Cairo High School's Mo Wilson delivers his testimonial at the Grady FCA banquet. 

CAIRO — As his chest hurt and other parts of his body felt the effects of an ongoing heart attack, what Mark Richt sensed most was peace. 

The former University of Georgia and University of Miami head football coach told the crowd at the Grady County Fellowship of Christian Athletes that he felt at peace — brought on by his faith and his belief — during his 2019 heart attack.

“I never doubted my faith. I was so thankful to have that feeling of peace at that time,” he said.

That day started normally for Richt. He went to do his usual workout. However, this time, he couldn’t get all the way through it. 

“I lose my breath. I start sweating real hard,” he said. “I tell (his wife) Katharyn I’m not feeling very good.”

Richt made his way into the bathroom. but then started feeling pressure on his chest. He yells out for help.

“And it’s crickets,” he said of the response.

Now Richt figured he needed to seek help. It was about 50 steps from where he was to where there were other people. That meant going through the sauna and the steamroom and then to where the others were.

“It was the longest 50 steps I ever took,” he said.  

After the ambulance arrived, EMTs began working on Richt. 

Richt said he hoped for something that would knock him out, but his blood pressure was so low, doctors were afraid to administer an anesthesia. 

“They didn’t want to put me out because my blood pressure was so low they thought I was going to code — which is code for dying,” he said.

“My head is going numb and I can’t breathe. I blacked out and I’m totally numb. I thought ‘this is it.’ And I felt at peace. And then I heard ‘wake up!’ So I made it.”

It turned out Richt had two arteries with 100% blockage, including one in the medical community as “the widow maker.”

Not a straight path

For Richt, now about to turn 62, his path to that peace as he faced a mortal end was anything but straight.

By his own admission, Richt was far from a model Christian in the fall of 1986. He was a graduate assistant at Florida State University for head coach Bobby Bowden. 

The Seminoles had an off week during the season, and Bowden allowed players to go home. Many, though, stayed in town and a number of them attended a party. 

It was at that party where offensive lineman Pablo Lopez, universally liked by his teammates, was shot and killed. 

A team meeting was called for the next day. As a GA, one of Richt’s jobs was to take roll. The Seminoles players had assigned seats.

Bowden pointed to the now empty seat where Lopez once sat.

“Pablo used to sit in that seat right here and now he’s gone,” Richt recalled of Bowden telling the team. “You guys are 18 to 22 years old and you think you’re going to live forever. 

“If that was you instead of Pablo, where will you spend eternity?”

Though he was speaking to the players, the message hit home with Richt. The next day, he went to Bowden’s office.

“He was talking to the team,” Richt said, “but I was heading to a bad place. I went from a very self-centered, cocky and not very good person to someone who wanted to meet Christ and from that day to live a life that pleases Christ. 

My goal was simple — to live a life that would make God proud.”

Richt first broached becoming a Christian after his roommate at Miami, John Peasley, turned his life around.

“If I was an all-American at nightlife,” Richt said, “he was a Heisman Trophy winner.”

But a trip home over two weeks changed his roommate’s outlook, “he came back with a peace about him. He said he came to know Christ,” Richt said. “I thought if I became a Christian then I have to be perfect all the time. I didn’t understand grace.” 

At the time, Richt still had his hopes of playing in the NFL. 

“I thought, if I become a Christian I’m going to go on a mission trip to Africa and never come home,” he joked.

Richt was an all-state standout quarterback in Boca Raton, Florida, just north of Miami. 

“I was great,” he said. “All you had to do was ask me — or my mom.”

When Richt was recruited to Miami by Coach Saban — Coach Lou Saban — he was one of three quarterbacks in the signing class. 

“He convinced me I was going to be the savior of the program,” Richt said. 

That class included future Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly.

“I was going to start as a freshman, be an all-American my second year, win the Heisman my third year and then go pro,” Richt said. “But ‘Lucky Jim’ started living my life for me. My identity was in football. 

“That’s kind of a dangerous thing,” Richt added. “If your identity is in what you do, then when what you do doesn’t go well, then your life doesn’t go well. I started doing things I never thought I’d do. That’s how I got the nickname ‘Boca Baby.’”

NFL dreams run into reality — and Hall of Famers

When his playing days at Miami were done, Richt went to the Denver Broncos on a free agent contract. The Broncos then completed a deal for a first-round draft pick — future Pro Football Hall of Famer John Elway.

He also found out that getting told to grab your playbook and go meet the coach isn’t an invitation to sit and talk shop with the boss. It has a far less appealing meaning.

It means you’re getting cut. And Richt got that call in Denver.

“‘I start crying like a baby,” he said. “And Coach Reeves starts crying too. He said, ‘I hate this part of the job.’ 

“i grab my bags and go down the elevator and as the elevator opens, all the veteran players are checking in and one of the veterans sees me with my bags and says, ‘dang, man, you got cut already?’”

Later, he got another free agent tryout with the Miami Dolphins. He got locker No. 9. Four lockers down was that of No. 13 — future Pro Football Hall of Famer Dan Marino.

Even though he tested better than Marino, longtime backup Don Struck and third-stringer Jim “Crash” Jensen, Richt was told by position David Shula to get his playbook — and go see head coach Don Shula.

“I was the fourth-best quarterback in the world,” Richt said “and no one knew it.”

A signature moment 

Jobs that included bartending eventually brought Richt to coaching as a graduate assistant at FSU. From there, he became offensive coordinator at East Carolina before returning to FSU as quarterbacks coach. 

He was later promoted to offensive coordinator and then Georgia came calling for him to be the Bulldogs head coach. 

One of the Bulldogs’ signature moments came in the annual rivalry game against Florida in Jacksonville. After Knowshon Moreno scored the game’s first touchdown, the entire team rushed to celebrate with Moreno in the end zone. 

The response drew two penalties and while Richt wanted a team celebration to take place, he didn’t have in mind having the entire team run to the end zone.

“Truth be told, I only expected 11 guys to celebrate,” he said. “We played Vanderbilt two weeks prior. We barely won that game — not a whole lot of juice, excitement.”

Richt wanted to change that. He told the team that if they score, he wanted a team celebration.

But he had in mind just the entire offense. 

“They took it as the whole team,” he said. “So when we scored and everyone ran on the field, I was as shocked as anybody.”

On the sidelines, it was just Richt and linebacker Dannell Ellerbe. Richt asked Ellerbe, a standout player in his own who later played in the NFL, why he wasn’t joining in.

“He said, ‘coach, I’m so far in your doghouse, there’s no way,” Richt recalled.

And the play in question also had to be reviewed to make sure Moreno scored.

“If he had been one inch short, we would have been third-and-31,” Richt said.

As it was, the Bulldogs still kicked off from inside their own 8-yard line after the infractions were assessed. 

Richt also cautioned his team that no such celebration was going to take place if Georgia’s first score came in the fourth quarter and with Florida holding a sizable lead.

Richt planned to take a lengthy break after his days at Georgia were done. Instead, he became Miami’s head coach just four days later. 

He spent three years on the Hurricanes’ sidelines before extreme fatigue as he put it, ended his time there.

On May 25, 2021, Richt was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He took to Twitter to reveal that, and found that to be therapeutic.

“I see it as a momentary affliction,” he said. “After that heart attack, I felt peace and after this diagnosis, I felt hope.”

That stems from knowing where he will spend eternity, Richt said.  

”I know where I’m going,” he said. “I’m excited.”