You guys probably won’t believe this, but a mutt friend of mine was able to get his hands on a secretly recorded meeting of the uga Athletic Association executive board, held shortly after the close of Kirby’s first season. He shared this interesting excerpt from the transcript. The participant's names were redacted so they will be referred to here as “mutt1, mutt2, etc.
Mutt1: “Looking back, Richt was a good coach, but he just couldn’t get us to the promised land. We’ve got the coach we need now. Kirby’s struggled a little this first season, but I think with our help he’ll get there. So, what else do can we do to help our program achieve greatness?
Mutt2: “I don’t know, but Tech continues to be a thorn in our side. We can beat them most years, but they’ve gone and embarrassed us again this season, and there’s nothing I hate worse than losing to those [expletive deleted] bees. Wish there was something we could do about that Paul Johnson guy.”
Mutt3: “I agree, but he’ll be 60 next year, and with the blocking rule changes we’ve co-sponsored with the NCAA, I expect him to retire within a couple of years. We’ve just got to make sure they don’t replace him with anyone as good, or heaven forbid, even better.”
Mutt1: “I’ve got an idea. This is going to take time, but hear me out. We just need to find someone to secretly groom for the job. Someone with a decent coaching resume, with Atlanta and Tech tie-ins. Got to be a plausible candidate, with sales skills that can help him get the job. Preferably someone who changes jobs frequently so we can help position him. Most importantly, someone we can control, if you know what I mean. If we can pull this off, we can set their [expletive deleted] program back years, if not decades.”
Mutt3: “Interesting concept that just might work. But we can’t just get someone in that job and then ask them to fail immediately. They’d fire him in a heartbeat.”
Mutt1: “There’s a way to make sure that doesn’t happen. Get him and his agent to insist on a 7-year contract term.”
Mutt3: “That’s nuts. No way they would go for a contract like that. Their AD would have to be an idiot because that would get him fired too.”
Mutt2: “Hold on. I know a guy. He owes us big time for helping him get that Temple job. And if he goes along with this, we should assure him we’ll always have a place for him in our program.”
The rest of the conversation was garbled so unfortunately I was unable to tell exactly who they were talking about.