An extended conversation with UGA coach Mark Richt: Part 1

On a recent cloudy summer day, Mark Richt was in a expansive mood. The matter of his job security, a hot-button issue two years ago, has been rendered moot by consecutive SEC East titles. As his Georgia Bulldogs prepare to open against Clemson on Aug. 31, their coach again stands as a fixture. The first part of a 40-minute conversation follows:

Q: You were 40 when you arrived. Could you have imagined that, at 53, you’d be, in terms of continuous service, the dean of SEC coaches?

A: I really didn't know. I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to go about my business, and if it was good enough, awesome. If it wasn't, I'd find that out pretty fast, too.

Q: You had to know you were walking into a situation where good things were possible.

A: Five years prior, I was offered the Pittsburgh job. I told (wife) Katharyn when we went, "We're not going to make a decision while we're there." I really didn't think she'd be gung-ho, but she was really excited and by the time we left, she was like, "I'll go." But we did go home and I remember saying, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life in Pittsburgh?" And she said, "Probably not." And I said, "Then we're not taking the job. … I really don't want to take a job knowing that I'm looking for another one day. If we ever do it, I'd like to do it at a place we might think we can make our home."

But I also knew that at that time, I really wasn’t ready. I had no clue as to who I might hire as an offensive or defensive coordinator. I didn’t even have a solid coaching philosophy that I could implement. I felt like God was giving me the message that this head-coaching thing was on the horizon and that you’re not ready, but you need to get ready. So for the next five years, (I tried) to observe coach (Bobby) Bowden a little bit more and be thinking in terms of how I might do this or do that. …

Long story short, there were some other opportunities that were attractive enough for us to talk to people about it, but when the Georgia thing came up, we were thinking that was the one. We wanted to have a great place for our family — that was No. 1 — and we wanted to have a place where you could win … and where there are all the things it takes to win — an administration that’s bought in, a fan base, a recruiting base, a talent base in this state. Georgia had all those things.

I’d met with coach (Vince) Dooley and president (Michael) Adams, and they said they’d get back to me later in the week. I don’t know if it was the very next night, but coach Dooley called and said, “We want to offer you the job.” He caught me off-guard because I wasn’t sure it was going to happen that fast. I told him I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to take the job. I was probably more scared than anything, to be honest. He said, “I’ll give you another $50,000.” He’d already said he’d pay me $750,000, and I said, “Coach, I’m not looking for a raise, but I appreciate it.”

And he said, “Call me first thing in the morning and let me know what you want to do, because if you don’t want it, we’ve got to move on.” So after hemming and hawing and praying and talking to my wife and my family, I decided OK, this is the thing. When I came to that realization, it was about 2 a.m. So I called him. I said, “Coach, this is Mark Richt and I want to take the job.” He said, “Great. What time is it?” I said, “About 2 in the morning.” He said, “Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” I said, “Because I thought you might sleep on it and change your mind.”

Q: It’s hard to imagine now that you wouldn’t see Athens as home.

A: I took the job before we even visited the campus, but we knew in our spirit that this was it. We weren't going to test the waters and decide if we liked it. We were going to love it before we got here because it was going to be home. But we've never been disappointed.

Q: After losing to Central Florida in the 2010 Liberty Bowl to finish 6-7, you came back over New Year’s and met with athletic director Greg McGarity on a Monday. Some people who worked in this building thought that might be the end, that the Liberty Bowl might have changed McGarity’s mind. Do you remember that meeting?

A: Any time I ever met with Greg, he never gave me any indication that he was going to make a change. He never gave me an indication that he was deliberating over that. I'm not foolish enough to think that it wouldn't be a point of discussion or thought, but our conversations were always in terms of, "What can we do to turn it around?" more than, "If you don't do this or don't do that …" It never got to that between him and me.

Q: And then you started 0-2 in 2011. How hard was it to stay upbeat?

A: I knew going in that we were going to have to provide the most positive atmosphere for our players we could. I can wake up and get here at 7 (a.m.) and leave at 11 (p.m.) and shelter myself from as much of anything as I want, and our staff's the same way. … But we knew our players are going to have to go to class, and they're so socially media-minded, they're going to be looking and listening. We had to have a plan to make sure that when our players came in the building, it was going to be a positive atmosphere no matter what. We had a no-complaining rule. We had things that were from Jon Gordon's books — "The Energy Bus" was one, and he had another, "No Complaining" — and those helped set the tone.

On a personal level, (former Florida State quarterback and 1993 Heisman winner) Charlie Ward’s brother — Chad Ward — called me out of the blue that summer prior to the 0-2 start, and he said he’d had a dream that had to do with me. He’d tried for a month not to call me, but every time he laid his head on the pillow, he felt like God was leading him to call me. He gave me a Scripture and he said, “I feel like God told me to have you meditate on this.” It was Jeremiah 17:7-8: “Blessed is the man whose trust is in The Lord, whose trust is The Lord.”

And that’s where I put my trust on a daily basis. So if I was having a rough time, I kept going back to that Scripture saying, “I trust you no matter what.” It wasn’t like, “I trust you, God, to save my job, or I trust you to win 10 in a row.” It was, “I trust you no matter what.” I put my faith in him at age 26, so it wasn’t really any different from how I’d been operating, but it was a nice focal point for me to cling to as we were going through it.

Q: Were you better able to handle something like that in 2011 than in 2002 or 2003?

A: Probably. Somewhere along the way, you have to have some success to gain the confidence of your team and your fan base and even your staff and maybe even yourself. If there wasn't some success prior to that run, I might not have survived it anyway. … If you're doing something new, especially if you're heading it up, success tends to breed some confidence and some faith.

Q: We talked last December about the Alabama game and how a tipped ball became a worst-possible case scenario, but that’s the nature of your business. At Auburn in 2002 on fourth-and-14, you got the best possible result. David Greene throws, Michael Johnson jumps, their cornerback doesn’t and you win the SEC East.

A: That's how it goes. You could probably look at any team's national championship and find one (such) play.

Q: Like Alabama’s last year.Was that game hard to get over?

A: It really wasn't for me. After the game, you talk to your team, talk to the media, watch the coaches' copy of it and then you go to the next thing, which is bowl preparation and recruiting. You just keep going. I don't know if I purposely tried to stuff it, but I just moved on. It gets to me a little bit more in the offseason — recruiting's over, spring's over, there's a little bit of downtime — and I tend to watch TV copies of every game at that time of year just to get a little perspective. It hurt a little worse then.

Q: It was a hard game to sort out. You’d lost a chance at a national championship, but it was one of the best games I’ve ever seen a Georgia team play against one of the best teams I’ve ever seen.

A: When the game's over, I always measure, "Did we play our hearts out? Did we make good decisions strategically?" I know a lot of people talk about, "You should have spiked the ball." But if you're a no-huddle team, you just run the next play. That's just normal operation.

Q: Before the BCS title game, Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart said they were worried about your no-huddle. They were hoping you’d spike the ball.

A: Oh, yeah. There's no doubt. Because it gives them a chance to regroup. When you've got a defense on the run, strategically you need to try to keep them there. When you spike it, it gives you a chance to regroup, but we didn't feel like we needed to regroup.