The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dooley supports AD
UGA legend says AD has ‘done a lot of good things.’
Georgia legend also says Kirby Smart is doing a good job.“He’s going to be very a successful coach.”
ATHENS — Vince Dooley is still a hard-nosed old football coach. He’s a lot of other things, too, but at the heart of it all, he’s a coach and teacher.
At his home on Milledge Circle on Tuesday, strolling through his famous garden, as he likes to do with visitors, the conversation started with a discussion about gardening. In a free-ranging interview with DawgNation, Dooley also talked about politics, history, books and, of course, football.
Specifically, Dooley was asked about current Athletic Director Greg McGarity, who has come under a lot of fire lately for the general underperformance of several marquee sports and the perception he’s more concerned about the athletic department’s bottom line than doing whatever it takes for Georgia to compete for championships.
Dooley served as Georgia’s AD for 25 years, and McGarity was a member of his administrative staff for 10 years. McGarity then went to Florida for 18 years before coming home to UGA as athletic director in 2010.
“Well, I was very much in favor when the decision was made and when the search was going on as to who was going to be the AD,” Dooley said of McGarity. “He had great experience at Florida and was very successful there, and he was a Georgia boy and he lived here and knew everything there was to know about us. So I was in favor of him getting the job and was very happy for him. And I think he’s done a lot of good things.”
Dooley said he thought McGarity found himself at odds with a faction of the fan base when he fired Mark Richt at the end of 2015 football season.
“He had to make a real tough decision in changing coaches,” Dooley said. “Mark Richt, I hired him and, well, you have this loyalty when you hire someone that you’re going to go the extra mile. If I’d have been the athletic director, I probably would have sat down with Mark and said, ‘Next year is very important,’ and I probably would’ve gone another year with him.”
That doesn’t mean Dooley necessarily believes firing Richt was a bad move. It’s not that simple, he said.
“If you didn’t hire somebody, then you don’t have that background with them or the patience. There was pretty well a split (among fans) on things. ... In any event, it was a tough call for Greg.”
That said, Dooley very much likes what happened after that. He’s a big fan of Kirby Smart and believes “he’s going to be a very successful coach.”
“He’s got a great background,” Dooley said. “He knows what it takes in this league. He’s a Georgia man. He played here, but then he had his training under a guy who is a proven success in Nick Saban. He’s got a good staff, and the recruiting has been great. So I really think that the future is really bright.”
It is for Dooley, too. While he’ll turn 85 in September, he doesn’t appear to have slowed a tick.
He just finished writing yet another book, at least the 10th he has authored or co-authored, give or take a couple of children’s and coffee-table books. The latest one is on a Civil War hero who graduated from and taught at the University of Georgia, William Gaston Deloney. The book, “The Legion’s Fighting Bulldog,” was released just a few weeks ago.