Today’s fare: Athletic Board meeting, Butts-Mehre dedication and hoops
ATHENS – Good morning. It’s going to be another busy day on the Bulldogs beat.
- The UGA Athletic Association board of directors will hold its regular quarterly meeting on campus. The agenda appears pretty light, although the board will hear, as usual, from UGA President Michael Adams, athletic director Greg McGarity, faculty athletics representative David Shipley and treasurer Tim Burgess. Other items on the agenda include “renovation” of the Sanford Stadium video board and distribution of student football tickets. Also expect discussion of this year’s “Hartman Fund” contributions, which you can read about here, and the ticket price for the Georgia-Florida football game. The Florida athletic board tentatively approved a $10 price increase at its Dec. 15 meeting, pending a decision by UGA. UPDATE: McGarity said today that any increase would not take effect until the 2012 game. The board meeting starts at 1:30 p.m.; check back to ajc.com for updates.
- The dedication ceremony for the recently expanded and renovated Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall — headquarters of the UGA Athletic Association and the Bulldogs’ football program –- will be held at 3:30 p.m. The $33-million project added 53,000 square feet of new space and renovated 23,000 square feet of existing space. Among the participants in the dedication ceremony: Adams, McGarity, coach Mark Richt, senior center Ben Jones and former UGA All-American safety John Little, captain of the 1986 team, the first to use the Butts-Mehre building. The expansion added a 12,000-square-foot strength and conditioning area, a 8,500-square-foot athletic training area with four therapy pools, new coaches’ offices and meeting rooms, a 1,900-square-foot student-athlete lounge and a multi-purpose room with synthetic turf that the football team can use for walk-through practices in inclement weather.
- And there’s some basketball on tap tonight. The women’s team concludes its home schedule with a game against Auburn in Stegeman Coliseum, while the men’s team plays at Florida. Here’s a Q&A by the AJC’s Carroll Rogers with Lady Bulldogs starting power forward Porsha Phillips and her brother, Cincinnati Reds starting second baseman Brandon Phillips. And here’s my story previewing the men’s game against the Gators, who have built a wide lead in the SEC East with a series of narrow victories, including a double-overtime win in Athens last month.
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71 comments Add your comment
schmeckdawg
February 24th, 2011
2:04 pm
corey @ 1:45, Everyone on my father’s side of the family graduated from UNC and while I pull for “The Heels,” I am a DAWG fan all of the way. Now that being said Carolina’s facilities are second to NONE and when they complete the rennovations on Kenan Stadium that place will be even more beautiful. My point as I have stated in an earlier post, is with the financial resources that The UGA has, their facilities should be tops in the country!!!!!
red and black
February 24th, 2011
2:07 pm
Yes a GRADUATE…he had a brush with th law for tax evasion…he is a work release program…guess he didn’t tkae personal finance classes.
schmeckdawg
February 24th, 2011
2:07 pm
Agreed 100% 59bulldawg. That is where I was going with comment about being able to build a full size indoor facility. By the way is that your handle because you graduated from UGA in 1959?
59bulldawg
February 24th, 2011
2:07 pm
LOL! Guess not!
59bulldawg
February 24th, 2011
2:09 pm
No! Just my DOB! Graduated in 82.
schmeckdawg
February 24th, 2011
2:10 pm
Me too! I was born the day that UGA with Fran Tarkenton beat awbarn for the 1959 SEC Championship!
red and black
February 24th, 2011
2:12 pm
yeah…he is putting that engineering degree to great use….my point is all schools have their success stories and all have their screw ups…GT just likes to pretend they don’t have the latter.
59bulldawg
February 24th, 2011
2:12 pm
That’s pretty good! My mother attended Athens High with Fran the Man!
schmeckdawg
February 24th, 2011
2:15 pm
Interesting stuff there 59bulldawg!
Bazooka Joe
February 24th, 2011
2:16 pm
Buckeye, yes that is indeed a grueling schedule to say the least – even with TSUN in a funk not unlike our own, its a rivalry game and we all know what can happen in rivalry games ! Of course you know people will bust on you anyway, just like people love to slam the dogs, gators, tide, etc…
It will be interesting to see how our teams handle ourselves next season – you short handed for the first few games, us with a lot to prove. I hope we can man up and be a contender. I do have a good gut feeling about us at least being in the mix, but the gut wont get it done !
proud UGA grad
February 24th, 2011
2:21 pm
I have a better story about a GT grad than red and black. I work at a major corporate jet company in Savannah. One of our engineers, a GT grad, thought he had locked himself out of his car….got a locksmith to get it open, wlaked back into his office and discovered he had locked his keys back in the car a second time.
Terry Shirey, Sr.
February 24th, 2011
3:12 pm
Great, now the athletic association can join they city of Jacksonville along with the hotels and merchants in screwing the Georgia fans (they represent the vast majority that travel from out of town and must stay two nights minimum). Florida can raise the price to its fans because they don’t have the additional expense of overnight stays.
Austin
February 24th, 2011
3:17 pm
David-
So true, McGarity likes to thump his chest, but the weight rooms at SEC top contenders Bama & Fla are 80-100% LARGER than Georgia’s.
I agree, the team working out of mobile homes last season was embarrassing, it’s amateurish, and not the kind of excellence you’d expect from a top SEC college.
No wonder the team only won 6 games and lost so many games in the 4th quarter.
McGarity’s still light years behind, but at least the team is out of the mobile homes.
CHEAP.edu
February 24th, 2011
3:19 pm
What’s face value on the tix for Georgia-Fla, $40?
Try this on for size: Red River Shootout: $110!!!!
Mick
February 24th, 2011
3:29 pm
Great job Mr. Damon Evans on raising the money for this new facility. I am one to give credit where credit is due. Perhaps Mr. McGarity will remember to thank Mr. Evans for raising the money.
ugaclassof2004
February 24th, 2011
3:32 pm
My thoughts which I’m sure 90% of you will hate:
You have to understand Richt’s philosophy in regards to running a football team, which he borrowed from Bobby Bowden. And that philosophy is that if you make an investment in a player as a person in addition to teaching them the game of football, the results will take care of themselves on the field. This of course is grounded in Richt’s Christian principles which guides him as a person. And Richt has been very successful with this approach in the past. But the flaw in this line of thinking is that ultimately the measuring stick for success in college football isn’t in producing players quality human beings but in winning National Titles. In the elite programs( USC, Texas, Florida, Alabama) contending for a National Title is a priority. But for Richt, winning a National Title has NEVER been a clear cut goal.
Richt has always, in my mind; had a bridesmaids mentality in regards to success. It’s like he’s driven to win conference titles but in regards to National Titles he’s kind of like ” Well if it happens it happens.” Well hell coach, you took a proactive approach in reaching and winning the SEC championship! You clearly didn’t leave it to fate then so why do it when your team is on the verge of contending for a National Title? This sort of mental sabotage can wreck a coach and a team. If you AS THE HEAD COACH, don’t make winning the National Title a priority, then your team has no clear cut goal to shoot for! Players will rise to the level of expectations that are put out for them. If they feel that they are part of a championship program, they will play to that level. I don’t think Richt has to sacrifice his personal convictions to win a National Title. But he does need to realign his focus a bit to at least make it a goal!
Another problem with Richt, and this is a BIG problem with him as a leader; is that he isn’t the best at evaluating talent. The best leaders aren’t necessarily geniuses, but they know how to hire talented people around them. And they have to be objective enough to be able to determine when something is working and when something isn’t. Richt has never been particularly objective, and nowhere was this more evident than in his choice for coordinators.
So 2011 is a big question mark in my mind. I mean can Mark Richt become hungry again( something he hasn’t been since 2007)? Can he really change his mindset in regards to National Titles? Can he suddenly become good at talent evaluation, which is something he’s never been particularly great at? And the answers to all of these questions are ” I don’t know?”. And ” I don’t know” is not particularly a great place for a program to be in going into it’s 11th season with the same head coach. But as the Zen Master says, “We’ll see.”.
MJ
February 24th, 2011
4:10 pm
UGACLASSof2004
Thanks for the post no one read, too off topic, re-read the article by Tim it’s on: Board meeting, Bldg dedication, and B-Ball, then try and make a relevant comment.
Thanks,
Mick
North GA Dawg
February 24th, 2011
4:20 pm
Boy, I can’t wait to pay MORE for the annual arse kicking in JAX. I’m about at the end of my rope with the athletic association. I went from 8 tickets to two this year, probably will stop all together after this season.
ATL_DAWG
February 24th, 2011
6:12 pm
Georgia actually has 20,500 sq feet of strength and conditioning area little bit bigger than BAMA you add 12,000 sq ft + 8500 sq feet and it equals 20,500 sq ft of area
Diane
February 24th, 2011
9:50 pm
Can someone tell us where the $33 million came from?
ATLSN
February 25th, 2011
9:48 am
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