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Kirby Smart spoke with lawmakers about possible open records changes

Nick Bromberg
College football and motorsports writer

Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Tuesday that he talked about possible changes to Georgia's Open Records Law with state politicians.

However, the new coach didn't want to have anything to do with taking credit for any changes that could happen regarding open records requests.

An amendment to Senate Bill 323, passed last week, gives Georgia's athletic department and the athletic department of other state schools 90 days to respond to any open records requests like information included in coaches' contracts. DawgNation.com reported that the chief of staff to one of the co-sponsors of the bill said it "came to light through Kirby Smart at UGA.”

“First of all, I shouldn’t get any credit for that,” Smart said via DawgNation.com. “When I went over to the capitol I was asked what’s the difference in our program and some programs I’ve been at in the past. One of the things I brought up, there’s a difference. And that was the extent of my conversation with those guys about that.

“So for me to get the credit for that is a little bit misleading.”

The site reported Smart declined to answer a followup question about the increase in time. Georgia's current Open Records Law gives the department three days to answer requests.

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Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity spoke Wednesday about the possible changes, which could be signed into law by Georgia's governor. When asked how changes to the law benefitted the football program, he had this to say, via OnlineAthens.com:

"I’ll let Kirby address that, and I thought he did that yesterday. My only comment on the FOI is that it gives us a chance administratively to respond in a timely manner. We’ve had close to 100 FOI requests since Dec. 1. It’s not just you guys in the room, they come from everywhere. And it’s not just, I need this bit of information. They’re lengthy and it takes a lot of time to estimate the time and effort for those people who are doing their regular job, not necessarily to stop and provide this information. And some of that stuff has to be done after hours. And it’s not like we have staff idly by to help out with this."

All other SEC school states require Freedom of Information Act requests to be answered within 15 days. When McGarity was asked if there was a suggestion made by the school regarding an amount of days for the new bill, McGarity added "There's no suggestion on our part."

Georgia basketball coach Mark Fox was able to have some fun with the bill Wednesday afternoon. McGarity and Fox held an end-of-season press conference and the open records changes predictably became a topic.

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For more Georgia news, visit UGASports.com.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!