This offseason, Mark Richt is going to have to take a refresher course on NCAA violations.
For the second time this season, the NCAA has cracked the whip on Georgia's coach for a secondary time violation, this time for being a good guy.
For the past two years, Richt has doled out-of-pocket payments worth more than $25,000 to three assistant coaches. The NCAA learned this little tidbit after Georgia completed and submitted a "lengthy internal investigation" as reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
According to those reports, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through the Freedom of Information Act, Richt paid former recruiting assistant Charlie Cantor $10,842 over an 11-month period through March of 2011, former linebackers coach John Jancek $10,000 in the summer of 2009 and $6,150 to director of player development John Eason in July of 2010. All of the payments were made by checks from Richt's personal bank account after UGA's previous athletic administration declined his requests for increased compensation for those parties.
Richt said he made the payments to the coaches and support staff to make up for what he believed was inadequate compensation, but they violated NCAA bylaw 11.3.2.2, which regulates supplemental pay for staff members.
Luckily for Richt and his staff members, the punishment for Richt's generosity is no more than a letter of admonishment from the university and extra rules education (kinda like Saturday school).
Earlier this year, Georgia self-reported two instances of secondary violations where Richt accidentally replied to the father of a recruit via text message when he meant to forward the message to a member of his staff.
- - -
Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham.