Radakovich’s exit shows disparity between Tech, Georgia
The financial issues that Dan Radakovich dealt with at Tech won't be an issue at Clemson. (AP photo)
It’s almost always about money. There may be other factors in changing jobs: Going back home, returning to an alma mater, or, as Dan Radakovich said Tuesday, having the desire to “get into a collegiate environment. I hadn’t had the opportunity to be in a pure college town.”
A nice sentiment. But primarily it’s still about the money, either what one can make or one can spend.
When Radakovich resigned from the athletic director’s job at Georgia Tech for the same position at Clemson, it said as much about his former employer than his new one. Radakovich won’t have to sell a ticket or plead with donors at Clemson, which is what he had to do at Tech. The pressure for victories and the chase for dollars is greater than ever in college athletes – too great, actually, but that’s a topic for another column – and right now Tech just isn’t all that attractive.
Radakovich won’t say that. But he’ll use words like “challenges” and “difficulties.” He was weary of trying to get people to “jump off the connector” in hopes he could alter their perceptions of what the metro campus looked like. He won’t criticize Tech’s high academic requirements or limited number of majors, but he’ll amplify on the difficulty coaches have to convince recruits that the school can provide an “enriching” experience.
That’s why he was so driven to improve and add facilities. “Sometimes they [recruits] make their decision first with their eyes,” he said.
Here’s the problem: While Radakovich denies also that the Tech AD position is a “steppingstone” job, relative to others in major college athletics, that’s basically what he just affirmed by leaving one ACC job for another, just two hours up the interstate. He is close with Clemson’s retiring AD, Terry Don Phillips, and had coveted the impending vacancy for several months.
Greg McGarity knows what drives Radakovich and what wears on him (or any athletic director). (Curtis Compton/AJC)
None of this bodes well for the perception of Tech on the college sports landscape, and we haven’t addressed the ever-present shadow cast by the beast in Athens. Georgia and Georgia Tech are different campuses with different missions. But they’re rival programs in close proximity of each other. The financial situations at the two athletic departments are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
According to the Equity in Athletics database, which tracks budgets of every collegiate athletic program, Tech’s sports teams had total revenues of $46,910,364 for the one-year period ending June 30, 2012. Georgia was nearly double that at $91,670,613.
Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said he wasn’t surprised by Radakovich’s exit. The two have known each other for years and speak often. He knows what drives the man. “When he was at American University, he missed the bright lights of big-time college athletics,” McGarity said.
He also knows what can wear down an athletic director.
“The financial challenges to run a college athletic program are much more difficult at some institutions than others,” McGarity said. “When you have a strong fan base and full stadiums and when you have a tremendous level of support, it makes your job easier from a fundraising standpoint. Financial circumstances can be taxing mentally. You’re always worrying about where the next dollar will come from. It wears on athletic directors just as it wears on anyone. There’s a constant pressure.”
Radakovich was back in his Edge Athletic Center office Tuesday for some desk cleanout. Asked about the challenges of running athletics at the Institute, he didn’t hesitate: “Always looking at ways to get people to consistently come to the stadium and the venues. When we’re winning, attendance is good. When we’re OK, attendance is OK. When we’re not winning, attendance falls. The challenge is to create a bigger core. We tried a lot of things to get that to happen.”
Some have characterized Radakovich’s decision to leave as “jumping ship.” That’s overstatement. Tech isn’t in financial straits. The football team, while struggling, isn’t devastated. But his departure is a reality check for the school.
Radakovich tries to minimize Georgia comparisons, saying, “The comparisons aren’t fair because the schools aren’t chartered the same, and they don’t have the same level of resources athletically. … Georgia has been up the street for the last 100 years. It’s a factor. It’s something that you have to manage each and every day. But it doesn’t make the list of why we do what we do.”
He was still saying “we” Tuesday. A day earlier, he was putting on a bright orange sports jacket at a news conference. “We” is past tense. And the jacket he put on Monday might as well have been green.
By Jeff Schultz
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517 comments Add your comment
Running Board
October 30th, 2012
3:27 pm
Jeff, a great article. The reality can be a little painful at times. As a fan you always want to win and be considered the best. This will be another challenge and opportunity to find the right person for the AD job. When the Notre Dame’s and Stanford’s of college sports can put winning teams on the field so can Tech. My humble opinion would be Tech needs to get a solid personality that can sell the program and the great potential of the Institution.
George Stein
October 30th, 2012
3:29 pm
If you taught them, you should have some degree of insight how they got out, SHD.
WnE
October 30th, 2012
3:32 pm
The real disparity….
October 30th, 2012
2:49 pm
GT is an academic school. UGA is an athletic school. That’s how it’s always been.
All you had to do to make that conclusion is look at the endowments of each, alongside those sports revenues. UGA has about 500 million in endowment, and GT has 1.6 billion.
_____________
This crappy mindset by you is why GT will never attract sidewalk alums like other Elite Academic Schools like ND, Michigan and UNC.
This is a friggin sports blog, not a discussion of Academic endowments.
Maybe you should ask WHY GT chooses to get their a$$3s handed to them when they have the resources to create that large of an endowment and then do so little for big-time sports that ALSO represent the Institute publicly?
If we can build that large of an endowment, then maybe we could find a way to fund our Sports teams a little better.
BTW both Texas & Texas A&M have endowments of over $8 billion, and Michigan also has a very large endowment and are the only 3 public schools ranked among the Top-10 colleges WRT endowment resources.
GT tries to be a FB factory, but we are simply very BAD at it.
Also, once you get outside of the Top-25 colleges, the rest of the schools that are ranked 26-100, there isn’t much that seperates them, GT is usually ranked from 35-45 while UGA is usually ranked from 55-65.
Not a lot of difference unless you happen to major in Engineering, and that is the same for the rest of the schools from 26-100.
One major problem with my fellow GT alums is that they spend too much time denigrating other colleges and other’s academic accomplishments, doing so does nothing to make GT look better in anyone’s eyes.
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
3:38 pm
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
3:10 pm
Um, right. Two words: Stephon Marbury.
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
3:38 pm
GT tries to be a FB factory, but we are simply very BAD at it.
How does GT ever try to be a football factory? They don’t put much effort into football at all from an institutional standpoint. The biggest problem with GT is what O’Leary said. GT wants to be MIT during the week and Alabama on the weekend. Its simply not possible and it leads to really unrealistic expectations from fans. We have won 8 or more games only 12 of the last 52 years and fans still expect it to be the norm for some reason.
billyBobjacket
October 30th, 2012
3:38 pm
GTBob…OMG! If you have to ask, then you clearly never spent any time as a young man in Athens! Atlanta has a ton to offer, but more for adults or the “urban” crowd. Athens for a college aged kid or a single young recent grad is in a whole different class. I did two years of grad school there between Tech and medical school, and the nightlife/party scene/music scene was awesome.
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:39 pm
Interesting article and interesting insights from all…. I remember going to UGA/Tech games at Bobby Dodd Stadium in the 70’s and it was life or death and we always had a blast… I still remember the Robert Lavette game at Sanford Stadium where we were dead in the water until Robert got hurt. And my freshman year when I sat thru the entire game while Pepper Rodgers was Wish-boning us to death in the freezing rain… We need this rivalry to get back to that somehow?!
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
3:40 pm
WnE
October 30th, 2012
3:32 pm
Good post. That deserves a rousing “harumph, harumph”!!
Sugar Hill Dawg
October 30th, 2012
3:40 pm
George Stein – ever spent much time in a Georgia Public (or Private, for that matter) high school? If you can’t read between the lines, then I have to wonder if you really are a Tech grad.
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
3:40 pm
GTBob…OMG! If you have to ask, then you clearly never spent any time as a young man in Athens!
I have spent a lot of time there. Its nothing special. This may shock you but there are places to drink in Atlanta also.
Dawglasville
October 30th, 2012
3:40 pm
WnE – Holy cow. I forgot what I was going to say. No one wants to turn that mirror on themselves. Of course, that is why things stay the way they are. UGA, Tech, all fans do the same the same thing. “Yeah but…” There is no reason why Tech shouldn’t be an elite basketball program. If Duke and UNC can do it, why not the Jackets?
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:41 pm
I’ve always felt that Atlanta was a tremendous recruiting advantage for Tech, especially from a BBall standpoint… Radakovic had it right by getting the venues done up right for first impressions…. This has to pay off for Gregory and Johnson….
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
3:41 pm
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:39 pm
“And my freshman year when I sat thru the entire game while Pepper Rodgers was Wish-boning us to death in the freezing rain..”.
Dude, that was MY Freshman year as well. Go figure.
George Stein
October 30th, 2012
3:42 pm
I attended one, SHD.
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:44 pm
THE GRINCH… Thank the Good Lord I lived in Hill Hall at the time right across from the stadium parking lot…
Long Time Fan
October 30th, 2012
3:45 pm
Tech’s limited curriculum absolutely plays a role when a high school student is studing potential colleges. It did with me. I am 63 years old and have loved Tech my entire life. As a high school senior, I would have loved to have gone to Tech and had the grades to get in, but I wanted to study English/Journalism and you don’t go to Tech tp study that. I ended up going to a smaller state school near my home. That is a built-in advantage UGA will always have over Tech.
I don’t know how many Tech fans/graduates will agree with me, but it would suit me fine if Tech ended all athletic competion, especially football, with UGA. I’m not especially fond of losing nine out of every ten football games to UGA. The money we might get from that rivalry(?) isn’t worth the beating we get every year. And if we have to play them in football, let’s do it at the first of the season so we can get it over with and move on.
Comparing Tech to UGA in athletics or academics is like comparing apples to oranges. The sooner both fan bases realize that and quit talking about it, the happier all of us will be.
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
3:46 pm
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:44 pm
Uh oh, you lived in one of the “smart” dorms.
I had to trudge up that nasty hill to Russell before I could escape the wind and rain.
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:48 pm
LTF… Look at all the schools trying to add football now…. Even Reinhardt U. is fielding a team next year, Why? for the Total College Experience… You have too much tradition and just have to get the right folks in the right spots…
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
3:51 pm
I don’t know how many Tech fans/graduates will agree with me, but it would suit me fine if Tech ended all athletic competion, especially football, with UGA.
I agree with you and I have advocated it for years now. It is only hurtful to GT to keep it going.
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
3:51 pm
Long Time Fan
October 30th, 2012
3:45 pm
Just curious about your thoughts. How do you think it would be if GT were in the Big East? I had a friend (tech fan) saying something about it this past weekend.
View Point
October 30th, 2012
3:52 pm
Gtu is good at two things cheating and crime.
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
3:53 pm
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
3:51 pm
I would hate to see that and I don’t think most GT fans would agree. No Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc? That would be sad.
UGAJD
October 30th, 2012
3:53 pm
It is true that GT does not recruit the same athletes as UGA, Alabama, Florida, etc., but it wouldn’t make sense for Tech to spend its limited resources to recruit athletes it has no chance of signing. Most highly recruited athletes are simply not going to consider GT, because either the academics make Tech unattractive, or because they believe (realistically or not) that a top 10 football program is their best path to the NFL. Also, as Radakovich implies, the optics of 95,000 cheering fans and multi-million dollar athletic facilities are difficult things to trump if you are GT.
Dawglasville
October 30th, 2012
3:54 pm
Long Time Tech Fan – I completely agree with you that it is the limited curriculum that hurts the Jackets the most when it comes to fielding a football team.
GT
October 30th, 2012
3:54 pm
We do alright, one year on a drought and we are cannibalizing each other. Rad was always going to another school, showed in his personality, he’s got that plastic corporate look. Why risk being fired, if Johnson continues on his path and basketball on it’s, you got a fired AD. Smart move on his part except South Carolina may be more of a pain than Georgia and unlike Tech he will be expected to beat South Carolina every year which ain’t going to happen until the Ole ball coach leaves.
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:55 pm
The ACC is a lot more stable…. plus Basketball is where GT can reclaim it’s glory quicker…
Sugar Hill Dawg
October 30th, 2012
3:56 pm
BobDawg and The Grinch – that was my senior year. To add to my misery, as I helped my girlfriend (wife for 37 years) load some of her stuff into my car at Creswell’s parking lot to haul back to Duluth for Christmas break, one of my older brother’s buddies (a HUGE Tech fan) spotted me and, well, proceeded to make me wish some lightning would nail his fanny.
collegeballfan
October 30th, 2012
3:57 pm
From gatech.edu
“…Georgia Tech offers coursework leading to degrees in thirty-six undergraduate majors,…”
From uga.edu
“…The University of Georgia offers 162 majors in 28 areas of study…”
This is the big difference in the two institutions. UGA is the state university. GT is a specialty institution.
View Point
October 30th, 2012
3:58 pm
One sell of Gtu is a walk to the the Cheetah…a dangerous walk but hey
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
3:58 pm
So with the new Notre Dame/ACC deal… How long before Tech is on the Notre Dame schedule/rotation for football…Anyone know????
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:00 pm
Sugar Hill Dawg
October 30th, 2012
3:56 pm
Funny stuff!
If that was your senior year then you’re my brother’s age (Class of 75). He was the one who convinced me to come to UGA.
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
4:00 pm
SHD & THE GRINCH… that was the coldest I’ve ever been at any sporting event bar none…. and Tech just pounded us… I wonder if they every threw the ball that game??
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:02 pm
Sugar Hill Dawg
October 30th, 2012
3:56 pm
By the way, congrats on 37 years of marriage. That’s impressive, especially nowadays.
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:04 pm
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
4:00 pm
I tried to huddle under an umbrella that day (they were allowed back then) and hardly moved the entire afternoon. When I was finally ready to leave I could barely stand up I was so cold and stiff. Agreed, coldest and most miserable I’ve ever been at a sporting event.
Sugar Hill Dawg
October 30th, 2012
4:04 pm
I think my wife’s more deserving! My two boys are Plainsmen (one’s AU Class of 2012, the other AU Class of 2014) – having metro ATL between me and them was a nicer situation than following then old man!
collegeballfan
October 30th, 2012
4:05 pm
Here are some interesting football numbers on UGA and GT.
UGA won -loss-tie from 1960 through 2012 to date:
416 189 15
GT won-loss-tie from 1960 through 2012 to date:
329 269 10
UGA won-loss-tie from 1920 to 1959:
248 142 20
GT won-loss-tie from 1920 to 1959:
250 136 21
There are several ways to look at these numbers and several explanations of what these numbers tell us. I will defer to each to you to make that determination.
:
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:07 pm
collegeballfan
October 30th, 2012
4:05 pm
I know what it means – both schools have played a lot of football games.
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
4:08 pm
SHD & TG… I remember also my roommate at Hill Hall was turned down for a date with a gal from either Church Hall or Creswell because “she had to help her Daddy drive the cows to Alabama that weekend”… We still don’t know to this day if that was one of the worst Date excuses ever or the actual truth!
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:10 pm
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
4:08 pm
Good one!! I’ll have to share that with my single daughter for future use.
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
4:10 pm
I would hate to see that and I don’t think most GT fans would agree. No Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc? That would be sad.
More GT fans agree then you would think. It has been discussed many times. Id be open to keeping games in sports other than football. Although I don’t think anyone really cares about those games. In football its just an automatic loss that the fans seem to care less and less about every year. It creates too much fan apathy to really be worth it anymore.
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:12 pm
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
4:10 pm
Maybe football is your achilles heels, but I can’t imagine your bball fans not wanting to see the ACC teams come to town. Heck, I’ve been to some tech games. My boys played bball in high school and love Duke.
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
4:16 pm
Maybe football is your achilles heels, but I can’t imagine your bball fans not wanting to see the ACC teams come to town.
Im not talking about modifying our ACC schedules at all, im just talking about the games with UGA.
UGA and will lay off of GT IF ...
October 30th, 2012
4:16 pm
GT fans admit that GT football has been mostly on the level of App. State or Duke or Rice or Tulane but REFUSE TO ADMIT IT.
GT is a fine school but with VERY limited offerings. Now, to insist on playing ACC ball ( as weak as that is) is foolish. See Duke. End of story.
Go Dogs.
UGA class of 71&73
old dog
October 30th, 2012
4:17 pm
I’d love to bash Tech, but I actually want them to do well. I have listened to the craziest stuff…….it is B.S. Tech has the opportunity to do well, and has showed it in the past. You just are having a tough time now. I cannot stand Spurrier (jealous, I know) but if he were at Tech ya’ll would be kicking everybody’s tail. Ya’ll have done it before, and can again. You just do not have the right system as it stands to bring in the recruits. No true QB will come to Tech where he is the equivalent of human sacrifice in that system! Therefore, you do not have a stud at the helm. Tech has too long and proud of a history to keep coming up with lame excuses. CPJ beat us when he got there with somebody else’s players….the talent level fell as much because he is not a good recruiter as well as the fact that the system in today’s football will not bring in top-notch talent. Again, hire a stud coach and see what happens…..as the immortal Bum Phillips said about a good coach: “He can take his’n and whoop your’n and take your’n and whoop his’n!” This may appear to go against the grain of what I said, with the talent level ya’ll have brought in, but watch and see…good coaching breeds wins/breeds recruiting/breeds success. Teckies, ya’ll can be as good as you want to be if you will get after it!
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
4:17 pm
GTBob…. You guys may be closer to turning the corner than you think… plus you are part of the ACC and with Notre Dame now kinda/sorta a participant, things will get better. You get the right AD in here like you had when O’Leary was hear and things could turn very fast….
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:18 pm
GTBob
October 30th, 2012
4:16 pm
Oh, I thought you were jumping on that “eliminate all sports” bandwagon.
Sugar Hill Dawg
October 30th, 2012
4:18 pm
BobDawg – couldn’t have been Church Hall – those girls weren’t allowed to date! I think it was the reaction to the “UGA men are drunken bums and their women are a bunch of whores” comment by a state legislator with a freshman daughter in Brumby (also my freshman year). He visited her on the Friday night before the Auburn game (the one in which Pat Sullivan won the Heisman – absolutely lit us up – our only loss that year). I happened to be in Brumby that night hanging out with some of my female buddies from Duluth HS days – I’d say the legislator’s observations weren’t too far off. I think I tripped over several guys passed out on the 8th floor trying to stagger to the elevator for my short walk back to Russell.
Rick James
October 30th, 2012
4:20 pm
@The real disparity….
GT is an academic school. UGA is an athletic school. That’s how it’s always been.
All you had to do to make that conclusion is look at the endowments of each, alongside those sports revenues. UGA has about 500 million in endowment, and GT has 1.6 billion.
—————————————————————————————————————-
The standard Georgia Tech excuse…
BobDawg
October 30th, 2012
4:21 pm
…wasn’t Homer Rice the really good AD at Tech for years???
The Grinch
October 30th, 2012
4:24 pm
I think GT can stand to have a “gimmick” offense, but not the triple option of Johnson.
Your defense should be a 4-3 and you need a good d-coordinator.
The offense is a different thing. Johnson’s triple option relies on smaller lineman and, face it, you won’t attract many talented receivers.
I’m not saying June Jones should be GT’s coach, but someone like him could possibly have some success. Throw the ball 50 time a game and have the ability to spread the field and strike like lightning. Tech could then recruit some of the many talented QBs in the state, WRs, and even the big OL. To those high school kids wanting to get to the NFL it would be a more attractive option than the current offense.
The excitement of a high octane offense would probably attract a lot of fans as well.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents worth and I’m out of here for the day. Have a good one, everyone.