McGarity shares some perspective

If you're like most Georgia fans, you're watching AD Greg McGarity a little closer these days. The basketball team is coming off a disappointing season and lost their star player to the NBA. And the baseball team is mired in a season long slump that follows a disappointing 2012 campaign. Even for those who only concern themselves with football, decisions being made right now regarding these two programs could tell us a lot about our athletic director.

And these two links give us a glimpse into that and more. First, Emerson provides the state of the basketball program heading into Fox's fifth season. There's a distinct parallel to the manner in which McGarity is handling it here as compared to after the 2010 football season with Richt. In a word, improvement.

Improvement. During the course of five minutes Monday, McGarity used that word seven times, and he used “improve” twice more.

“It’s like any other program: You look for continuous improvement. We do not, with any coach, set any type of minimum wins, things of that nature. Coaches have enough pressure on them anyway,” McGarity said. “And, even if you ask the coaches, they would probably say the same thing as far as continued improvement. That’s the challenges that lie ahead with every sport. How do we improve every year, how do we get better.”

And for an even deeper look into the thought processes for all things UGA Athletics, here's Anthony Dasher's Q&A with McGarity prompted in part by reader questions. It covers basketball and baseball pretty thoroughly as well as other off season topics surrounding an indoor practice facility, recruiting, funding and student seating at Sanford.

"Facilities are not holding us back from anything. I can promise you that. I just came back from UCLA and I've seen their facilities. I've seen Stanford's facilities. Trust me, they're not winning national championships strictly because of their facilities. Facilities have to be nice and functional. I've seen a lot of facilities at tremendous campuses and in some cases you're asking yourself how are they getting it done because their facilities are not as nice as school A or B. It all gets down to people, it all gets down to relationships of people, coaches and it all gets down to having a great institution that's got a great academic reputation which ours does. Facilities are important, but no way are they the end all."

Personally, I think McGarity hits the nail on the head as far as facilities. Too often people just want more fancy things to look at when the purpose they would serve is minimal. As for people, I'm hoping we see the improvement our AD alludes to as his barometer in determining coaching success/failure. It's a safe way for him to deal with turmoil in those two men's programs today. We'll see what tomorrow brings.