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UM G.O.A.T.S Season 1, Episode 7: The Mark Richt Interview

Gary-Ferman-Head-Shot 2by:Gary Ferman•08/17/22•

CaneSport

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(Photo by Mike Comer/Getty Images)

Mark Richt coached the Miami Hurricanes for three years, arriving in 2016 after a 15-year tenure at Georgia, and a lasting legacy was the Indoor Practice Facility initiative that was fulfilled under his leadership. That included donating $1 million of his own money toward building the IPF. The former UM QB also was at the helm for the only double-digit win season for the Canes dating back to 2003. That was in 2017, when Miami began 10-0 before dropping the final three games.

Richt, of course, was replaced by Manny Diaz with Richt stepping down while suffering from the then-undiagnosed effects of Parkinson’s disease. He currently is working as an analyst for the ACC Network.

Today Richt, 62, looked back and weighed in on a variety of topics in CaneSport’s latest G.O.A.T.S episode with legendary broadcaster Roy Firestone.

He talked at length about his faith, and there were tears shed talking about his adopted children from Ukraine. In another moment, Richt revealed for the first time that he was essentially coaching the Hurricanes the entire time while dealing with the effects of Parkinson’s.

“There’s no question I was (coaching with Parkinson’s) at Miami and I’m pretty sure at the end at Georgia as well,” Richt said. “One of the non-motor symptoms is loss of smell, and I remember losing my smell in 2012.”

Richt said with Parkinson’s he had “extreme fatigue” to the point where “I felt if I kept going something bad would happen to me health wise. What I didn’t realize is something bad had already happened to me, Parkinson’s.”

Richt says his main symptoms from Parkinson are slow movements and a slight tremor in his left hand.

“When you finally are diagnosed with Parkinson’s – by the time (symptoms) manifest you probably had it 5 or 10 years,” he says.

Richt says that he currently “feels great.”

“The blessing of this whole thing is I’m not in any kind of chronic pain,” he says. “Fatigue kind of jumps on me harder and faster than what was normal for me before Parkinson’s.”

Richt also talked about a pretty good memory. That’s one of the brightest moments from his Miami coaching tenure: The win over Notre Dame in a rowdy stadium.

“We literally put Notre Dame in shock that day,” Richt said. “It was one of those days where everybody for years has been longing to go back to the Orange Bowl days, and it was one of those days where Hard Rock was rocking as hard as the Orange Bowl ever did rock.

“Everybody was dancing in the stadium. It was a great day.”

PREVIOUS UM G.O.A.T.S EPISODES:

Miss our episodes with Jimmy Johnson, Jim Kelly, Mario Cristobal, and Bernie Kosar. Here they are:

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