South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Getting all the details right
Richt invests money, time into indoor facility
When Mark Richt talks about the Hurricanes’ new Carol Soffer Indoor Practice Facility, it seems like he could go on forever.
After practice Friday, Miami’s first inside the building, the coach went into detail about the place. No, really, he went into detail.
Richt went beyond the uses and benefits of having the indoor practice field, talking about support beams, trusses and something called a cantilever. He this facility, and for good reason.
He has some skin in the game when it comes to the building. In 2016, Richt donated $1 million of his own money to the project. Plus, throughout construction, he consulted with Carlos Padron, the superintendent of the project, and even made adjustments as it was going up.
After all that, Richt said he got a little emotional at the beginning of Friday’s practice when he saw how much Soffer, who was in attendance, was enjoying it.
Without Richt’s presence in the program, reinvigorating the fan base and donors to support the team, or without his willingness to help coordinate construction or even his financial contribution, maybe the indoor field isn’t built at all.
“Carlos Padron … I got to know him real good,” Richt said. “I was here two, three times a day. We would see things as it was
knows
progressing and he’d say, ‘Coach, you might want to consider this? Do you really want it this way, Coach?’ Or whatever it was. And we made a bunch of simple little changes that, if you would have just built the building and started living in it, you would’ve said, ‘Gosh, I wish we would’ve done this or that.’ ”
Part of the reason Richt is so comfortable helping is because he’s helped with something like this before. When he was still coaching at Georgia, plans were made to build the Bulldogs’ indoor facility. Richt took part in research to make plans for it, and though construction didn’t start until after he parted ways with Georgia, he still retained that knowledge.
So when the Hurricanes began planning their own facility, Richt knew what he wanted, and he wanted to help. Even down to how far the walls are from the boundaries of the turf field, Richt in it from the beginning.
“That says a lot about how this coach feels about what we’re doing,” Soffer said Friday. “He went to school here, this is his alma mater. He has a vested interest. I know from Day One, when I met with him when we were discussing the plans, he knew every little detail about this building and when they started construction, he went around UM coach Mark Richt donated $1 million toward the Carol Soffer Indoor Practice Facility.
once, twice, three times a day, with the head of construction to make sure all the little details were done properly. And if he saw something wrong, he would change it.”
Of course, the facility is of huge benefit to Richt and his team. When lightning comes, he doesn’t have to stop practice. In the heat of the South Florida summer, he can afford to give his team a break, even if that’s rare. When recruits come to visit the Hurricanes, they can look around the new facility and see the kind of investment Miami is willing to make for the football team.
What they won’t see, at least not directly, is the investment of time and money that Richt put in himself. For that, they can ask their teammates. All of them are aware what Richt has done to get the Soffer facility just the way the Hurricanes need it, and it speaks volumes
to them.
“It means everything,” said senior center Tyler Gauthier. “With coach Richt doing that, that shows that he’s 100 percent for us. With him willing to put his own money down and all the time and effort he’s put into us, it shows how good of a coach he is and how into this team he is.”
Richt did make sure to emphasize that the facility isn’t quite finished. He says they still need about $3 million to put the final touches on it.
In most cases, a coach standing in a new, turf facility and asking for $3 million more would seem questionable or even selfish.
In this case, though, Richt has done his fair share, physically and financially.
There is no questioning that.