GREENSBORO, Ga. — Georgia football coach Mark Richt’s long-in-the-works contract extension — still not finalized — won’t include a raise, but will include considerably larger bonuses for winning championships.
That was the word from athletic director Greg McGarity to the UGA Athletic Association board of directors at its spring meeting here Thursday.
McGarity told the group that the contract, which will add three years to Richt’s existing deal and run through the 2016 season, will be signed as soon as lawyers for both parties sign off on wording. McGarity said Richt’s salary “basically stays where it is right now at $2.8 million a year” but that bonuses for accomplishments such as SEC or national championships will be doubled.
The increased bonuses will be a way of “rewarding excellence,” McGarity told the board, which met at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge on Lake Oconee.
Richt’s current contract, last amended in 2008, calls for performance bonuses of $100,000 for winning the SEC championship, $100,000 for reaching a BCS bowl, $250,000 for winning the national title and $50,000 for finishing in the top five of a national poll, among other incentives. The contract caps the total performance bonuses Richt can receive in one year at $400,000, which would increase to $800,000 in the new deal described by McGarity.
Aside from bonuses and endorsements, McGarity told the board that Richt’s $2.8 million salary ranks among “the top 10 or 12 coaches in the country,” which is where UGA feels he should be. Richt’s salary ranks sixth among SEC football coaches. Alabama’s Nick Saban is the highest-paid SEC coach at $5.3 million per year.
Georgia and Richt have been working toward a new contract since December, and UGA announced in March that Richt had agreed to a three-year extension. Richt said at the time that “all the big stuff” had been agreed upon and described himself as “excited about the new contract.” Since then, the process has dragged, with both sides saying that nothing should be read into the delay beyond legal diligence.
Similarly, an extension of defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s contract through the 2014 season, also announced in March, remains unsigned but, by all accounts, still on track.
“This is simple, nitpick lawyering at this point,” UGA president Michael Adams said Thursday of the delays. “If it was something else, I think I would tell you.
“These things just sometimes take more time when you get in to them than you think they’re going to. They’re complicated. These are high-profile people. They have a lot of obligations to us, and we require a lot of obligations to them.”
McGarity told the board that he and Richt “have been on the same page” about the contract for months and said, “We’re so close to getting the final t’s crossed and i’s dotted.
“Same thing with [Grantham],” McGarity added later.
Grantham will receive a raise from his current salary of $750,000, McGarity confirmed. Grantham has one season remaining on the contract he signed when he joined UGA from the Dallas Cowboys’ staff, and the extension will add two years to his deal.
McGarity acknowledged that Richt’s contract will include “an adjustment” in the buyout provision, which governs how much UGA would owe Richt if he were fired without cause during the term of the contract. McGarity would not reveal details of how the buyout will change.
Despite numerous requests, UGA has refused to release drafts or details of the proposed contracts with Richt and Grantham.
“I don’t think it’s prudent to release unfinished contracts, and so I’ve taken the position that I believe is correct that you just don’t put those things out there until they’re complete,” Adams said. “And this is not quite complete.”
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