Greg McGarity To Replace Disgraced Damon Evans As Georgia AD

Bulldog company man Greg McGarity, former tennis coach, assistant SID, and assistant AD at Georgia, has been plying his trade down in Gainesville for almost 20 years. If local television reports are to be believed, he's about to make a triumphant return to Athens to replace Damon Evans as athletic director:

Florida associate athletic director Greg McGarity will be named athletic director at Georgia on Friday, WSB-TV is reporting.

McGarity has not returned repeated phone calls from the AJC today.

(That's a good habit to keep, sir. Just saying.)

SB Nation's DawgSports has been high on this guy from the get-go, making an impassioned plea last month for McGarity as the ideal candidate:

Say . . . the Gators have been doing all right in athletics since McGarity went to work in Gainesville in the early 1990s, haven’t they? Yes, they have. During that time, McGarity has been working for Jeremy Foley, whose hiring and firing decisions suggest strongly that he is a man with an eye for talent and a lack of tolerance for mediocrity; the fact that McGarity has spent nearly two decades working for Foley (who rose to the athletic directorship from the post of senior associate athletic director) speaks volumes about his abilities.

In Greg McGarity, we have a man with all of Damon Evans’s positives (including being Bulldog-born and Bulldog-bred), none of Evans’s baggage, and a championship pedigree.

And stealing from Florida has to feel good, no?

Join the victory toasts at DawgSports and continue the discussion at SB Nation Atlanta.

Mark Richt has commented on the record for the first time concerning Damon Evans' ousting at UGA, projecting his usual staid calm and predicting business as usual for all involved:

"I don't think this will define Damon Evans. It's certainly a bump in the road without question, but I think he's a very capable man," Richt said. "He's very intelligent and has an awful lot going for him just to be in the position he was in at such a young age shows what his capabilities are and what his potential is. I think he'll rebound, I really do."

Emphasis added, because: Road metaphors! You guys, Mark Richt might be funny.

SB Nation Atlanta has the text of Damon Evans' parting words to the University of Georgia, and wonders why he's still dancing around owning the situation even on his way out the door:

I would like to once again offer my sincerest apology to the University of Georgia people — the president and administration, athletic staff and coaches, fans and supporters, and especially the student-athletes. It had been my hope since taking the job in 2004 that I would have a long career at UGA.

But because of a serious mistake in judgment, that won’t be the case, and I understand that I have a long road to rebuilding my reputation and career.

Read the full text at SB Nation Atlanta.

According to the Associated Press, University of Georgia president Michael Adams made an official announcement regarding the future athletic director Damon Evans in the wake of last week's DUI arrest. The announcement? Evans is officially resigning, as was widely rumored over the past few days.

Following a conference call with the school's executive committee, Adams made the brief announcement to the media, but refused to comment further until at least Tuesday.

The buyout for Evans' contract remains a point of speculation, but according SB Nation Atlanta, Evans will be paid his salary for the next three months, and then receive a $100 thousand severance fee.

All told, it's a fairly small severance fee for an athletic director at a school of Georgia's magnitude, and it speaks to Evans' profound lack of leverage here. So, a lesson to all the kids out there that want to grow up to be ADs at major college programs: Don't drink and drive, and if you do, don't do it with a mistress in the passenger seat and her panties in your lap. There are some things in life that just defy explanation.

Damn Evans no-good-very-bad week reached critical mass on Sunday. According to reports, Georgia President Michael Adams asked for and received Evans’ resignation. After the police report was made public, Georgia didn’t really have much of a choice.

Georgia blog Dawg Sports has spend the weekend calling for Evans’ head, though not as a personal attack. They find the move unfortunately necessary.

This was a sad waste of a promising career. No decent human being could celebrate this, but no decent human being could deny its necessity.

For the record, Michael Adams is about to replace an athletic director, and no one in Bulldog Nation thinks he had any choice. That really is news.

Keep an eye on SBNation Atlanta and Dawg Sports for updates.