(Note: This was written earlier this fall, and is presented untouched - and I think, maybe unfinished - in light of Sunday's announcement.)
The friend in California, who was pretty connected back in the day in the
land of Bulldogs, would reguarly call after certain games and demand that I get
on my meds before we talked.
Well, I had no meds, and I recited the Mark Richt resume: around a 75-percent
winning mark, wasn't Ray Goff, program was cleaner than under Jim Donnan,
national reputation was good, the world is much different and college football
much tougher than in the early 1980s.
No, Richt is a farce and Georgia's a joke and this has to be his last year,
because this is embarrassing.
And then I'd suggest the he had, in fact, missed his meds.
The calls were regular, about once a month, and ever so slowly, I started
to budge.
Couldn't tell him that, though.
Until this year.
The ceiling has been reached.
Listening to knee-jerk yammering - emphasis on "jerk" - from
corners of the state and hidden behind keyboards, I'd hoped for a certain
scenario, that Richt would win a national championship and walk off the field
waving with one hand and flipping the bird with the other.
He would, of course, never do that. ... But he'd sneak one in from the
tunnel.
The reality that it wasn't going to happen hit awhile back. The examples
are many.
And they got no shaft back in WHAT,. They deserved to be close to No. 1 at
the end, and was No. 2. But I sure didn't see them worthy of No. 1 going into
the next season.
And they just never did it for me on that
level. A nice team, flashes of greatness often matched by bouts of South
Carolinaness.
There remain defenses of Richt, and deservedly so.
One thing lost in the debate is the regular correlation between salary and
outright wins, and what Richt's job is.
The CEO of GM is to run a successful and profitable car company. The CEO of
a football program - and a program is so much more than just a team, the duties
so much more than just on Saturdays - is to run a successful and profitable
program.
No, cars and football aren't the same, but the jist of the job is.
Parents hand over their teenagers to the head coach, athletics director,
assistants, staff, trainers, dorm managers and other athletics department
personnel. They're in college, where the instruction is to be vast and broad.
I've had the longstanding belief that I'd much rather my kid play for Richt
and never get the big ring than play for assorted other head coaches and get
one.
A head coach is, as we're told by 93 percent of the players, a father
figure, an adviser, a career counselor (for careers that may or may not include
the NFL), disciplinarian and teacher.
Period.
Amazingly, thousands of parents and otherwise narrowminded folks who lose
their fractured minds on game day never, ever realize that. As Jim Mora and
Peyton Manning say, they don't get it and they never will. And they'll be the
loudest in showing it. But that's part of his job, being in charge of other
people's kids. There's more to that than the playbook.
Wish folks would realize that just a little bit.
Alas, growing the company/program is part of the job. And that's where,
finally, I see the need for a change.
It truly grumbles people that I really have no team, and that leads to some
blood-pressure-raising debates, where objectivity and facts aren't part of the
conversation.
But yeah, at this point, if I woke up tomorrow in another profession or finally
won my lottery and was a Georgia fan, I'd be ready for a change.
I've always liked Richt, even if he wasn't flashy or chatty or a quote
machine.
For several years, there were regular dealings with him, from Athens to the
Macon Touchdown Club to the visits to the local Bulldog Club, and he was
measured and friendly, and consistent.
Another view I've always had regarding people in the spotlight is if you
saw them in a store or somewhere and didn't know who they were, you wouldn't
know who they were. They weren't 'on.,' they were humans.
Richt is that way.
Nevertheless, I've always had issues with his offensive philosophy, from
the start. A very finite selection of plays used in predictable situations, and
there was always a reason not to do something. Coaches are an annoyingly
stubborn species when it comes to logic and wide-open eyes, and Richt is right
there.
A staggeringly large faction was misguided in overall complaints about Mike
Bobo. Situations? Yeah, all coaches have iffy calls. But the subordinate had to
call what was in the boss-authored playbook, and I always thought that if Richt
completely washed his hands of the offensive game plan, other than to peek in
every so often with an idea, the offense and Bobo would be better.
As it was, the numbers under Bobo
were pretty fantastic, but there seemed to be the Richt influence in situations
that were sometimes maddening. (And don't bring up the pass-instead-of-Gurley
against South Carolina because there was plenty of logic behind that).
Fan criticism can often be baseless and reek of entitlement and a lack of
information, and I thought Richt caught more harsh grief than he deserved.
Parts of all fan bases don't have much substance, indications whch have
increased with the anonymity of social blathering.
As for who's next: For the love of God, stop talking about Kirby Smart and
Jon Gruden. Holy cow, just stop. Stop, stop, stop, and for scores of logical
reasons, not enough room to list here.
Big-name coaches rarely make lateral moves, so stop with other names. There
are dozens of jobs that are pretty much the same - TV long ago more than
leveled the playing field - contrary to the "analysts" and those who
love their school.
And Georgia will have better legitimate candidates than Smart - what can he
do without Nick Saban? - and Gruden - he's done what as a head coach that's so
inspiring and fantastic? - that many folks won't know because knowledge-seeking
isn't a major hobby.
No matter the results of this season, Richt deserves more praise, respect
and thanks than many in the stands and at the baseman computer will give him.
But Georgia will lose something when Richt leaves, something a little more
special than those who have the hardware and jewelry.
