Kirby Smart deserves better than lawmakers gave

The new, wet-behind-the-ears head coach for the Georgia Bulldogs, Kirby Smart, is being named the chief instigator of an amendment to Georgia Senate Bill 323. That measure will give athletic departments and organizations, both public and private, 90 days instead of three to respond to open records requests, an exception being certain salary information of nonclerical employees. Certainly he was being an advocate for his football team. However, there is something much more sinister going on here.

The amendment was attached in the waning hours of the session, before the majority of the lawmakers -- except those who planned this strategy -- had a chance to look at it. Senate Bill 323 was supposed to simply close a loophole that was inadvertently in the 2012 legislation to keep competing states from gaining an unfair advantage while prospecting for new industries. So why do we think this was a sneak attack? Coach Smart visited the Capitol in February. The amendment wasn't even brought to the floor for debate, of which there was none, until after midnight March 23.

Initially, the ruse was blamed on protecting recruiting secrets. State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, a co-author of the amendment, told this paper that the amendment "just allows us to play on the same field as Alabama and everybody else." Like most politicians, he fumbled his facts. No other SEC school has more than 15 days to answer an open records requests. Besides, media outlets get most information from the recruits themselves or their families.

So what would a big-time athletic program such as UGA and its associated foundations want to hide? That might be a question for Georgia's athletic director, Greg McGarity. Don't expect a straight answer.

McGarity told the Athens Banner-Herald that answering the 100 open records requests his office received since December was too taxing. But apparently it was not taxing enough to stop UGA's athletics department from spending more than $500,000 on private aircraft zipping around the country on recruiting trips from December through January. That same athletics department has a $117 million budget for this fiscal year and is getting ready to build a $30 million indoor practice facility. Is McGarity actually saying he can't afford to hire someone to answer open records requests? Given 90 days, any irregularities, NCAA investigations and double-dealing could be well-hidden from the public's prying eyes.

There is a simple solution to this chicanery: the veto pen of Gov. Nathan Deal. Certainly Deal wants the meat of Senate Bill 323, but it has hung fire for four years. One more year won't hurt. Coach Smart deserves better than to have this sad Machiavellian tale hung around his neck. Bring Senate Bill 323 back next year, the right way, without the baggage.

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 9:01 PM with the headline "Kirby Smart deserves better than lawmakers gave ."