Radio host apologizes for question to Richt
Sports radio talk show host Chuck Oliver said Monday he was guilty of “horrible timing” in asking UGA Coach Mark Richt a question about losing big games after Saturday night’s SEC Championship Game.
Oliver, part of the “Chuck and Chernoff Show” on 680 the Fan, said he used “awful, terrible, wretched, horrid judgment” in posing such a question after Georgia’s emotional 32-28 loss to Alabama, a game many are calling the greatest SEC championship game ever.
In the exchange at a post-game press conference, Oliver asked Richt: “There are some people, whether its fans, media or whomever else, that may want to make further conclusions about you or your quarterback specifically in big games. Would you have any response to those people?”
Richt: “I don’t know what you’re saying. Why don’t you just say it straight up what you’re trying to say.”
Oliver: “There will be people who say that you and Aaron Murray specifically come up short on the biggest stage against the biggest opponents. Do you have any response to that?”
Richt bluntly asked if it was Oliver who was saying that, and Oliver responded that’s what he hears on the radio every day. Richt then says, “That’s for you to worry about then — if that’s what you say then I’ll answer the question; if you think other people are saying that, I’m not worried about that.”
After leaving the press conference, Richt returned briefly and said, “If anybody thinks our guys didn’t play their tail off, and Aaron Murray didn’t play his tail off, they’re crazy. That’s unbelievable that anybody would even bring that up.”
Oliver said his first reaction after the exchange was, “I really wish I could undo the last 90 seconds of my life.”
Was Oliver out of line in asking the question when he did or did Richt overreact to a legitimate question?
View the Oliver-Richt confrontation.
Listen to Oliver’s explanation.
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587 comments Add your comment
To Tell the Truth
December 5th, 2012
9:49 am
GA Choked again! LMAO!!! 32 years and still counting!!!!
Enough Said!!!
Jim S
December 5th, 2012
9:55 am
Have to give credit to Oliver for admitting his mistake. If only more in the media could do the same. I thought Coach Richt handled it exactly the right way.
Thanks to Coach Richt, staff and team for a great season! Thanks!
Can’t wait till the bowl game and the on to another great year!
robert
December 5th, 2012
11:05 am
Hey RW. Where did you play ball if ever? Where did you coach if ever? You should apply as a head coach somewhere because of all you hindsight expertise. WTF ever
The1TrueDawg
December 5th, 2012
11:16 am
Another day where Oliver the Clown is still employed by 680 the fan is another day where I will not turn on the radio station and another day where I will boycott all of their advertisers.
The people on this blog who claim he asked a legitimate question are uneducated idiots who obviously did not actually attend UGA. The opinions of morons who care only about a football team they’ve adopted and not about the university and its longterm best interests are worthless. Garbage in, garbage out.
usjacket
December 5th, 2012
11:43 am
Chuck Oliver is a tool!
GT
December 5th, 2012
12:16 pm
Stan explain how you see a reporter’s job, maybe I misunderstand the job discription. Let’s allow an allusion that Georgia is a national prominent program because the coach goes to an evangelistic church. Religious persecution is when the victim is being weakened, not when we are giving them a pass on performance because they belong to a mass political movement and we are afraid to question them. News flash Georgia is not even a SEC power, their recruiting classes seldom equal their performance on the field, and they have rigged their schedule to get to the SEC finals two years in a row, leaving National Champion Alabama sitting at home last year and LSU, South Carolina and Florida this year. And this man Richt has managed to cobble this mediocre success into a multimillion dollar contract, renewed at the slightest breeze, so he can complain about the timing of a legitimate question. Win the game coach and you can improve the questions you have to answer.
Brent
December 5th, 2012
12:27 pm
Next year will be back to the same ol same ol
Got clemson and sc right off the bat. And of course fla and now finally lsu! With all the deflections soon to come, it will be back to
7-5
GT
December 5th, 2012
12:35 pm
Brent it won’t matter Richt has already fooled em into a long-term contract. They cooked the books made the team look better than it was and is, with the help of this paper which always ask the right questions at the right time. Now Richt can sit on his front porch eating peanuts quoting Bible verses while his players roam the streets of Athens looking for road kill.
The1TrueDawg
December 5th, 2012
12:46 pm
GT: You are a complete idiot. We “cooked the books” and “rigged the schedule”? We were 5 yards from winning the toughest conference in the country by far and taking the national championship!
I guess that’s all that Ga Tech fans can cling to…
Brent
December 5th, 2012
12:56 pm
Look at alabama and all the players that left last year and they STILL beat ga and ga with supposedly the same type of star players as bama had last year. The d will certainly revert back to willie days next year. It’s a shame the junior qb didn’t know he should spike the ball. Thought that was taught in high school
Brent
December 5th, 2012
12:57 pm
Then again did the coaches yell at him to do that. Maybe they were oblivious on what to do too.
Sorry to say
December 5th, 2012
12:58 pm
Oliver and Richt are in the right place – a town with plenty of winners but no championship caliber pro/college teams on the field. Neither appear to have the right question/answer or solutionn to that.
piss on 'em
December 5th, 2012
1:17 pm
I would like to take this moment to personally thank each and every one of you leg humpers who lived on the GT Boards this year (especially the “georgie tek” moron), spewing forth your filth flarn filth over and over and over until it seemed that none of you even have jobs or lives of your own.
Karma came to see you Sat night and that has to be the biggest nationally-televised Karmic Smack-Down in the entire history of the sports universe…..WELL DONE!!!!
A breathtaking gut punch for Dawgs…..The subtle sweet scent of a fresh ocean breeze and a fine wine for the rest of us….Stay classy butt sniffers.
david usry
December 5th, 2012
1:43 pm
OLIVER PUT IT IN PROSPECTIVE, HE WANTED TO ERASE 90 SEC. FROM HIS LIFE, NUF SAID!! COACH IS AN AMAZING GUY. WE ALL HAVE ARM CHAIR THOUGHTS ON WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE ON THE LAST DRIVE. I WOULD SUGGEST THAT WE GO GET A DEGREE, GET INTO COACHING, JOIN THE UGA STAFF AND SHOW THEM HOW TO FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS WE THINK THEY HAVE. IF YOU CAN’T DO THAT THEN JUST SIT BACK AND ENJOY THE RIDE.
pb
December 5th, 2012
1:55 pm
@ piss on ‘em,
Are you trying to be an idiot, or does it just come naturally? I forgot, you get your kicks trying to incite the dawgs fans, (leg humpers, as you call them.) Well, they may have lost Saturday nite, but came a lot closer than Ga Tech has lately, or probably will, in near future. And nothing you say about UGA and their fans will change that.
Where You At Dawg?
December 5th, 2012
2:02 pm
That Georgie tek guy was Thomas Brown. Rumor has it that after the loss last weekend, he went out back and hit himself in the head with a shovel and fell into a shallow grave he had dug with it.
R.I.P. Thomas Brown.
GT
December 5th, 2012
2:04 pm
Five yard? You think five yards separate you from the elite teams, five yards and 30 years since you have had the success you seem to think you are having now. You took Alabama off your regular schedule and replace them with Missouri the weakest team this year in the conference, so weak you had to recruit them from out of the conference. You play Florida after you have LSU and South Carolina soften them up two game in a row before you, while you play the only team weaker than Missouri, Kentucky and barely win and then you beat Fla. about the way Alabama beat you. You never think for a moment that team, UF, on a giving day particularly on a even schedule would beat you as you dream of the same lights of Alabama. You cook the books, you are a pretender who now is too good to answer questions mainly on why you think you can get away with being a pretender.
Guess Who Said It?
December 5th, 2012
2:34 pm
Allright Sports Fans, it’s time for another round of “Guess Who Said It?” Today’s category: SEC Head Coaches
Following Saturday’s SEC Championship Game at the Georgia Dome, which SEC Head Coach uttered these priceless revelations regarding his strategy for finally winning THE BIG GAME in the final 15 seconds:
“Well, spiking the ball takes time.”
“We just ran out of time.”
“…Just one of those games.”
BONUS QUESTION: Is it fair to say a head coach has overachieved when he takes his team to a conference championship game while still trying to comprehend the elusive reason why 999 out of 1000 other coaches spike the ball with 1st & goal, 15 seconds left and no timeouts?
tu87
December 5th, 2012
2:48 pm
Ever notice how cowardly these radio people are. Oliver feels that way about Richt and Murray but didn’t have the guts to say so, hiding behind the “Well that’s what I heard” defense.
Michael
December 5th, 2012
3:17 pm
Fired for what? Asking an appropriate question?
Lynn Breedlove
December 5th, 2012
3:58 pm
What a horrible question to ask any coach under these circumstances at any time. It is just like someone’s asking Chuck if he is still single because no woman would have him or because he is gay. Chuck should be immensely thankful that he asked this demeaning question to a man of characted like Mark Richt, or Mr. Oliver could find himself banned from campus as “Mr. College Football except for the University of Georgia.”
Apologized?
December 5th, 2012
4:04 pm
I read your story. I listened to the 3pm show on Monday. Maybe I missed it, but where exactly did Chuck Oliver “apologize” for his question, as the title of this blog states?
I didn’t hear an apology and I don’t see an apology in this story. “I’m very sorry Coach Richt for asking that question.” That’s an apology.
You see, the key to an apology usually involves the phrase, “I’m sorry.”
For example, “I’m so so sorry for making possibly the most boneheaded coaching call in college football history. Everyone knows you spike the ball and take 2-3 shots at the end zone in that situation. My feeble mind just thwarts any opportunity I have to win a big game for UGA players & fans…And for that, I’m sorry.”
Now THAT’S an apology and it’s also one I have yet to hear…..
680thefanhater
December 5th, 2012
8:20 pm
Chuck Oliver is a joke. He’s clueless on the radio and he’s lucky Chernoff knows what he’s doing. Unfortunately for 680 The Fan, that’s not going to be enough to get me to keep listening to them. I will now listen to 790 The Zone.
drew
December 6th, 2012
6:05 am
Chuck Oliver came across at the press conference the same way he comes across on radio…as an arrogant ass. His apology for being as ass is the only decent thing I’ve see (heard) him do.
drew
December 6th, 2012
6:08 am
At least Chernoff has a sense humor…that’s the only thing that makes the show listenable.
Sowega Ace
December 6th, 2012
7:14 am
The radio guy doesn’t work for UGA. He can ask what the heck he wants to ask.
ylojkt
December 6th, 2012
9:46 am
Fair question to ask, guess he went to McGarrity and whined about that as well. Maybe they can petition Mike Slive to ban difficult questions at press conferences.
hind tit
December 6th, 2012
10:40 am
What do you expect from someone who works for the low end an AM radio station.
cfwolf
December 6th, 2012
11:16 am
for all you nay sayers,, play or coach the game in real time,,with a team trying to kick you off the field,,It must be tough to BEAT a computer, tv. or newspaper, can they really fight back?????
Luck Choliver
December 6th, 2012
12:36 pm
How is it that you always have a top recruiting class; talent equal to anyones, yet 32 years since the last national championship?
KevinM
December 6th, 2012
3:26 pm
Richt has 1 SEC championship in 11 years….what’s his record in 5 SEC championship games? If not for the bowl system, there would be more pressure to replace him.
Fortunately, Richt has had bowls to go out on a winning note.
If Kentucky basketball had won 1 SEC championship in 11 years, that coach would be considered a failure. Tubby Smith won 5 SEC championships, one NC, a .760 win percentage in 10 years (26 wins/year), and he struggled to keep the fan’s faith at the end of his tenure.
Richt is a good coach, but he has his limtations when you talk about being a national contender.
Oliver should have stood his ground and accepted the Richt rebuttal and moved on. He didn’t need to apologize.
For those who are no longer listening to 680, I live by the rule that anytime the Dogs or Braves specials are on the air, I make sure I change the channel.
2 teams who always end up underachieving.
cliff
December 6th, 2012
5:10 pm
im a tech fan,and caint stand the bulldogs! but i will have to admit it really made me mad when chuck did what he did…..GOLDEN RULE !
You Are Accountable As Head Coach
December 6th, 2012
8:59 pm
So Chuck tells CMR that people will want to know why CMR never seems to be able to win the big games just a few minutes after CMR ripped defeat from the jaws of victory to end the biggest UGA game in 30 years.
It was certainly on point….Couldn’t have been more timely….And it caused CMR to pitch a fit and get up and leave, further avoiding the question.
Don’t see a problem……
It's radio, folks.
December 8th, 2012
2:32 pm
Richt has won two titles, played in five SECCG’s. An average of being in the dome every other year, basically. (11years/5 appearances= an appearance every 2.2 years). Saint Vincent, who had the greatest college running back ever, won five in 25 years, when you didn’t have to win the title in a Champ game.
I like listening to Chuck and Chernoff, but it’s a radio show. Their opinion is no different than anyone else’s, no more or less informed. They just happen to have a job telling you what their opinion is.
Don’t like it, don’t listen. Don’t like McDonald’s, go to Krystal. See a pattern here?
David Puddy
December 8th, 2012
3:57 pm
Chuck & Turnoff are both immature nitwits. Oliver was trying to get attention and be ‘cutting edge’. Turnoff does the same nitwit stuff. Recall a ‘12 pre-season interview with Chipper and the first question was if he would approve a trade mid-season to a playoff quality team if the Braves faulter. The guy is retiring after an entire career with 1 club and Turnoff somehow thinks this is a logical and smart question. What a nitwit. Moved to 790 during Turnoff’s much-too-long daily show, but have tired of the guy constantly coming off with the Rich Little routine, so finally migrated to 92.9 where it seems to have a good balance of insight and basic sports discussion.
GTFan
December 8th, 2012
6:56 pm
Shock Jock trying to make a name for himself. Richt, Murray, etc. coached and played like champs. They have nothing of which to be ashamed. These Sports Jockeys are no different from the Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys of the world, they only want to hear themselves blow on about a game that all of us already know what happened and how.
Black Knight '88
December 9th, 2012
9:37 am
Chuck was a nerd at Central Gwinnett in the 80s & did not even play football. He learned it from a book.