“It has always seemed to me that one of the main jobs of the AD is to protect the interests of the university (and the president) from all the sources both within and attached to athletics which can bring discredit to the institution. It allows the president to spend his time running the university—while always being aware of what is going on in athletics.”
Writing privately to Dooley, Corrigan was more blunt. “In my conversations with Mike Adams I was struck with the fact that this guy from Pepperdine and Centre College seems to want to be involved more closely with football,” Corrigan wrote. “I was quite direct with him and suggested that it was best to leave football issues to his AD (who knows just about everything there is to know about the game). However, he seems to want his board to know that he has contact with the football coach. I hope he heard what I told him, and more important, that he heeds the warnings. Mike should only talk to [head football coach Jim] Donnan at your request, and they both need to know that.”
Corrigan offered his friend Dooley this advice: “Victory is wonderful, but hardly sustainable in a league as competitive as the SEC. Don’t stay too long, because it can eventually only take away from the incredible accomplishments which you have achieved at Georgia. They should name the place for you.”
Corrigan further noted that in his interview with Donnan, the football coach felt he was underpaid compared with other Southeastern Conference coaches. And not long after that assessment Donnan began agitating for a new multi-year contract.
Dooley had hired Donnan from Marshall University, a Division 1AA school in December 1995, a year and a half before Adams arrived. After a 5-6 season in Donnan’s first year, the Bulldogs bounced back in 1997 to post a 10-2 record, losing only to Tennessee and Auburn and beating arch rival Florida 37–17.
Suddenly Jim Donnan was a hot commodity in the coaching ranks. The University of North Carolina, where Donnan had coached for several years under Vince Dooley’s brother, Bill Dooley, came calling with a $1 million offer to coach the Tar Heels. So Dooley began working on a new contract for Donnan.
After negotiations with Donnan slowed, the impatient Adams did an end run around Dooley, the Athletic Board, and the Athletic Association lawyers who were negotiating the contract. Adams made an under-the-table verbal deal to pay Donnan roughly $250,000 should he be fired with three or more years left on his contract. The president specified that Dooley, the Athletic Board, and the Athletic Association’s attorneys King & Spalding must not know about the deal.
Donnan’s Bulldogs were 9-3 in 1998 and finished the season with a come-from-behind victory over Virginia. The team dropped to 8-4 in 1999 but came from behind to defeat Purdue in the Outback Bowl. It marked the first time since the 1981–83 seasons that Georgia had finished their season ranked among the top sixteen teams in the polls. However, Georgia lost its final regular season game to hated Georgia Tech.
When the Bulldogs finished the 2000 season with an 8-4 record and again lost the final regular season game to Georgia Tech, Adams let it be known he was unhappy. “Our special teams [stink],” he told reporters after the game. “We can’t tackle. We don’t stay in our lanes. We just don’t cover.”
Later that week Adams fired Donnan, implying that there were “off the field” problems with the football program without specifying what they were. Rumors swirled that some team members were into drugs. Donnan felt obliged to respond saying flatly, “We don’t have any drug problems on our team.”
(Donnan’s successor Mark Richt couldn’t say the same. In 2003 campus police were called to McWhorter Hall where they arrested five football players and one basketball player on charges of drug possession. In that case Adams, who had helped recruit Richt from Florida State University, saw fit to say nothing. Richt was winning even more football games than Donnan had and was 3-0 versus Georgia Tech.)
The dismissal of Donnan triggered the secret $250,000 buyout clause that Adams had been hiding from Dooley and the Athletic Association. In January 2001, Donnan’s agent, Richard Howell, wrote Adams demanding that the university honor the agreement and pay Donnan. After Adams refused to discuss a settlement and weeks passed, Howell also contacted the Athletic Association attorney, Ed Tolley of Athens, and told him about the secret agreement. Tolley went straight to Dooley’s office.
“Are you aware of this secret deal?” Tolley asked.
Not only was Dooley not aware of it, he could hardly believe what he was hearing.
After consulting with then-Chancellor Stephen Portch, Adams came to Dooley’s office to explain. Adams acknowledged his “mistake,” Dooley recalled. But he blamed Jim Nalley, a wealthy Atlanta car dealership owner and friend of Donnan’s, who was acting as a go-between in the negotiations. “Adams told me if he wasn’t trying to get a lot of money out of him he’d tell him what he thought of him,” Dooley said.
The question then became what to do next, since the agreement hadn’t yet been made public. Dooley set up a meeting. Attending the meeting were Dooley, his personal attorney Nick Chivilis, and Tolley and Floyd Newton of King & Spalding, who were representing the Athletic Association. Adams sent on his behalf Steve Shewmaker, executive director of the Office of Legal Affairs, the university’s top lawyer and a personal friend whom he had brought to Georgia from Kentucky.
Shewmaker stunned everyone by suggesting the Athletic Association, which is funded by public donations, simply absorb the $250,000 without bringing the matter to the Athletic Association board, thus avoiding public exposure. This proposal smacked to the others as a cover-up and they quickly rejected it. They opted to bring the matter to the board for approval.
Shewmaker later told Deloitte & Touche auditors he didn’t recall suggesting they keep the Donnan payment secret, but everyone else at the meeting remembered it that way.
On April 17, 2001, the Athletic Association executive committee met in the executive conference room at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on the UGA campus. Adams, who chairs the Athletic Association Board, called the meeting to order and began the discussion of Donnan’s contract. Rather than acknowledge a mistake, however, Adams implied the secret agreement was a misunderstanding.
According to minutes, “Dr. Adams said a verbal statement he made while Coach Donnan’s contract negotiations were underway was taken as a commitment to extend the contract by six months should he be released from his duties before the expiration date of the contract.”
The executive committee approved the payment unanimously and the full board approved it a week later.
Before the firing, however, Dooley, perhaps out of empathy for a fellow coach, had wanted to give Donnan another year to turn the team around or at least give him an opportunity to find another job. Dooley had met privately with Donnan and told him that he was going to recommend one more year but warned that he was not sure of the president’s reaction to the recommendation.
As events unfolded, however, Adams then met with the Athletic Board members to get counseling. The board backed his decision to fire Donnan. Afterwards, Dooley, perhaps because of his many years as a football coach, felt obliged to make public his feelings that Donnan deserved another year to right the ship.
Some felt Dooley’s comments were inappropriate. “I was on the Athletic Board and I favored firing Donnan,” said Hank Huckaby, then a senior vice president. “When Vince came out and said he’d give him [Donnan] another year, I’d have fired him [Dooley] right then.”
Huckaby said Donnan was fired for multiple reasons including suspicion of a lack of team discipline and “going 7-4 every year.” Also, he said Donnan lacked good political skills.
Dooley said he felt it only fair to let it be known at the press conference that he had recommended another year with the decision ultimately