In a 13-day period that bracketed Georgia’s appearance in the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 7, the Bulldogs spent $422,047.07 on 42 trips by chartered air planes for coach Kirby Smart and members of his staff. Those flights landed in 23 different cities outside of Georgia’s borders, some as far away as Van Nuys, Calif., and Ontario, Canada.
Those are just a few of the revelations discovered when UGA released this week travel documents requested by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January. According to those records, Georgia football coaches boarded chartered flights at least 74 times between September and mid-December of last year. On average, the UGA Athletic Association paid $9,409 for those trips, not including coaches’ personal expenses. The total: $696,269.99.
That’s not chump change.
“You want a return on your investment, right?” said Georgia Athletic Director Greg McGarity, referencing to the recruiting class’s No. 1 rank.
I’m not complaining, mind you. It’s just that Greg sure has changed his tune from the Richt years. And before any of you start whining about how it was Richt’s responsibility to push for the support, if recruiting is as vital to the success of a football program as McGarity acknowledges, why does the athletic director need to be pushed to spend the money in the first place? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?