I get asked fairly often to give a definition of the Georgia Way.
I could do worse than to suggest Greg McGarity vowing to do whatever it takes to make Georgia athletics successful while simultaneously putting off contract negotiations with some of his coaches because he’s too busy as a textbook example.
Get The Picture 
The exact thing you expect at the intersection of government employee and private sector business model. If I hear them calling surplus funds and ending cash reserves ‘profit’ one more time!
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Reminds me of Patton Oswalt’s but about being told by an angry meter maid “We don’t have time to check all these cars.” THAT’S ALL YOU HAVE TIME TO DO! It’s not “Department of Parking Enforcement and Homicide Investigation”!
Or maybe jacking up ticket/concession prices really is a months-long process requiring mountains of paperwork. I could be wrong.
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I’m sure Coach Harris-Champer is delighted to learn that “eventually” McGarity will “get around” to doing “something…for her, too.” Always nice when your boss publicly makes you feel less important than every other of his employees. Well spoken, Greg.
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Every time he opens his mouth a PR gaffe happens.
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I agree. It amazes me how carelessly McGarity speaks in interviews. Dawgnation is hardly the “New York Times,” but that’s a poor excuse for shoddy speech.
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His quotes always seem so hyper-defensive to me.
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That is because most of the fan base does nothing but shit on the guy. Then, after shitting on the guy, they shit on the guy some more for not wanting to suck their cock and stroke stroke ego.
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Pipe down, Greg, the adults are talking.
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Accusing someone of being a shill is not an argument. Does shitting on people that are more successful than you make you feel better about being a failure at life that makes $9.25/hr at the local Home Depot and has a fat wife that is cheating on them? BTW, that wasn’t an argument either.
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Foam at the mouth all you want.
McGarity is still a putz.
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To call him a putz is to denigrate putzes the world over.
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I am not denying that he is a putz. We all know he is a putz. My point is that the fan base has turned shitting on the guy into a meme. The constant kvetching about the guy has led to the current situation where people can’t even objectively look at his actions.
That is how we get classics like this one where you also shit on Loran Smith.
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From a comment of mine in that Smith post:
Disagree with any of that? I only ask because you acknowledge my description of McGarity is accurate.
McGarity could probably shut down half the crap thrown his way if he’d just quit speaking publicly. And I bet he’s been told that to his face.
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Are you going to continue to dance around my main point that y’all have shat on McGarity so much that y’all now lack the ability to evaluate his actions with objectivity?
inb4 a comment about the post from a short while ago congratuling McGarity who “may have finally figured out how to stay out of the way and let good coaches do their thing” despite the fact that y’all constantly complain that he doesn’t do enough. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
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LMAO. You just agreed with me that McGarity is a putz.
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Yeah, I agreed that he is a bit of a putz. What I didn’t say was that being a bit of a putz is suitable justification for the majority of the fanbase to shit on him for everything even when he does something really well.
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Are you saying he did that interview really well?
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No, I’m talking about situations like the new Track and Field Coach. McGarity interviewed the candidates, found the one where he liked their vision and plan for building a championship program, gave him the 1M+ he said he needed for facility upgrades, and was rewarded with 2 National Titles and a Runner-up in year 3. Very large portions of the fan base would just claim that McGarity got lucky and only promoted from withing because he was trying to be cheap. That would then be followed with some snark about the reserve fund.
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I gave him credit for that.
You’re trying to have it both ways here. One great hire does not offset eight years of whiffing on coaching hire and fires.
The header to Chip’s piece is “UGA vows to do whatever it takes to stay atop the SEC”. Leaving aside the fact that UGA athletics as a whole aren’t at the top of the SEC, do you honestly believe McGarity means that?
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So when did you individually become “a large portion of the fan base”? You are the one that entered the conversation here. I was explaining my hypothesis to ATL Dawg. The only comment I made that pertained to you personally was in reference to my opinion that you lack objectivity when talking about McGarity and “The Georgia Way”.
I am not trying to have it both ways. I made no comment on his overall performance. I only made some very simple claims.
1. He is defensive in interviews because large portions of the fan base continuously shit on him.
2. Even when he does something well, a large portion of the fan base undergoes cognitive dissonance and shits on the guy for not having anything to do with the good outcome.
3. Being a bit of a putz ,and let’s be honest that the vast majority of his putzery is with PR, is not suitable justification for shitting on the guy all of the time.
You have not even attempted to refute any of those claims.
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With regard to your numbered points…
Again, his first pronouncement upon walking in the door was that he expected the athletic department — and by extension, Greg McGarity — to be judged on championships. By that measure, his tenure has largely been a flop. If by saying that means I lack objectivity, then I’ll live with your condemnation.
BTW, since you’re stomping your feet about refuting claims, how about answering my last question?
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By the way, while we’re talking about lack of objectivity and vitriol, can you explain where characterizing the part of the fan base that doesn’t agree with you as “they shit on the guy some more for not wanting to suck their cock and stroke stroke ego” fits in?
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Do you mean the one about McGarity thinking the programs are at the top of the SEC? Yeah, I think he believes that top 2 in the Directors cup is “the top”. I do not though.
It is a hypothesis. Give us a better reason as to why he is being defensive.
I believe that the totality of comments on blogs, reddit, twitter, and other forums are generally representative of the overall fan base. A large portion of those commenters regularly shit on McGarity. Unless you are going to make the “Russian Twitter-bot” argument, I think this claim is pretty well established.
His record with coaching hires is mixed. Football, track, Women’s Basketball, and baseball have all been solid to great hires. Men’s basketball is TBD but looks promising. Women’s golf, volleyball, and gymnastics have been mediocre to not good. The quality of the hires is trending upward. People aren’t shitting on him because the volleyball team isn’t doing well. They shit on him for dumb comments like “focusing on completing the west endzone project before taking on other projects”. That leads in to the next part:
That is what we call hyperbole. My point was about my hypothesis as to why large portions of the fan base shit on the guy all of time. My hypothesis is that his PR blunders have led people to feel like McGarity doesn’t care about them. When people who have previously claimed that they do not give a shit about the University as an academic institution and don’t care about any of the athletic teams except football is complaining about the women’s golf or volleyball coach, directors cup standing, etc., that person is rationalizing their dislike of McGarity.
The reason I believe my hypothesis to be true is that it is a much better predictor of the content of comments by the fan base than assuming they are actually disappointed in the over performance of the Athletics Department.
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You know that’s not what I was getting at there.
I made the mistake of taking your arguments seriously. My bad. I won’t repeat that mistake going forward.
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Which question did you want me to answer? That was the last question you asked me.
So when someone is obviously exaggerating to extenuate their point they are not serious about their point?
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I make $9.75, thank you very much!
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So you’re saying that he is indeed hyper-defensive due to all of the shitting being done?
But why would he be hyper-defensive towards Chip Towers, the guy who has been in his corner for a while?
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Because Chip reports what he says. Then people shit on him for the quotes they get from Chip. McGarity needs to realize that people are just going to shit on him regardless of what he actual says.
I suspect that most of the vitriol comes from people not feeling like McGarity cares about them or their opinion as much as he does about big-money donors. Most of this is framing. You can look at many of these situations from two perspectives. The first, held by a large number of fans, is that McGarity is a money-grubbing dufus that is selling off everything (that is being taken from them, the little guy) for the sake of the reserve fund (e.g. the new sponsored tailgating stuff at Reed). The other view is that he is trying to reward the people that fund a large portion of our programs with special perks.
I have zero Hartman Fund points. I donate 4 figures annually to the academic side of the University, but have donated nothing to athletics. I fully expect McGarity not to give a shit about my feelings, so I don’t get butthurt when his words / actions don’t validate my self-worth. I also don’t live vicariously through the football team.
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” I fully expect McGarity not to give a shit about my feelings, so I don’t get butthurt when his words / actions don’t validate my self-worth. I also don’t live vicariously through the football team.”
Can an eye roll make a sound? Because I think my emphatic eye roll just made a sound…
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He might be still waiting on Adams to tell him this is all OK.
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… to be fair, he was talking about the softball coach.
Coach Harris-Champer has done great work, but she’s also been here damn near 20 years and I’m OK with Coach McGarity having a few higher priorities. I’m sure we’ll take care of her and give her the contract she deserves.
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I’m sure.
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I am fine with AD GM taking care of the track coach first since the guy is coming off two National Championships and almost a third by the smallest of margins. I like Harris-Champer, she is very solid and consistent but she is not on the level of some of the other coaches out there…for example the UF coach. I would say that I think he would take care of her before the baseball coach though.
Glad to hear the football is getting more than just a larger weight room.
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But about this whole Football complex expansion that goes beyond just the weight room…
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Yeah I don’t think this one was fair, Senator. As you know I don’t think the whole Georgia Way narrative is fair, either, and I’m not sure you could’ve picked a worse example to defend it.
He’s fresh off two contract extensions – and the two coaches’ contracts he’s “putting off” just ended their seasons within weeks.
Surely he does have quite a few things to do , and surely not every item can be first.
Maybe your standard is a tad high ?
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Goodness, you don’t get it.
This is a puff piece that’s supposed to show him as the guy in control and he still managed to trip over his own dick selling the message.
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You presented the piece as an example of the Georgia Way — I didn’t misread that.
It would have been better to present the piece as evidence that Mcgarity is ill suited for the job.
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I don’t understand your hair-splitting.
He’s the face of the athletic department. By his own standards, he has an undistinguished track record. Despite that, we’ve never heard a discouraging word about his job performance from his higher-ups.
So why the separation?
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You have consistently presented The Georgia Way as something larger than current AD, football coach, or president – as an all encompassing viral sort of group think that has infected and shaped Georgia’s way of doing things for decades.
I’m really fine if the Georgia Way = Current AD way, and I’ll shut up.
Do you concede that ?
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McGarity in and of himself isn’t the Georgia Way. He’s part of what makes the Georgia Way go.
I’m not sure why this is a hard concept to grasp.
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I’ve always grasped the idea – I just don’t see any support for it.
I thought we may have a chance to reconcile on the topic here – but it will rage on I see. I’d be disappointed otherwise. Til next time Senator .
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I wish a few big boosters had put a spur under his seat about 10 years ago and maybe we would have had a couple more championships by now!
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This isn’t the Georgia Way, Senator. The Georgia Way is self-reporting a violation to the NCAA and self-imposing draconian punishment to make the school’ president look good. The Georgia Way is adopting a mandatory punishment system that suspends players from games and then drug and alcohol testing your student athletes the first day back after spring break. The Georgia Way is shitting on the fans/alumni by screwing up their tailgating experience then increasing ticket prices an minimum contribution levels. And I’m not even going to get into selling out the teams for filthy lucre. No, this is just a minor publicity gaffe by Greg MCGarity, king of Gaffes. They just need to get a professional spokesperson to do press conferences and tell Greg to STFU.
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Rest assured, we will address Mr. Stricklin’s increase immediately.
We also want to thank the Cousins family for their kind generosity.
Softball and track fans, it is time to #COMMITTOTHEG!
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Remember, our $13,440 annual Georgia VIP Tailgate Club memberships are going fast!
Order now, and rest assured, we will include ice in your rental cooler Free Of Charge!
#COMMITTOTHEG
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Everyone knows you’ll run out of ice and end up putting just a few cubes in each cooler.
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Rest assured, we maintain a strong relationship with our ice donors.
#COMMITTOTHEG
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