Knowshon Moreno leapt from the two-yard line. He extended as far forward as his 5’10 frame allowed. In a sport filled with emotional peaks and valleys, Moreno, in that moment, represented the crest of the era charged by his head coach.

The line judge stretched his arms vertically to the sky, signaling not victory, but merely an early lead. Georgia: 6, Florida: 0, 1st quarter, 6:02, the scoreboard read.

The reactive moments that followed were in no way common to a first-quarter touchdown in a football game in the middle of a season.

It started with a somewhat muted celebration. Matthew Stafford skipped to the defensive side of the line of scrimmage. Trinton Sturdivant surveyed the scene and was engulfed by a full wave of white jerseys and silver britches. The whole damn team was dancing in the end zone.

It was euphoric for players and fans.

It was a public display of rebellion, seemingly atypical of everything Mark Richt was and is.

That's one thing that's often misunderstood about Mark Richt.

His devout faith was clumsily forced into the erroneous narrative that he was not competitive and that he buried emotion in the name of professionalism and tact.

That was not true then and is not true now.

Having spoken to countless players and coaches in Richt’s program over the years, I can tell you that he was fiery, prioritized winning, and even uttered the occasional word that would draw a fine from the FCC in his current line of work with the ACC Network.

Any storylines pitting Richt’s kind disposition against his desire to succeed in football were rooted in one simple complexion: most people cannot be both. Again, he was and is.

---

I’ve heard that the popular music of your formative years quickly becomes a playlist you cling to when current music doesn’t connect the same way.

That’s what Mark Richt’s era of Georgia football is for people my age. I can’t say that it was the always the best, or even the most enjoyable. Richt’s era spanned my sixth-grade year through the first four years of my professional journalism career, and up to my meeting my wife. He was fired on her birthday in 2015. I still apologize to her for having to leave that lunch and “having to work.”

For my generation, the Richt tenure represents a special and seminal time of sports and culture for the state of Georgia.

---

That's why there were both a personal and a collective feeling of heartache when Richt shared his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

It doesn’t seem fair that one of the guys who did things the right way, in a sport rife with those who do not, would get that kind of prognosis.

In Richt's announcement, he harkened back to those ways of Jacksonville in 2007.

His public reaction to upsetting news was uncommon—rebellion to humanity’s developed social norm. It was literally the next sentence.

“I have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Truthfully I look at it as a momentary light affliction compared to future glory in heaven,” Richt wrote.

Being half his age and perhaps half the man, I’m not equipped with the wisdom needed to understand how so much positive can be derived from something so negative.

It is a marvel.

Whatever that is, our collective society needs more of it.

What I do know is that Richt and his legacy in Athens prove that people can do more together than they can apart, and they all need support.

He may not be coaching football anymore, but he's still teaching a whole hell, er, heck of a lot.

Be well, Coach Richt. You’re loved and beloved.