You know, if Greg McGarity had just said from the beginning that he needed a reserve fund to protect the department against his own lack of competency in hiring and firing coaches instead of making up some nonsensical excuse about having to pay student-athletes down the road, I might have been more understanding.
At least I would have applauded him for being realistic.
Get The Picture 
Leave off the dirty language
LikeLike
What’s wrong with “AD”?
LikeLiked by 7 people
I’m too lazy to register with WordPress, so let me just “Like” this post right here.
LikeLike
Zing!
LikeLike
If Greg McGarity lets Jack Bauerle walk, then he’s dumber than I thought. He and Manny Diaz and Chris Haack are running the only consistently successful programs that UGA has right now. I know that Bauerle ran into some NCAA trouble, but he’s served his time and he needs to stay in Athens.
As far as firing the gymnastics coach goes, sheesh… we fired Mark Richt because he was “only” winning ten games a year and had gone a long time since winning an SEC title. The Gym Dogs have done absolutely nothing since Suzanne Yoculan hanged up her… whistle? Clipboard? I have no idea what a gym coach hangs up to retire. In any event, if a popular and beloved coach like Richt gets axed for lack of championships, a coach manning the helm of what was once our most decorated and successful sports program probably needs to know that winning is required. And, Coach Stricklin, the guy we fired to hire you was a fairly regular visitor to the postseason and Omaha…
LikeLiked by 3 people
Don’t forget about our basketball program. Nevermind, that’s also part of the Georgia Way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The basketball program at least has seen more consistency in the past few years (as far as the string of 20-win seasons which was unprecedented before Fox)—though not being able to making the NCAA tourney (or shitting the bed when we do) is concerning.
LikeLike
Basketball, like football, is coach-dependent as far as success is concerned. Some coaches win everywhere they go and some coaches can’t win anywhere. If B-M wants to fire Fox I won’t argue even though he has done better than almost any other coach of UGA BB ever has. But B-M better hire somebody who is actually an improvement–not a longtime assistant somewhere else who will blow games at the end and require 5 years of OJT. If that happens we need to think about cleaning house at B-M and the AB next time rather than cleaning out the coaches.
LikeLike
“We need to think about cleaning house at B-M…” ?
should have been done long ago. No need to think now. Do.
LikeLike
Well said, Mayor. If Fox goes, then we need to pay the bucks and get a proven coach in here with the mandate to win now. Fox was a good hire at the time (3 NCAAs in 5 years at Nevada, IIRC) but has plateaued here. No point in getting more of the same. Unfortunately, we can just follow Sackerlina’s example where they went to another Power 5 school (KSU) and hired away their successful coach.
LikeLike
Change Fox to Richt, and you get our situation in 2015. The “championship or bust” crowd told everyone who would listen that the big time candidates would line up at the door on South Campus for this job. Guess what? That’s not how they roll on S. Lumpkin Street, on North Campus, or in the halls of the liquor barons. I hope like crazy that Kirby is successful, but if we didn’t go make a slam dunk experienced head coach hire for the most important hire in the athletic department, why should we expect these same people to go back up a Brinks truck for a basketball coach to coach in front of a half-filled arena?
LikeLike
I think you actually hit on a large part of the problem. Georgia fans get too enamored with “best ever at Georgia” coaches and don’t focus on actually winning anything that matters. Saying Fox is better than almost any other coach at Georgia is sort of like saying “gonorrhea is better than almost any other venereal disease”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“the guy we fired to hire you was a fairly regular visitor to the postseason and Omaha”
And he now coaches high school football so clearly we need to get him back.
LikeLike
The presumption being that Perno is coaching HS FB because no college baseball has offered him a job? I honestly don’t know the circumstance, but you sound like an insider in the know.
LikeLike
He’s much happier and enjoying what he’s doing.
LikeLike
the presumption being if Perno is so amazing, go hire him, if you can lure him away from Clarke Central.
Stricklin has been horrible so when he’s fired we’ll have every opportunity
LikeLike
Meghan Boenig has been consistently great with the equestrian program and Jeff Wallace is really good with women’s tennis, but that’s picking nits with your first paragraph. The spirit of it rings true.
LikeLike
I’m just here to say this is my favorite GTP headline of the year (so far).
LikeLike
If the Senator wants me to read an article, all he has to do is drop a headline with a reference to Pulp Fiction.
LikeLike
If only Agent Muschamp could have done the damage that Agent McGarity is doing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
^This.
LikeLike
Why does McGarity take all the blame?? Again….the fact that he kept his job while getting to fire Richt tells me all I need to know about the people that lead this program. I imagine these people as the “he doesn’t have fire” crowd. Maybe even the “he takes the kids swimming one day a year so he doesn’t have fire” crowd. Or the let’s copy Alabama crowd. Smh
LikeLike
Are we going to send in The Wolf to fix everything?
LikeLike
Sabans middle name is Winston……
LikeLike
The cycle is complete. We’ve become Georgia Tech.
LikeLike
Tech Sucks……and so does McGarity!
LikeLike
Pocket change when compared against the Reserve Fund annual interest…
LikeLike
It is mystifying to some degree. GM is not stupid, and he is a UGA alum and very loyal. He spends time with Jeremy Foley working for the best athletic department around. He returns to his alma mater, a seeming can’t miss hire, and this is what we get? Global incompetence and decline? It makes no sense to me unless the problem is higher than GM. Does someone at UGA actually forbid athletic excellence? Is GM Pinocchio? I have no idea. But CKS has the whole thing on his shoulders now. If he is not the right guy, I say get out the bulldozers.
LikeLike
“Not stupid”? I don’t know but incompetent is something I am confident about. IQ and test scores have inconsistent relationships with competence and success. Don’t care where his degree from, get some one who doesn’t shoot a toe off on every decision or press conference. He is there because he is someone influential’s puppet. Said another way, he follows orders and takes bullets for the fat cats.
LikeLike
You’re definitely on to something. My suspicion is this goes above the Athletic Department. And I’m not talking about the big boosters. If they have that much influence, they certainly wouldn’t settle for this much mediocrity. Who would give huge sums of money only to demand that the department hoard it and not strive for excellence? The argument that the big money folks are part of the problem is laughable. The problem is there aren’t enough of them to change the Georgia Way mindset. The real people pulling the strings are the board of regents, whoever happens to occupy the president’s office, and the faculty portion that controls the AA board. Now I don’t have much of a sample size, but l haven’t heard of another big-time athletic program that has its revenue skimmed from and placed in the University’s general fund to the degree UGA does. To me, that is the Georgia Way at its core.
LikeLike
This makes sense and this same group brings a mentality that is totally ignorant about competition. The whole B-M crowd is floating around with business acumen and personal gratification on their minds instead of winning. Its run like a recreation program where participation is all that matters.
LikeLike
Primary directive:
Keep expenses low and maximize the net athletic revenue flow to the university.
Secondary directive:
Do not risk the primary directive. Win only enough to keep the primary directive intact.
LikeLike
You are correct all counts. This is indeed the root cause.
Before they stroke the next check, the large dollar boosters should demand some accountability and knowledge of where their contributions are actually used.
I bet they would be surprised on how little of their contribution is spent to support the Georgia athletic programs.
When compared to The Georgia Way®, The Clinton Foundation were novices.
LikeLike
Again..McG just represents what many apparently want. The program is run by ultra-conservatives and it shows in everything surrounding it and everything it does. From the money, to the uppity attitudes, to the ACCPD/student athlete interaction, to….etc etc. We don’t just fall in line. Hell….I have conservative-like values but I’m not scared to push borders to make this better. We go beyond staying inside the lines while coloring. We keep a nice buffer, too, so we can get another good guy trophy.
Honestly, the way we handled the Gurley situation was the final straw for me. I still don’t understand why 9-10 wins isn’t good enough if we’re not willing to push for more. I guess the “vote didn’t have enough fire” crowd won out. Too bad so many though a new coach was all the change necessary. Well….we got our man on fire.
LikeLike
OMG! It’s gonna take $700K to can Stricklin now and $425K next year if I read that correctly. We may be stuck with him until 2019. He will be 0 for 4 on .500 ball.
LikeLike
Since the Cousins family will likely make the ultimate decision on Stricklin, my bet is he will be here for a long time (like Greg).
LikeLike
Bauerle and Wallace, two of our teams that can win championships and someone wants them fired, Sheese!
LikeLike
The only thing UGA fans can hope for is that President Morehead and the Board wake up and do not extend the Athletic Director’s contract when it expires at the end of this year – hopefully they are negotiating and communicating with him the way he does with his coaches.
Coach Smart needs this year and next behind him before anyone can say if he is a Jimmy Johnson or a Ron Zook, who’s only claim to fame in 10 years as a college head coach was to hand The Dawgs their only loss in 2002.
Maybe the ongoing strange case with the Women’s Gymnastics team will pull back the curtain on the mess that is the UGA Athletic Dept. and we can flush the toilet once and for all.
LikeLike
Greg McGarity should not be in charge of any of our coaching hires.
He hired Scott Stricklin who has yet to post a winning record at UGA in baseball, overall or in conference.
He promoted Petros Kyprianou to head coach of track and field/cross country, but he’s been with those programs since Evans’ days.
He promoted Joni Taylor to head coach of women’s basketball. It’s been two years, but she appears to be backsliding already.
He hired Josh Brewer as our women’s golf coach, and I will admit I do not follow that sport anywhere close enough to speak to the job he’s done. On another site, I have been told that Brewer has done a good job but insinuated that McGarity basically let Chris Haack make the hire.
He hired and fired Lizzy Stemke as our volleyball coach. She did not do well.
He hired Tom Black as our new volleyball coach in December. He will coach his first match in August.
He hired and fired Danna Durante.
Steve Holeman was hired just a few months before McGarity was named AD, so we can’t put his soccer tenure on McGarity.
He hired Billy Lesesne after firing Holeman though. And Lesesne hasn’t impressed me.
He hired Kirby Smart who has the biggest ? out of any coach that has coached at UGA so far.
LikeLike
The Georgia way is much older than AD GM. Dooley repeatedly butted heads with the powers that were, and are! Dooley had to flirt with AU to get a raise after his first SEC conference win. He still made 13,000 a year, but they gave him the house where he still lives. Then he had to take a call from Notre Dame to get a raise after winning the NC in ’80. It was obvious that Richt was peeved at times but Richt was not the type to butt heads with his bosses. Thank God for CJP!
LikeLike