ATHENS — It was unlike any introductory press conference Georgia has ever done. This more closely resembled a pep rally, with cheerleaders, the Dance Dawgs, the full UGA pep band, balloons, fans and, finally, new basketball coach Mike White entering Stegeman Coliseum with smoke cannons blasting from either side of Tunnel 3.
In the words of Athletic Director Josh Brooks beforehand, “we wanted to do something different.” And the Bulldogs definitely did.
They hired their men’s basketball coach not only from a fellow SEC school, but from their most hated intraconference rival.
“We like Mike! We like Mike!” UGA students and fans chanted before White was able to address the small-but-boisterous crowd.
Besides explaining his decision to the Florida Gators’ team he left behind, White said the most difficult conversation he had was explaining to his five children, from ages 14 to 4, that they were going to be Bulldogs.
“What are we going to do with our Gator gear?” White said he was asked.
“Burn them!” one Georgia fan shouted from the stands.
It was that type of atmosphere.
Truthfully, it has been a whirlwind experience for everybody involved, for White, for Georgia basketball and especially for the players that soon will play for him – or decide not to.
The total time from firing Tom Crean to hiring White as UGA’s 23rd head basketball coach spanned only 72 hours. They agreed to terms during a Zoom call Sunday afternoon, and White and his family were flown to Athens via private twin-prop charter plane Monday morning.
“I mean, it literally happened within a day,” said White, who was alerted by agent Mark Carmony of CSE Atlanta that Georgia wanted to “have a conversation.“
“Josh reached out. We had a really productive conversation with he and President (Jere) Morehead and the Cabinet, the search committee. We had a really lengthy conversation, and from there it moved very, very quick.
“I jumped at it, just to be blunt with you. I just jumped at the opportunity.”
That description probably won’t sit well for the Florida faithful. They were both outraged and relieved to lose their coach of the past seven years. White had the impossible task of following Florida’s greatest coach ever, Billy Donovan, as the Gators coach. But White’s work there was exemplary by every other measure.
His record of 142-88 made him the coach with the third-most wins in school history, and No. 2 on the list, Norm Sloan, quite notably was fired for violating NCAA rules. White’s SEC winning percentage of .581 currently ranks 19th in league history. His six NCAA Tournament wins rank second on the all-time Florida list.
Such numbers will earn White a statue at Georgia, should they be duplicated. And the Bulldogs have vowed to give White all he possibly could need to compete at the highest level.
“I’m here to warn everybody, the Dogs are coming,” Brooks said.
Assurances White were given ultimately helped clinch the deal. He’s in the process of assessing everything he believes he’ll need to do to accomplish the stated goal of annually competing for postseason bids and conference championships.
His most pressing initial need is a home for his family.
“Anybody got a seven-bedroom?” White quipped.
“Everything that I was looking for, everything that I wanted to hear, I have heard and I have seen,” White said. “And that continued today throughout all of the meetings I’ve had with a bunch of these administrators. Had a really, really productive day, and I already feel like, to a certain extent, we’ve already hit the ground running. We’ve got a lot of work to do, obviously.”
But before he can get to work in earnest, White has to hire a staff and determine what Georgia players will remain on the roster. So far, both remain works in progress.
Georgia’s team, such as it is now, preceded White’s entrance into the arena. Afterward, rising senior Jaxon Etter and rising junior Jabri Abdur-Rahim were asked about their emotions of the week.
“It’s just been a lot,” said Abdur-Rahim, who transferred in from Virginia before last season. “We lost to Vanderbilt in the tournament, and then coach Crean was let go. That’s just the way it goes; it happens in every sport. Change is inevitable, and we kind of knew what was going to happen. But the smooth transition to coach White has made it a lot easier.”
Said Etter: “Exciting, exciting, I was just telling somebody how excited the guys are in the locker room. You can just feel a different energy and happiness and passion.”
White indicated his decision wasn’t a long, thought-out process that he was considering well before the Gators’ season abruptly ended with a dramatic loss to Texas A&M in the second round of the SEC Tournament.
While the Gators were disappointed with their season (19-13, 9-9 SEC), theirs was nothing compared with Georgia’s (6-26, 1-17), which was the worst in SEC history. And there were plenty of extenuating factors contributing to Florida’s fall from the NCAA elite this year. Former SEC Player of the Year Keyontae Johnson was unable to play all season because of a medical malady. Jason Jitoboh was unavailable because of injury, Colin Castleton sat out and then played with a significant shoulder injury and C.J. Felder had a hip issue. And, like everybody else, the Gators were hurt by transfers, the most significant loss being former five-star Andrew Nembhard leaving for Gonzaga.
Still, White claimed he wasn’t thinking of leaving until Georgia called.
“I didn’t have my ear to the ground, per se,” he said. “I was excited about an NIT run. I wanted to go win the NIT. I love those guys. That team in particular had more adversity in the last two years, got to be, than any team in college basketball.”
To that, Georgia might say, “hold my basketball.” But the Bulldogs’ brass believes White’s presence will be enough to change the program’s long-flat trajectory.
“Where we are right now, we want to build,” Brooks said after the ceremony. “I don’t want to put any numbers on (expectations) because that’s not fair. … We want to be competitive, we want to be in the mix, we want to be in the tournament. Those goals will grow as we grow. But, honestly, there is no ceiling here. We just have to be realistic about where we’ve been.”
Perception about Georgia’s hire has been decidedly split nationally. But there was no question how the Bulldogs were feeling about it Tuesday.
Brooks and Morehead were walking around Stegeman Coliseum on Tuesday proud and cocksure about what they pulled off over what amounted to a three-day weekend.
“Josh just reconfirmed everything I ever thought about him as an athletic director,” Morehead said. “He’s thorough. He looks at every aspect. He was meticulous in this process. I’ve never seen a person that had more data and more information about candidates. What really impressed me was how he was able to evaluate and give insight about what he learned about people after an interview and the observations he made.”
Now comes the hard part. White has to win basketball games at Georgia.
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