Sorry to harp, but I’m simply astounded at some of the responses I received last night to my previous post. I don’t know if that’s because some of you recently emerged from a time capsule unaware of how Georgia athletics have been managed for the past two decades, or if you’re in the camp of those who think football recruiting is the only thing that should matter to a Georgia fan.
Then again, maybe I did a poor job of expressing myself. So let me take a moment to backtrack and outsource a comment from Jon Solomon that succinctly expresses how absurd McGarity’s position on the reserve funds is.
Take a deep breath and ponder that statement for a minute. Can you think of another P5 athletic director who could come up with an explanation like that (presumably with a straight face)?
The Georgia athletic department has money socked away because an athletic director is worried about something that may never happen. And even if it were ever to occur, how does he have any clue whether what he’s salted away would be adequate? On the flip side, say the NCAA eventually prevails in court or obtains an antitrust exemption down the road — does anyone believe McGarity would release those funds for some purpose that would serve the fan base? Of course he wouldn’t; he’d simply move on to another hypothetical concern. (I hear zombie apocalypse stories are all the rage now, Greg.)
This isn’t about prioritizing recruiting needs. As I keep saying, there is more than enough money rolling through Butts-Mehre to solve more than one problem at a time. And it’s a joke to praise a man who spent forty thousand dollars on a search firm to justify a hiring decision he’d already made for exercising fiscal prudence, not to mention tearing down an inadequate indoor facility that never should have seen the light of day in order to make room for the new IPF.
It’s about benign neglect. Greg McGarity honestly believes he made a good faith effort to address game day concerns by installing big fans and credit card machines at Sanford Stadium. Just like he never really thought much of the need for a true indoor practice facility, despite Richt asking for one for years. It took an assistant coach publicly embarrassing him to make McGarity see the light, but we fans should just keep quiet about the inadequacies we face going to games while the athletic department shells out $100 million for capital projects? Screw that.
If you want to talk about preparing for future events that might impact the bottom line, how about some forward thinking about keeping the fan base happy and desirous of attending games in person? Better wi-fi ain’t gonna cut that.
The Georgia Way isn’t about forward thinking. And I know that nothing I post will change that. But to follow through on the header to this post, don’t look at me and tell me it’s raining. I know urine when I see it.
Get The Picture 