On a Sunday evening the day before classes began for the fall semester at the University of Georgia, incoming freshmen pulled out smartphones to snap selfies with Mark Richt inside Sanford Stadium.
Entering year 15 as the Bulldogs’ head football coach, Richt may seem as synonymous with the university as the Arch, the Chapel Bell and Uga the mascot.
Even though Georgia had just wrapped up the camp portion of its preseason practices, Richt looked about as relaxed as could be when members of the Class of 2019 posed for photos with him.
“We’re all lining up getting ready to take the picture of the “G,” Richt said of students forming the letter together on the field. “Coach, can you come here?’ I knew if I started one it would avalanche so it avalanched for five or 10 minutes until finally everyone stood still to take the picture and I was able to escape, but it’s fun to be with those kids.”
Those new college students grew up literally knowing Georgia football with Richt as the coach. From David Greene to Matthew Stafford to Aaron Murray.
“They got to witness a lot of great football and a lot of great players,” Richt said.
SEC championships in 2002 and 2005. A Sugar Bowl victory in 2007 that led to a No. 1 preseason ranking the next season. The epic SEC title game against Alabama in 2012 that nearly put Georgia in the BCS national championship game.
"We were a very good team,” Richt said. “We know how close we were to winning that game and having a chance to play for a national championship, but we didn’t get it done."
Richt has won a lot of games — 136-48 overall — with nine seasons of at least 10 wins but hasn’t won the whole enchilada or played for the national title, but he certainly has endured in a profession where that’s becoming increasingly rare.
Since Georgia hired Richt, Florida and Vanderbilt are on their fifth coach, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ole Miss their fourth.
“I think it shows that he’s durable,” Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said. “I think it shows that the young men he’s had a chance to lead have really respected his leadership and his mentorship whether it be helping them in their professional career or helping them have a career in the NFL or a career in a nonathletic profession. He’s been able to maintain a very competitive program. Sure, probably every coach in the conference, every fan base in the conference thinks their team should win a national championship and an SEC championship. I think he’s been able to be relevant on an annual basis. …When they mention those that are in contention for SEC championships, Georgia’s in that discussion.”
Richt was asked at a UGA Day fan stop this spring when would Georgia win another national championship and was told that 1980 — the last time the Bulldogs won one — was a long time ago?
"It was a long time ago,” Richt answered then. “I don't know. Maybe this year. Think that would be a good time?"
Georgia’s ended the last two seasons in the Gator and Belk Bowls, but finished No. 9 in the polls last season.
All of which has left Georgia being portrayed as a program that underachieves. It comes at a time where there are more resources than ever now being directed at the program, including paying coordinators Jeremy Pruitt and Brian Schottenheimer $1.3 million and $957,200 respectively.
“I know people are tired of hearing it, but everything’s set for us to get there if we put in the work,” senior outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins said. “I know what it takes to get there. We got (to the SEC title game) freshman year. We just have to get guys to really work. I’m tired of not being there, tired of always being there, always getting cut short, not making it all the way. I feel like it’s our responsibility to the fans, to the donors, to make it this year, to make it all the way to the SEC and just get it all done.”
Richt came to Georgia and won the program’s first SEC title in 2002, its first in 20 years
“And now it’s 10,” he said.
Jon Stinchcomb, an offensive lineman and captain on that 2002 Georgia team, said another is coming soon.
“2015, there’s no doubt about it, right?” Stinchcomb said. “We’ve got (Nick) Chubb.”
Stinchcomb is now a member of Georgia’s athletic board of directors.
“I think coach Richt and his staff has done a tremendous job in keeping his football program at an elite level and helping raise great men as they leave the university’s campus,” he said.
“Some things have been bad fortune, some times the other team outperforms you or outcoaches you,” said Damon Evans, Georgia’s athletic director from 2004-10, “but all in all Mark’s done a very, very good job at Georgia. …You’ve got to give Richt credit because at Georgia you always have a chance and you’ve got to give Richt credit for putting Georgia in position to always have a chance.”
Georgia got to the SEC title game in 2011 and 2012 and after missing out the last two seasons is the pick by the media to win the East this year.
“It’s been an opportunistic time for Missouri but give them credit because they’ve been able to go to Atlanta the last two years,” McGarity said. “There’s not a magic number (of how often Georgia should win the SEC title). Everybody’s trying to do the same thing. We’re trying to be there every year. That’s one of the goals in our program to do what you need to do to get to Atlanta. When you don’t go, it makes you want to work that much harder to put yourself in position to go back to Atlanta. …You just want to hopefully be working a little harder and hopefully have an edge on your opponent.”
Helping Richt get that edge are just two assistant coaches that were on staff prior to 2014 — tight ends coach John Lilly and wide receivers coach Bryan McClendon — but it doesn’t always seem that way.
“We spend so much time together,” Richt said with a laugh. “We get to know each other pretty good in a short amount of time.”
Those changes surrounding the program include a much anticipated indoor practice facility that is slated to begin construction in 2016.
“I do believe it will be the best in the country,” Richt said. “I don’t think there will be anything that looks better or functions better than what we got.”
If there was something missing at Georgia in terms of resources, the perception now is there soon won’t be any longer.
“I think the things that we're seeing are really not that uncommon in the league, it might feel uncommon at Georgia,” Richt said. “We are the last to put in an indoor. There are other things facility wise that we want to get done that would really bring us up to par with everybody. We’re not necessarily blazing a trail but we are moving in a very positive direction. …I’m thankful that we’re moving in the right direction.”
There are changes at home, too. Mark and his wife Katharyn will be empty nesters this fall.
Anya, the youngest, will be attending a post-high school program in Branson, Missouri that Richt describes as a “faith-based prep school” prior to college.
At 55 and now making $4 million a year, Richt is a long way from his first job. The former backup quarterback at the University of Miami had just been cut by the Denver Broncos when he worked briefly as a phone solicitor for an insurance company back home in Boca Raton, Fla.
“I know if we met our quota I’d get a $500 bonus once a month,” said Richt, who figures he was making probably $250 a week.
He eventually got into coaching at Florida State, where he worked for 15 seasons under his mentor, Bobby Bowden, who won his first national title in 1993 at age 64 and then won again with Richt as offensive coordinator in 1999.
“We were kind of banging away at it, getting close and that kind of thing,” Richt said. “If you play at a high level long enough, you’re going to get there. You’re just going to get there. …You’ve just got to keep banging away, keep believing.”
