Depending on your point of view, Matt Borman was Greg McGarity’s most substantial hire. He’s leaving for a similar job at LSU, and leaves quite the legacy behind in Athens.
Since arriving at UGA in February of 2017 to oversee athletic fundraising, Borman and his staff have seen the Magill Society for high-end Bulldog donors grow from 475 members to nearly 1,400 and signed pledges from $36 million to more than $160 million.
Borman’s “proud of the culture we’ve created in the Bulldog Club” and while I can’t say I share the sentiment, there’s little question that he’s had a significant impact in that regard. With he and McGarity leaving, it will be interesting to see who is tasked with the important role of vacuuming the fan base’s collective wallet efficiently as possible. Like it or not, those will be some big shoes to fill.
Get The Picture 
How much of that is Borman and how much of it is Kirby winning?
Greg hired both right?
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Greg hired Kirby because he was told to hire Kirby. Fortunately, I might add.
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Fair to say that Kirby’s achievements might have added a lot of wind to the sails of the ship that brought the money in.
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When you say big shoes to fill, you’re not talking penny loafer$ are you….
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Good luck to Matt, but this isn’t necessarily bad news IMHO. Would like to see some new faces and hope for more institutional will.
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Our Athletic Department is a joke because they’re obsessed with acquiring money and not obsessed with winning titles. The work this guy did and the recent extension of underwhelming baseball coach Scott Strickland is proof of this.
It’s a fucking shame, because we should winning national titles in the big three men’s sports, and while we’re close in one there’s no guarantee it happens any time soon, but in the other two, in a state with fantastic basketball and baseball recruits, we have fallen woefully short.
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To be fair, last year’s baseball team was a legitimate contender with one of the best pitching staffs in the country… until COVID hit and ended everything right there. I really think that team had a shot to go deep in Omaha and win it all.
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I don’t think that for a minute. You’re talking about Scott Strickland, who had two top-10 teams and couldn’t get out of HOME regionals as the No. 1 seed the two years previous.
Who missed the postseason for four straight years before that.
The guy is a complete dud as a coach.
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The program was in shambles when Perno left and Foley has been left in the dust by the rest of the conference. UGA has had to relearn how to win in the postseason (which we finally managed in Hoover in 2019 for the first time in a very long time) and, as mentioned, was poised to explode in 2020. Poopooing all of that is disingenuous at best and showing off your total ignorance of the program’s recent history at worst. 2021 is an extremely young and banged up team that is poised to still make another NCAA tournament appearance this season (which would be only the 15th in program history) after just handing #1 Vanderbilt its first series loss… since we last beat them in 2019. Next 2 seasons will be very good squads.
Point being, Stricklin has the program moving in a positive trajectory and to act like he isn’t is downright stupid.
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I’m sorry, but Perno never had four straight losing seasons. This idea that Stricklin had to “rebuild” and whatever else is garbage. When Perno was fired he was done so after two subpar years. Then Stricklin had four more even worse years. He’s underwhelming as a coach and program builder.
Then, Stricklin took two top-10 teams into home regionals as the No. 1 seed and couldn’t make it out of Athens. That is unsat.
This idea that last year would’ve been any different is based on what? Certainly not past performance which is the best indicator of future results. I’m sorry, but I’m the one who’s ignorant?
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we were #1 in the nation the day we closed down.
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I completely agree with that. Last year’s Baseball team was extremely talented and I was crushed when we didn’t get to see them make their run at it.
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For at least 40 years the state has produced top hs basketball talent and they’ve always, with few exceptions, left the state to play. Doesn’t matter who the ad or the coach is and we had several of both. (Tech even built its roster when they were good with out of state guys.)
When we had a good bb coach, he left for UK.
Bear Bryant realized he was never going to make UK a football school so he left.
No one is going to make UGA a basketball school for long. We just don’t care….
I lived two blocks away from Stegeman for two seasons as a student and went to two bb games. We won a regular season sec title one of those years.
Not a single baseball game was attended despite it being close, free (I assume) and we were apparently pretty good. I did listen to Dave Fleming help win us the college world series on radio. Too nice a day to sit inside and watch tv just because a national title was on the line.
Never went to see our perennial national championship gymnastics team either. (Tho I’m certain that Yoculan was the product of the department’s obsession with winning in women’s gymnastics specifically, to the exclusion of other revenue and non-revenue sports, rather than simple dumb luck.)
Never missed a home football game while in school tho. We sucked tho despite a healthy obsession with winning.
Its the way it is. Adjust, adapt and overcome…
The 1983 tourney was pretty damn awesome btw. Derrick Coleman broke my heart some years later. The rest is a blur of whatever….
Success will reflect priorities and/or good fortune. There is not a damn thing a human being can do to make uga a national power in bb. Nothing.
We may get lucky one day with the right guy. Beyond that, its just not going to happen.
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Just because you don’t like other sports outside football doesn’t mean nobody will support other UGA sports teams. I for one, have really gotten into UGA baseball the last few years and I would love to have a good basketball team! Being a football school didn’t stop Florida from winning 2 national titles in basketball. Heck, Duke wasn’t a basketball blue blood until Coach K started winning. The current state of the program is not inevitable (for better or worse as UGA Gymnastics can attest).
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Can’t disagree. I just think I’m fairly typical among the fan base.
I think attendance figures would support that.
Im sure that there are a few die hard UK football fans who think they can be the same in that sport as bb.
Good luck with it.
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The fans will show up for winners. I actually think football is the hardest to turn around. Every other sports is far easier to turn around because there are fewer players and infrastructure demands to manage.
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Not a huge fan of basketball, but man I had some great times at Stegman when I was there. First year went to midnight madness and it was on. Got courtside season tickets. Never forget when LSU came to town with the twin towers of Shaq and Stanley Roberts. Shaq was a man at 17. We had Litterial Green and Kessler? And when they’d announce Hugh Durham, the whole place goes “HUUUUUUUGH”.
Sorry, it just took me back
Anyways…carry on
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I think you mean John Wallace, unless, Coleman hit a shot to beat you against someone on a game upon which you wagered not involving UGA.
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Couldn’t have said it better Corch. I’m mad that we gave underachieving Stricklin a huge extension–especially in a season where we aren’t playing well.
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Josh Brooks has proved he’s just as worthless and feckless as Greg McGarity with this terrible decision. Fuck that guy.
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I bet if we hired Ron Polk that we’d win a lot.
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2016-2019 were very good years economically for very many people. Seems like Borman knows that played a major role in his success and is taking a higher salary/position while the gettins good before the bottom falls out.
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