Richt’s Patience Will Reward Georgia Football With the Indoor Practice Facility
Any other head football coach would have accepted a lesser indoor facility. Now, Georgia football Head Coach Mark Richt’s vision is near fulfillment.
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Georgia Head Football Coach Mark Richt has wanted an indoor practice facility for a long time. He’s just wanted a good one in just the right spot.
Richt’s patience is about to be rewarded, as is the Bulldog Nation’s faith in the Georgia football skipper.
“No question. It’s on the way. It’s going to happen,” said Richt as reported by Anthony Dasher of ugasports.com. “It’s going to be there on our property, we won’t have to bus anywhere and that’s the one thing I was fighting it just didn’t make sense not to have it on site.”
The history of the indoor practice facility planning goes back to at least 1999 and predates the hiring of Mark Richt. Richt could have had an indoor facility much sooner, but he was unwilling to compromise on the location and the quality of the facility. Multiple news reports indicate the new indoor practice facility will be on the grass football fields immediately next to the Butts-Mehre Building. Coach Richt’s uncompromising stance paired with his patience will earn Georgia football a facility on a site that is nearly ideal.
Seth Emerson quoted Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity in the Macon Telegraph. “If you go back and look at the designs for the building back in 1999 and 2000 it was kind of around where the grass fields were in that area, where the existing grass fields are. So I would say it will hopefully be in that quadrant close to the Butts-Mehre building.”
The Athletic Board meets in May to set the place and a timeline for construction.
“It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be awesome,” Emerson quoted Richt. Construction is expected to take seven months and disrupt the football activities. But Coach Richt appears ready to make the trade.
“That was the one thing I was fighting. It just didn’t make enough sense to me to have it off-site. It would have been better than not having it. But when you build a facility like that, you want it to be good for not only the time that I’m at Georgia but years down the road.”
. . . the year’s down the road.
Richt’s patience and uncompromising spirit indicates once again that Coach Richt came to Georgia for the long haul and to make a lasting difference. A Coach looking for the quick buck and exit to a more lucrative position would have accepted a lesser building and site a decade ago.