him a model for Georgia to pursue as far as the next AD goes.
I don’t think non sequitur means what you think it means, in other words.
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Trump is what the left calls a “trigger.” Just the mere mention of his name gives some people the vapors.
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Care to explain what exactly about my answer was factually incorrect?
Some people have the vapors, alright.
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I don’t believe Ugly was referring to his track record in athletics but merely the type of competitive mindset he possesses.
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Whatever he was referring to, it didn’t involve politics, and my response didn’t either. And yet somehow that’s where things wound up. Vapors!
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Now, if the “someone like” has to be a business exec, why not Jack Welch? Wanted results, actually set up clear performance metrics for said results.
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Given the track record of his casinos, perhaps we should get someone who demands better results. Because if you just want a lot of bluster, brief success, and then the whole thing flames out, well, that’s what Auburn’s been doing for a while now…
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The disconnect is with fan expectations vs. president/board of regents expectations. The AD job is 80% fund raising (development), networking, media contracts. For a long time I always wanted to be a headmaster/principal of a middle school until I learned the truth. Being a headmaster is all about development. Day to day administration of education and steering faculty toward common goals in instruction falls way behind in the job description. Mcgoofy is just there to steer the dept. toward elevating the endowment and glad handing philanthropists. Someone in his office is at fault for steering the sports programs toward mediocrity.
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Well, at least the papers are specifically pointing out the failures of the AD now. I don’t read the rag that much, but it’s the first article I can recall where it was specifically about how ADGM sucks.
The problem with getting a dynamic, aggressive AD is that our local liquor baron won’t be able to control him.
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I am an 02 grad and I donate a bit to UGA athletics. My cousin is an 82 grad and is a top quartile donor. He runs in circles with many other top quartile donors and they are all pissed about UGA athletics. That set doesn’t care about the IPF. They don’t care about restrooms or concessions. They want winning teams, period.
They see a losing product and do not like how they are treated when they do get invited to practices. I think we are closer to a tipping point than prior commentors may realize.
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I’d love to believe you but the evidence says otherwise. Donations keep flowing in and the results on the court and field keep disappointing. McGarity has a job review every year on the income statement and the review seems to indicate the customers (fans and ticket buying public) approve wholeheartedly of the job he is doing.
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Wait, we’re actually on The Bubble? How can that be?
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#40 in RPI prior to that embarrassment to Bama the other night.
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Georgia remains a top-ten ‘profitable’ athletic department, providing a large stream of cash accessible to the University.
Athletic department costs run at a fraction of the rest of the conference (outside of Mississippi) and the shared conference revenue continues to climb.
As long as athletic program stays marginally competitive on the court and on the field, Greg will continue to be untouchable.
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le sigh
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If any bb game was a jump the shark game, that Bama game was.
Remember being at a few UGA football games where I thought, well the coach just lost his job. UF, Vandy, and some others.
That bb game was a disaster and the crowd was beyond stunned.
Now a new hire, do not trust the AD to do it.
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We have a baseball team?
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