Georgia AD apologizes for Ludacris' spring game rider

Greg McGarity trumpeted the success of an SEC record spring game attendance at G-Day on Thursday under first-year coach Kirby Smart, but he also took a moment when addressing the UGA athletic board of directors for the first time since then to offer an apology.

McGarity, finishing his sixth year as Georgia athletic director, never mentioned directly the fallout from the rider as part of its contract with musical act Ludacris, but those in the board room at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation undoubtedly knew what he was talking about.

“I do want to take this opportunity to apologize to our board for mistakes we made with certain aspects of the details of an entertainment agreement,” McGarity said. “Few things in my professional life have bothered me more than this situation. There are no reruns in life so we need to turn the page, learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to make sure errors of this nature do not reoccur.”

After the quarterly meeting, UGA president Jere Morehead said he “certainly appreciated that the athletic department took responsibility for some of the terms in that contract. Obviously in retrospect they should have done a more thorough job of reviewing all of the riders and removing those that were objectionable. I appreciate that he’s accepted that that’s what athletics should have done and what it will do moving forward.”