Asked about the state of Georgia’s overall athletics program, Athletic Diretor Greg McGarity spins around in his chair and quickly snatches a legal pad from a shelf behind his desk. On it, McGarity has all kinds of scribbblings and enumerations.
It’s his projections of the NCAA’s Directors Cup, which each year ranks the nation’s athletics programs in all sports. Not just football and men’s basketball, but the athletics program as a whole.
Some athletic directors care little about it. McGarity cares a lot. So he knows exactly where Georgia is likely to finish in this year’s standings: Around the top 20, which falls short of where Georgia wants to be.
“I think we did OK,” McGarity said this week. “We were outstanding in some sports; some sports we left a little at the end there, when we progressed; and some sports probably under-achieved to a certain level. So you’re all over the map.”
Georgia is ranked No. 12 in the latest standings, but it will drop at least a few spots in the final standings, which will take into account baseball. The Bulldogs missed the NCAA tournament for a fourth straight season, and you only accrue points for reaching the NCAAs.
Stanford has historically dominated the Cup, while Florida has been close behind. Jeremy Foley, Florida’s athletics director and McGarity’s former boss there, often directs his interviews back to the so-called Olympic sports.
Georgia was once dominant in the Director’s Cup standings: Between 1998-2006 it finished in the top 10 seven times, as high as second (in 1999) and third (in 2001). The gymnastics program was winning national championships, the baseball team was going to the College World Series, and the women’s basketball team was going to Final Fours.
But things began to slip in each of those three sports, and Georgia’s ranking fell to 20 in the 2009-10 school year, the season prior to McGarity’s arrival. Since then, the ranking made it to No. 10 two seasons ago, then back to No. 16 last year.
“You always want to do better. But it’s still a good accomplishment,” said McGarity, summing up his program’s this way: “Tremendous upside. And it could be a lot worse if certain things didn’t really fall another way in certain sports.”
For all the angst that some Georgia fans over their most high-profile teams, they haven’t been the problem: The football team’s No. 9 ranking was worth 69 points towards the Director’s Cup standings, and the men’s basketball team’s NCAA tournament appearance earned 25 points.
Elsewhere, the strength of Georgia’s athletics now rests with swimming and diving, women’s tennis, men’s tennis, men’s golf and track and field. What do they have in common? Coaching longevity: Women’s tennis’ Jeff Wallace (30 years), men’s tennis’ Manny Diaz (28 years), swimming and diving’s Jack Bauerle (36 years for the women and 32 for the men), men’s golf’s Chris Haack (19 years) and track and field’s Wayne Norton (15 years).
Meanwhile, much of the rest of the program has seen tinkering in an effort to improve. There have been six coaching changes out of 15 varsity sports head coaches since McGarity took over. The jury is still out on each of the new hires, including baseball (Scott Stricklin has had two losing seasons), gymnastics (Danna Durante has made the final six twice but not claimed a national title yet) and women’s basketball (Joni Crenshaw replaced the retired Andy Landers this year).
“You look at the sports that have been consistently successful here, those coaches have been here a long time,” McGarity said. “They have a tradition that has been established over a number of years.”
That’s what Georgia is aiming to get back to as a whole, and with it, the hope of returning to its athletics department’s glory days.
