Farewell, Coach

November 29, 2015

Dear Coach Richt, 

I grew up a die hard Georgia fan in the heart of Florida during the Spurrier years. Under those circumstances, unless your blood runs true red, it can turn orange or even garnet faster than Herschel could run. 

My friends still laugh about our den, which was our dedicated “Georgia” room. Though we were a conservative Christian family, “GIVE ‘EM HELL GEORGIA” could be clearly seen on a sign on the wall. And we meant it. Georgia is at the very heart of my family. 

No matter who the coach has been or what the record was each season, I have always been and always will be a Georgia fan. Even now as I am raising my children in Tuscaloosa, AL, the home of the Crimson Tide, my affections never waver. If anything, they have taken deeper roots and more purposeful meaning. 

I was in church this morning when my phone started blowing up with the news of your departure. I’ll admit I was more than distracted. I was sorrowful. Heavy hearted even. I realized this morning, as my friend Catherine so eloquently stated, that I might be a bigger Mark Richt fan than I am a Georgia fan. I did not think that was possible, but that is how I feel today.

I kept thinking about your words after the game last night, about how you think the Lord is in charge of everything and how you are fine with everything He has in store for you. I know you meant it. 

While I watched another coach being interviewed from his vacation home, my heart smiled as I remembered how you donated yours to be used for ministry. And when a friend was adopting several years ago, I shared the story of you and Katharyn and the two children you adopted into your family from Ukraine. It ministered to her. 

I also met a mother of one of your former players not long ago. An organization you started, the Oliver Tree Foundation, helped him get on his feet after a professional football career did not work out for him. It changed the course of his life. 

After a disheartening play, when you told your player that you loved him no matter what and that you were serious, I believed you. I know he did, too, because you rarely get empty words from a man who is filled with something so good and true. 

Today, when I see my newsfeed peppered with the news at Georgia, every “G” in my mind stands for “Good and faithful servant.” I know I am not ultimately the audience you aim to please, nor are the news media, the fans, the administration, or even your team. Thank you for that. 

You have an audience of One. 

And if I had to guess, He is pleased with you, too. Ultimately He is pleased because when He looks on you, He sees the righteousness of Jesus. But I believe He is also pleased because you did not take the opportunity He gave you lightly. You used your talents. 

Even under weighty scrutiny over the past few years, you have not faltered in your character or in your witness. 

Coach Richt, you are the real deal. 

YOU are a damn good Dawg. 

I have had some things happen over these past several years that I would never have chosen for myself. They did not feel like God’s best for me. They did not feel like they were working together for my good, as the Scriptures promise. They were shocking, painful, disappointing, and devastating things. 

This feels like one of those things for the Bulldog nation. On some level, it may feel that way for you. But we do know that “in all things God works together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). 

My cousin Paige said she thinks Georgia got it wrong, and I tend to agree. I'm glad God never gets it wrong. 

You were called to Georgia for a great purpose, with a great vision, and I am so thankful you were. I’m thankful that in some way, through a TV screen in Tuscaloosa, I felt like I was part of your vision, too. 

Oh, and you also won a whole bunch. The Bulldog Nation thanks you. 

Thank you for not settling for just trophies, but instead for making men from boys. Thank you that in your pursuit of winning, you pursued higher things, eternal things, the right things.

Thank you for making me the proudest I’ve ever been to be a Georgia Bulldog. 

Well done, Good and faithful servant. Well done.


Farewell, Coach. 

Mary Grace Lyon

A grateful fan

University of Georgia, Class of 2000

College Football Has Forfeited Its Soul: A Letter to Coach Richt

October 17, 2014

Dear Coach Richt, 

I want Gurley to play and I know you do, too. I live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and FOR THE LOVE (!!!),  I want Georgia to win.

I heard you say once that you want to win as much as anyone does. In fact, your record of 126-45 (as fourth best winning percentage in the country for active coaches) proves it. I also heard you say that you want to help these boys grow to be great men, husbands, and fathers. This may be the tallest task in today’s world of coaching college football, and I want to personally thank you for being a man of your word. 

Your benching Gurley does not mean that you don’t stand behind your player. It means that you do stand behind your player by choosing what is best for him and for your team and for the University. Even when it hurts. ESPECIALLY when it hurts. It means you stand for a lot more than any one player.

Football matters. Georgia football in particular matters a whole heck of a lot at my house. I am a fourth generation UGA graduate, and my grandfather was quarterback of the Dawgs in the 1930’s. He was on the Athletic Board that hired Vince Dooley as Georgia’s head football coach.

He also won the Bill Hartman Award, given to former athletes who have distinguished themselves by demonstrating excellence both professionally and in service to others. He had a plaque that read “I’m Bulldog born and Bulldog bred, and when I die, I’ll be Bulldog dead.” That’s sort of our unspoken family motto. 

Wearing the red and black jersey and stepping onto that field meant more to him than winning and losing. It meant that he represented the University of Georgia and the whole Bulldog Nation in everything he said and did.

His Varsity “G” hanging on my wall stands for more than a bunch of “W”s. Every Bulldog knows it stands for the very first state chartered university in the country and for every graduate, faculty member, and administrator who has walked under the Arch, out into the world to make a difference. 

If UGA is first an educational institution, what are we really teaching? A lot of lip service is done in college football about what is learned on and off the field. But we all know that winning has become ultimate, at any cost, to the detriment of any man, even if that man happens to be the best player in college football. 

Whether charges are NCAA violations, code of conduct breaches, or criminal allegations, star players have swagged their way onto award stages, largely unscathed in the last few years. Sadly, we have thrown Heisman trophies at them and elevated them so high on pedestals that I’m not sure they believe they could ever fall off. 

In these past scenarios, the quiet cover-ups and lack of disciplinary action tell us that in collegiate sports, winning is supreme. College football is damaged. Forget what we are teaching these boys and all the little ones watching about what it means to wear a jersey, to be part of a team, part of a University, part of something bigger than yourself.

 You, Coach Richt, know exactly what that means. 

We teach these ideals on our children’s sports teams, but when it comes down to it, parents want to win at all cost, too. I heard yesterday a local flag football team altered their flags to be shorter than regulation so they would be harder to pull. Really? And we expect these eighteen, nineteen-year-old kids who are thrust onto a national stage to respond differently? 

But when allegations were made with the highest stakes in college football, you and the administration at UGA took the high road down an unpopular, largely unprecedented, and tumultuous path. Guilt or innocence aside, actions have consequences.

 I wasn’t in the closed door meetings about Gurley’s situation, but I can imagine you, wrestling with this decision, knowing you are subject to something greater than yourself, greater than any player, greater than any championship hope.

I have heard for years that Georgia football has a discipline problem. I know that every team has discipline problems, but Georgia actually chooses to discipline our players for them. Thank you for living that out when the nation scrutinized your every move, when the decision was unpopular, when the precedent said otherwise.  

You are standing the test. You did not shrink under criticism or pressure. I have never been more proud of the diploma on my wall or of the red, red blood running through my veins.  As Herschel said, “Being an athlete is about more than just playing the game.” And being a coach is about more than just winning. You are proving it. 

After all, as the ancient proverb says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul? While college football has forfeited its soul and failed these young men, you have not.

And if this letter ever makes it to you, I want you to know that I for one am grateful.

Go Dawgs, 

Mary Grace Alston Lyon

P.S. Chubb is the new “phat"