Ah, what passes for the sweet smell of success these days

Once upon a time you dressed so fine…

McGarity, who played and coached tennis at Georgia and worked in its athletic administration before leaving for Florida, said “there is nothing greater than being part of championships. That’s why we do what we do.

“At the end of the day,” he continued, “all the time you put in at the office, the fun comes when you’re competing for championships and you see what these coaches have done over a number of years to finally get to the top of the mountain and you’re able to be just a small piece of that.”

Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud…

So what is expected for next year? McGarity did not specify anything, but indicated that he didn’t need to.

“Our coaches know what our goals are,” McGarity said. “You ask Mark Fox, his goal is to make the NCAA tournament. I promise you Scott Stricklin’s is to be in the NCAA tournament.”

Jesus.  Regardless of what I thought of the process that led to the decision, at least I could rationalize Mark Richt’s firing as McGarity’s clumsy attempt to live up to the standard he set for himself at the time of his hiring.

What naive bullshit that was.  If making a watered down playoff field is all it takes to keep the AD comfortably numb — and, admittedly, for many of Georgia’s sports programs, that would  be an improvement over their recent performance levels — then there are no real standards for Georgia athletics any more, other than “don’t cost us too much money, son.”

I suppose you could argue that Smart is being held to a similar mark of excellence, except there’s a rather significant difference between making a field of four and a field of sixty-four.  But it’s the kind of facile argument I could hear McGarity make a few years from now at the presser announcing Smart’s firing if things don’t work out well.

These people…