Mark Richt’s secret is out. And it’s a bit embarassing.
After much badgering, the Georgia Bulldogs’ football coach and first-time grandfather publicly confessed what he wants his new granddaughter to call him.
“Poo-Pa.”
Ultimately, he said, Jadyn Elise Richt — born to son and daughter-in-law Jon and Anna Richt last week — will make the call. When she can talk, of course.
“First of all, my name is going to be whatever Jadyn calls me, but my goal is to be called Poo-Pa,” said Richt, who turned 54 in February. … I don’t know why, I just liked it. And everybody hated it, so I think that’s why. Because of that, I think Katharyn is going to be Mee-Ma.”
Whatever they’re called, the Richts are now full-fledged grandparents and, at present, it is dominating their lives. Jadyn Elise is living in their Watkinsville home, along with Mama and Daddy.
Jon and Anna Richt were living in Nashville when they found out they were having a baby. At about the same time Jon decided to follow his father’s footsteps and enter the coaching profession. A four-year starter as a quarterback at Mars Hill College, Jon Richt was hired at Georgia as an offensive quality control assistant in February.
“Yeah, she is living under our roof,” Richt said of Jadyn. “… I was kind of happy when he decided he wanted to coach, He’s a volunteer quality control coach. Since he’s not making a whole lot of money, we’ve got him in the house right now. We’ve got them all there. I knew if they were in Nashville, I wasn’t going to see the grandbay much and I wasn’t going to see Katharyn much because she was going to be up there a lot. So it’s nice just on the front-end to be there with them. It’s pretty awesome.”
One reporter asked Richt if becoming a grandfather had him thinking about retirement to spend more time with his growing extended family.
Richt scoffed at the notion.
“People always come up to me and say, ‘Coach, whenever you retire, we think you’re going to go off and do mission work,’ and stuff like that,” he said. “But I say there’s not a greater mission than college athletics and being the head coach at the University of Georgia. There’s so many young men and we get to touch their lives and the people they influence. That’s a mission in itself. Katharyn and I were talking about that the other day. There’s no greater mission than what we’re doing right now.”
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