Richt Says UGA Isn’t The Only School Where Kids Get In Trouble

July 19th, 2012 01:45 PM║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink ║ Schools: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
Tags: Georgia, Mark Richt, UGA

You knew it was coming. Someone was going to ask Mark Richt why Georgia always seems to have so many players suspended and dismissed. His response:

“People are human. People make mistakes. When they do you discipline it. Some people have policies (like UGA) that bring certain things to light and some people don’t.

The bottom line is — I love every guy on our team. Part of love is to be able to help teach ‘em right from wrong and when they make mistakes you need to discipline them in such a way that hopefully they’ll become better men down the road.

So that’s what we do at Georgia and to say that issues aren’t happening around the country isn’t really realistic.”

Hard to argue with that. If a kid fails a test for marijuana at another school, it might not make the press and the player might not miss a second of action. At Georgia, that player would get an automatic suspension for 10% of his season and all of the negative publicity that comes with such a penalty.

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6 comments

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BonzaiB

I liked the way Richt handled this. No died in the wool UGA fan, but institutions have personalities just like people, and part of UGA's persona is it gets ripped alot, for doing the right thing. I do not agree with a previous poster that the SEC should have a universal policy on offenses. That takes the human element out of it. Richt, and other coaches, take an approach that looks a lot like the "love" described above. Good for them. Other coaches don't. That may work for them. Bottom line, Richt and UGA seem to walking the walk and talking the talk. Can't ask much more from a leader and institution to enforce the standards they set. Hope they also are given enough latitude to exercise the human element every now and then. Not all players are born wired the same way.

AllTideUp

2 Like

Richt is a good man and it shows what our society is like sometimes when good men do the right thing and are honest and yet are portrayed as lax.

I think we need uniform drug/crime/arrest policies in the SEC. It's unfair that some programs are harder on themselves than others and it gives a disincentive to discipline your players if everyone doesn't have to follow the same rules.

viciousdawg

2 Like

@AllTideUp We need a uniform policy for all of the NCAA or we will end up with one conference getting an advantage over all the others.

AllTideUp

@viciousdawg I agree, even better.

viciousdawg

I wish for once the media hypes would have asked Spurrier why Garcia got 9753 chances at SC and Georgia players only get one.

John at MrSEC moderator

@viciousdawg

No offense and I appreciate you being a regular around here, but Spurrier must've been asked about Stephen Garcia 200 times. It was written about, made fun of, etc.

Folks tend to notice when questions are asked about their own team... not when they're asked about somebody else's.

Trust me, Spurrier was ripped for Garcia's fifth chance all last summer.

Thanks for reading,

John

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