Mark Richt was the head football coach at the University of Georgia for 15 years and at the University of Miami, his alma mater, for three.
39 Facts About Mark Richt
2.
Mark Richt's teams won two Southeastern Conference championships, five SEC division titles, and one Atlantic Coast Conference division title.
3.
Mark Richt was a two-time SEC Coach of the Year, the 2017 ACC Coach of the Year, and the winner of the national 2017 Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award.
4.
Mark Richt was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Lou and Helen Richt.
5.
In 1967, the Mark Richt family moved to Boulder, Colorado when Lou got a new job.
6.
Mark Richt chose to attend the University of Miami, an hour south from his family.
7.
Mark Richt played at the University of Miami from 1978 to 1982.
8.
Under coach Howard Schnellenberger, Mark Richt was backup to future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly.
9.
Mark Richt received interest from multiple NFL teams and briefly spent time with the Denver Broncos behind John Elway.
10.
Mark Richt began his coaching career after being offered a job by Bobby Bowden as a graduate assistant for the Florida State Seminoles.
11.
At the age of 29, Mark Richt was hired as the offensive coordinator at East Carolina University.
12.
Mark Richt was hired by Bill Lewis, who had previously been defensive coordinator at Georgia.
13.
Mark Richt was promoted to offensive coordinator in 1994 upon the departure of Brad Scott.
14.
Mark Richt coached two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks: Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke.
15.
Mark Richt coached a total of six FSU quarterbacks to the NFL, including Ward, Weinke, Brad Johnson, Danny Kanell, Danny McManus and Peter Tom Willis.
16.
Mark Richt was hired as head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs before the 2001 season, replacing Jim Donnan.
17.
Mark Richt's teams won two Southeastern Conference championships, six SEC Eastern Division titles, and nine bowl games.
18.
Mark Richt finished his career at Georgia with 145 wins and 51 losses, making him the second-winningest coach in Georgia history.
19.
Mark Richt left with the highest winning percentage of any coach with more than 29 games at the school.
20.
The day after the Georgia Tech game, Mark Richt was dismissed after 15 seasons as head coach.
21.
Mark Richt served as the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes for the 2016 to 2018 seasons and called all offensive plays.
22.
Mark Richt worked closely with quarterbacks at practice, alongside his oldest son and quarterbacks coach, Jon Richt.
23.
Mark Richt was named ACC Coach of the Year for this achievement.
24.
Shortly after joining Miami, Mark Richt began spearheading a campaign to raise money for a new indoor practice facility.
25.
Each Thursday during football season, Mark Richt visited with local youth football teams.
26.
Mark Richt has stated that he wanted to visit the teams at all the parks in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County.
27.
Mark Richt developed a partnership with the American Youth Football League to instruct youth coaches and players via regional clinics.
28.
Tolbert Bain, a starter on the national champion 1987 team worked regularly with South Florida Youth leagues and helped Mark Richt to develop the outreach.
29.
Mark Richt strongly opposes oversigning, a practice popular in the Southeastern Conference that often results in older or hurt players losing their football scholarships.
30.
Mark Richt believes that when a team offers a scholarship, it is a four-year commitment from the university.
31.
Mark Richt hosted "Paradise Camp", a summer football camp at UM for high school players.
32.
In 2017, Mark Richt received the Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award as the Hurricanes peaked nationally with a No 2 ranking after 16 consecutive wins, clinching the ACC Coastal title.
33.
Mark Richt is married to the former Katharyn Francis of Tallahassee, Florida.
34.
Katharyn graduated with an economics degree in 1987 from Florida State, where the couple met when she was an FSU cheerleader and Mark Richt was a graduate assistant.
35.
Mark Richt is a devout Christian and credits his conversion to a locker room speech given by Bobby Bowden when Mark Richt was a 26-year-old graduate assistant.
36.
When Mark Richt became head coach at Miami, he and his wife purchased a house two miles from campus next to the Barnacle Historic State Park in Coconut Grove.
37.
Mark Richt appeared in the 2006 movie Facing the Giants as the former coach of the movie's main character, Grant Taylor.
38.
On October 21,2019, Mark Richt tweeted that he had suffered a heart attack but had survived the episode and intended to resume normal activities quickly.
39.
On July 1,2021, Mark Richt announced via Twitter that he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.