Higher calling compelled Mark Richt to sell his second home

Georgia coach Mark Richt is not selling his lake home because he thinks he's going to be fired.

But he knew we'd all think that.

That's why he waited until the offseason to place his Hart County lake home, valued at nearly $2 million, on the market. But because Richt is on the proverbial coaching hotseat, the real estate move caused mass speculation about why he would sell.

"I was actually compelled to do this much earlier," Richt told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I made the decision to do it a while ago but I didn't want to do it during the season or during recruiting because I knew it would be blown out of proportion."

And Richt would be the first to tell you that he didn't do it for the money, he did it for a higher power.

In an interview with Chip Towers, the AJC's Georgia beat writer, Richt states that he read a book called "The Hole in Our Gospel," by Richard Stearns, and it compelled him to downsize. The lake home is actually Richt's second home.

"I'd challenge anybody to read this book and not be affected by it, Richt said. "We just live in such wealth here in America. And I'm talking about everybody. Anybody who's making 30 grand a year is extremely wealthy compared to rest of the people in the world. These kids, these families will walk two or three miles, half a day or more, to get water that's really not healthy. They're drinking stuff that's not safe for them. Then children die of AIDS, they die of malaria and they die of dehydration. Kids end up dying or the parents die and they've got nothing.

"This book just talks about how much of that is going on around the world and, if it was sitting right outside our door, what would we do about it? It's a very compelling book. Compelling enough for me to say, 'you know what, I don't want to pour money into a home like that when I can use it for better things, for eternal things.' It was just very alarming to find out what's going on out there and we need to do something about it."

Stearns is the president of World Vision U.S., and Richt believes in the book and the World Vision cause so much that he and his family are going to Honduras later this summer to help build water wells.

This story is no doubt a cautionary tale about jumping the gun and making assumptions. In this day and age when college coaching salaries are going through the roof, it's actually pretty admirable of Richt, who makes $3 million a year, to take into consideration that not everyone has been as lucky.

Graham Watson is a regular contributor to Dr. Saturday. Follow her on Twitter @Yahoo_Graham

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