Mark Richt appeared on Highly Questionable last week were he talked about his family’s competitive streak, his wife becoming the team’s water girl and playing with his granddaughter.
Richt told of a story when he ruined a family vacation over a volleyball game against a couple of random strangers. His sisters Michelle and Nicole, both of whom were scholarship volleyball players, were trying to show off their impressive serving skills by jump serving. It was not going well.
“They would get one serve and it would be impressive I agree but the next one they would hit the net or whatever and I would be like ‘just get it over the net, we are getting beat by these drunks here’ and its not good,” Richt said on the show.
“That is the one where I got everyone just about in tears and not really liking me much. It was a miserable vacation because of that and I was the reason why everyone was bummed out, but I have since kinda, not really apologized for it.”
The second-year head coach said he has never attempted to use the same encouragement tactics with his wife Katharyn who has continued her tradition as the water girl on Richt’s teams.
Back in 2005, when Richt was at Georgia, she joined him on the sideline handing out water to Bulldog players.
“She did it for two reasons. One, she wanted to get involved with the team, she wanted to get to know the team a little bit,” Richt said, “and I think on away games when a team knew where the coach’s wife was sitting in the stands sometimes it is not a good place to be.”
The two, who are empty-nesters with four children, have one grandchild. Richt described his granddaughter Jadyn Elise’s favorite game to play with him called “tickle-tickle”. He also told a story about how he wound up siting inside his granddaughter's dollhouse.
Credit: Chuck Burton
Credit: Chuck Burton
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