That’s ridiculous. UGA is awful, so he’ll get two years without much criticism. After that, it will be exactly the same. Every major program’s fan base does this. If you don’t win consistently, a certain segment of fans on the fringe will say mean things on social media about how your coaching sucks. If White or his “camp” are putting this “the Gator fans are mean” justification out there, then I’ve lost a lot of respect for him. I hope he’s not behind this whiny excuse for leaving to stay ahead of next year’s inevitable axe.
He is in the public eye and is getting paid boatloads of money. Unless he is going to homeschool his kids and ban them from the internet, this comes with the territory. He signed his family up for this when he agreed to coach at UF for $3 million a year. To now say he is worried about his children is a cop-out and part of a PR battle to justify leaving his job for one at a rival university. If he really cared so much about exposing his children to negativity, he could stop coaching at high level universities and move back to the mid-majors or lower level. But I doubt that would be a desirable option for him, so pardon me if I take what he says with a grain of salt.
Unfortunately this comes with being a coach at a big school. Win and your on top of the world. Lose and it gets ugly for everyone. This is what I hate about all sports and sometimes I am just as guilty when it comes to bad mouthing coaches. It's fair to be critical of one's coaching, but we should never resort to vicious personal attacks on coaches or family members.
He probably already knew he was by many here. I guess this is a way of giving all the haters the finger.
Well, apparently you didn't get fully indoctrinated . Ha - I hear ya re: Football. Personally, I won't root for him at UGA and maybe that's partly due to surprise. The exciting thing is that we will have change and with that comes the possibility for improvement. My immediate concerns: Who can we get? Can they retain a majority of the players we want? Can they salvage any semblance of a recruiting class? Along with those short-term question will be - can they produce an exciting brand of basketball?
I like Mike White but can't pull for UGA any time any where. As far as being the coach there if he does there what he has done here he will be a hero.
The issue is the personal attacks. That is inexcusable. Some of the stuff our fans post on twitter and on these message boards are pretty gross and out of line. I'm fairly certain he isn't upset about his coaching being criticized.
Absolutely agree but this will happen with any and every fan base now with social media and courage from anonymity.
Then he needs to keep his kids off of twitter and the internet. This kind of criticism happens to millions of people around the US every day, most of whom aren’t in a public position like he is. It’s not like his family is being attacked, but his coaching and his results, or lack thereof. If I posted “White sucks”, then is that a personal attack? What about calling for him to be fired because his results suck in my opinion? This isn’t a volunteer position, but a $3 million a year job. Criticism comes with the territory, just like an actor getting photographed in public and criticized online. If he doesn’t want to expose his kids to this, then he chose the wrong profession. Edit: you people who disagree seem to think he should get to have his cake and eat it too. He should get paid millions of dollars and not face any serious criticism if he underperforms because gasp, his kids might read/hear about it. SMH
As a parent, if I don’t want my kids to have to ‘see’ vitriol aimed at me on Social Media, I can think of the quick way to solve it. DONT let them have access to it. If you’re not going to do that, then go somewhere where you will be ‘king of the mountain’ and all er body will ever say about you is wonderful things. Choosing to be an SEC Coach at the kind of salary they make opens one up to being treated in manners that children might not be comfortable with. Do I approve of that, no. Nonetheless, it does come with the turf. If Whites teams at Athens suck for 4-5 years, the fans will be stepping on the kids feelings there as well .
Thinking he can keep his kids off the internet is a foolish suggestion. You saying "White sucks" is lazy, but its also far from some of the worst stuff I've seen posted. Calling for him to be fired because of his shortcomings as a coach isn't an issue. OR....keep the criticism to his coaching performance and hold your fellow fans accountable when they start to get personal. I'm tired of the "thats just the way it is" argument, do better.
Drew should be the #1 call and pay him what he wants. That would be a HR hire for sure. I wouldn't necessarily dismiss Grant if Drew turns them down. His team barely missed out on the tournament with a very young team. Just 2 years ago Dayton would have definitely been a top 4 seed in the NCAA tournament and they lost their whole team and almost made the tournament this year at Dayton. Also, Grant has great ties to Florida Basketball and with the amount of top recruits now coming out of Florida, he would kill it in recruiting. If fact, Dayton's top recruit ever at Dayton and this year's top scorer and rebounder was a true freshman from Montverde. If anyone can keep the current class its Grant. Since his time at Bama, he's coached in the NBA and has been at Dayton since 2017. Think he's a much different coach now and a much more seasoned coach then he was 7 years ago.
So you are saying that White has the same level of control over his children as he does over players on his UF teams? Interesting, as it may explain a lot of the poor shots that the team took. I can tell my kids to stay off of Twitter, and guess what, they listen. I can limit what internet sites they can visit, and guess what, they listen. Because if they violate those rules, they are banned from the internet as punishment. Do you think anyone playing Roblox/Minecraft is going to give a rat’s ass about White and UF basketball? Define personal? What is personal for you is par for the course for someone else. Again, White signed up for this level of heat when he accepted the job offer from UF. It should have been no mystery to him that UF has passionate fans, especially in view of football. Yet he took the offer anyway for the money and for the challenge/prestige. Now that the heat has risen, he wants to push a narrative that it was our fans that led him to go to UGA, and not the fact that his seat was getting red hot due to his UF teams underperforming.
this freaking guy goes to UGA of all schools???? I always wanted to like White, but now he's given me a great reason to root for him to lose every game he coaches.
The internet is everywhere. If you think your kids don't know how to work around your banned shit then you are naive. It's like telling your teenage kids not to have sex, and if they do they'll get punished. That's called bad parenting. Personal is anything that goes beyond criticizing his job. Just because you're passionate doesn't mean you have to be an asshole. Also....he didn't push any narrative, you're taking a speculative tweet from a writer and pushing it as Mike White stated that as a reason he left.
I have always said he will be a star somewhere. Now I hope I am wrong. Mike was class personified. I hate the way some of our fanbase acted. We can use a fresh start and I am good with that. Just show some class in return for what he showed us. Thanks coach.
