UGA Athletic Director Damon Evans to discuss DUI charge

University Athletic Director Damon Evans will meet with the media at 6:30 p.m. today on campus to discuss his DUI arrest late Wednesday in Atlanta.




University President Michael Adams will issue a written statement following the news conference.



Evans was pulled over in his 2009 BMW shortly before midnight Wednesday and a field sobriety test was performed. He was taken to jail and released early Thursday, charged with DUI and driving in an improper lane.



WSB-TV has reported a passenger in Evans’ car, 28-year-old Courtney Furhrmann, of Atlanta, was arrested for disorderly conduct.


“The trooper made the traffic stop after observing the manner he was driving,” Gordy Wright, a state patrol spokesman, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He got him stopped, detected an odor of alcohol, administered field sobriety tests and determined he was less safe to be driving.”



Earlier Thursday, coaches and senior staff attended a meeting in Evans’ office at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall at 1:20 p.m.



WSB-TV in Atlanta reported Fulton County Sheriff’s Office officials said Evans spent the night in Atlanta City Jail. Evans refused to take a breath test.



Earlier this year Evans was awarded a sizable pay raise, as the athletic association voted unanimously to grant him a contract extension and boost his pay to $550,000. Each year for the next five years he will get an automatic $20,000 raise, which will give him a salary of $630,000 by 2014. He will receive a $250,000 longevity bonus if he remains in the job when the contract expires in 2015. The start of his new contract begins today, as his pay increased $110,000 on July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.



University students were talking about the arrest on campus today.



“I think it’s pretty ironic since they show that anti-DUI video with him in it on the JumboTron at every football game,” said rising senior David McHugh. “I am very disappointed that our athletic director would do something that he tells the students not to do at every football game. I think it sheds a very bad light on our University, and I think he should be punished for his actions.”



“My first reaction was, ‘Really?’, because the person who told me about it is someone I go to football games with, and my friend told me the main thing Evans said at football games was ‘Don’t drink and drive, because if you drink and drive, you lose.’ And that’s why this is so shocking,” said Azubuike Ekwueme, a rising junior who works at the Tate Student Center Information Desk. “Someone as big as he is, with the title he has should be more of a role model to others. It would make him a better role model if this wouldn’t have happened. At the same time, he’s human, and it happens. But for those that it happens to, knowing you’re a celebrity for the most part, you’ve gotta watch the things you do, when you do them, because you’re looked at more (closely) than others are.”



Under the policy set forth by the Georgia Athletic Department, a student-athlete found in violation of the University’s alcohol policy is automatically suspended for 10 percent of the team’s games.



Evans took over as athletic director in 2004, replacing longtime athletic director and football coach Vince Dooley.



Video of Damon Evans telling Georgia fans not to drink and drive.



- Ryan Black contributed to this story.