An open letter to Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity

Fans of Georgia athletics had to watch Florida baseball win a national championship last night. That gives the Gators at least one national title in each three major sport in the last decade.

Georgia director of Athletics Greg McGarity,

I have to ask, do you care? The Florida Gators just won a National Championship in baseball. Our biggest rival inside the Southeastern Conference has the superior program in all three major sports. They’re also the first SEC school to win national titles in each of those sports.

Did you feel anything when our biggest conference rival won a championship in a sport we’re not even relevant in last night? The Gators now have three National Championships in 2017 (man’s track and field, women’s tennis). If you’re not counting, that’s three more than Georgia. How do you feel about that?

Georgia has won 40 major National Championships since winning the 1942 title in football. But since you were hired in 2010, the Bulldogs have only won four. Florida has won 16 while you’ve been here in Athens. Our biggest rival has won four times as many national titles as us since you’ve been the director of Georgia athletics. Do you care?

Yeah recently we’ve seen you mention Georgia’s struggles publicly. You said that you understood the issue, you stated your goals and you expressed confidence. But that isn’t what Georgia fans want to hear. That’s not what we need to hear.

We want you to tell us how Georgia struggles, in the shadow of rival programs succeeding, affects you. Are you embarrassed? Frustrated or upset? Do you feel a sense of envy or urgency?

Because I look at Georgia athletics and as a whole I see coaches lasting way too long without success before getting fired. Or in the case of Georgia baseball, not getting fired at all.

It doesn’t appear that you are in any hurry to win national championships at Georgia. It doesn’t look like you’re concerned about the image of Georgia athletics. You have not displayed anything that will lead me and other fans to believe that you care.

There are people in this fan base who have bled red and black for over five decades. They’ve sat through the 1970’s in football when the Bulldogs always seemed just a game under greatness. They know the teams history, they’ve read the record books. They know that Georgia football is a mere 10 games away from having a ton of National Championships.

Fans struggled through the men’s basketball teams of the 2000’s. They got their hearts broken by the woman’s basketball team numerous times through the 1980’s, 90’s and 2000’s.

This is a tortured fan base who knows that the Georgia Bulldogs can be elite in every sport. The Bulldog Nation has felt how close the various teams have been to breaking into the upper echelon.

We are proud to be Georgia Bulldogs, we don”t want to root for anyone else. We want to stick with Georgia athletics through the championship dynasties and the periods of irrelevancy. But the Bulldog Nation desires more national championships and we are beginning to demand more national championships.

Do you understand that? Do you feel what we feel? If you do not, then it’s about time you left the city of Athens and the University of Georgia behind. The Bulldog Nation has been through enough and we deserve better. We deserve an athletic director who understands the plight that Georgia fans feel and who feels the same way as us.

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The director of Georgia athletics needs to not only understand that, but they need to display frustration when the Bulldogs fail. They need to put pressure on the coaches who are not succeeding and reward the coaches who win. That individual needs to take a careful look at every team at UGA and address every issue that they can be involved with.

That isn’t you McGarity. After seven years you’ve proved that to us.

And that’s a shame because the Bulldog Nation had every reason to believe that you would be great. You were coming from Florida where you served under probably the best athletic director in SEC history; Jeremy Foley.

But you have proved to not even be half the AD that Foley was. Because Foley displayed those qualities that I previously mentioned. Foley, like all great athletic directors lacked patience.

They set reasonable goals for each program, but they demand that those goals are met quickly. And once those goals are met, even higher goals are met and the great athletic directors demand that those goals are met just as quickly.

You don’t do that and I can tell you don’t. You proved that when you chose not to fire Scott Strickland after the end of the 2017 Georgia baseball season. In four seasons, Strickland is 104-119-1 overall and 32-58-1 in the SEC.

What does that tell Strickland moving forward? More importantly, what does that tell other coaches at Georgia as well as future coaches? It tells them they don’t need to get any kind of hurry to win championships at Georgia.

You were at Florida during the Ron Zook era, how patient was Foley with Zook? He didn’t even give him three years. Zook didn’t even have one losing season and his teams finished the season ranked each year. But three years with no trips to the SEC Championship Game was too much.

Quite frankly, if three years is too long in Gainesville, it’s too long in Athens. But that’s not how you see it.

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McGarity, you don’t have the urgency necessary for the job. Nor do you have the cunning to take on the issues you can address personally. And you definitely don’t have the necessary competitive fire.

I want someone to fill the position of athletic director who possess those quality’s. The Bulldog Nation deserves that kind of athletic director. And the University of Georgia needs that kind of athletic director.

If you have those qualities in you somewhere, it’s time to let them out. If not, you need to step down from your position and leave the University.

I’ll ask once again. Do you care? Do you care about Georgia athletics, about winning, about being superior to our rivals and in the SEC. The Bulldog Nation cares, we only request that our athletic director cares as well.

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