From Athens- Friday Thoughts

While I'm not a card carrying member of the McGarity fan club, I'm also not as down on him as others are. There's so much more behind the scenes string pulling and power pushing going on that we're not privy to that it makes it easy to blame one guy for all the ills. Not saying that Buc or anyone else is doing that, but at the risk of getting political, McGarity is much like the president - a puppet. His strings get pulled by many different puppet masters behind the scenes and he becomes the mouthpiece for which directions the winds of the day blow down Mahogany Row.

What I've never liked about him is that there's a lacking substance about him and certainly he lacks the characteristic of brutal honesty in the public eye. I am by no means calling him a liar, I am merely saying he's a pure politician. Ok, yeah I know - they're one in the same. Case in point - in MR's dismissal press conference, he flat out refused to answer the question posed to him of why Richt was canned. Now that's a valid question and yes, maybe the timing was inappropriate, but it's a valid question nonetheless. McGarity weaseled his way out of it by saying "that's between Mark and myself." I understand not wanting to pile on to a man who you just fired that has meant so much to the Georgia program while he sits right next to you, but that question should have been answered with: "Now is not the appropriate time to discuss the reasoning, but I will get into that in the coming days as this program moves ahead into the future." Then, when the time was right, lay out the reasoning why he was fired. It took Richt's honesty about five minutes after McGarity was questioned to give the right answer: "Obviously they have lost faith in my ability to get the job done."

And don't get me started on the "I decided to make a change while making the drive back from the Georgia Tech game" BS comment. If anyone believes that is when the decision was made, then I have beachfront property in Kansas I'll sell them at a song. Richt's fate was sealed long before that game and everyone with a shred of intelligence knew it. The idea that McGarity would try to sell that hogwash to the public goes to show that he's nothing more than a politician who thinks people can't see through it.

That being said, he's the AD of a major Div 1 program and with it comes the expectation of a lot of this behavior and character. Sadly so.

Good go SouthernDawg.

Two word explanation that has been mentioned here many times . . . . Mahogany Row.

In the military services it is referred to as . . . .

Working through the "Chain of Command".