As Miami prepares to play Indiana for the national championship, a decade-old photo has turned into one of the week's best full-circle moments, and former Hurricanes coach Mark Richt explained the story behind it.
The image, shared widely across social media, shows Richt at a South Florida park in 2016 with a much younger Malachi Toney standing nearby.
"People wanted to make sure it was actually Malachi, and it is, in fact, Malachi Toney in that photo," Richt told David Pollack on Pollack's "See Ball, Get Ball" show.
The photo was during a broader outreach effort he carried from Georgia to Miami, aimed at meeting kids where they were and removing barriers that kept them from ever getting to campus.
"We always did community service as a team at Georgia. We did the same thing at Miami," Richt said, adding that he believed one season under his watch "might have led the nation in community service hours."
Richt said the program leaned into satellite-style camps because many families could not afford traditional camp fees and, just as importantly, could not reliably get to Coral Gables. "A lot of those kids couldn't find a way to come to our campus, so we decided to have satellite camps," Richt said.
In his first year at Miami back in 2016, Richt made weekly park visits around the area as part of his push to reconnect the Hurricanes with South Florida youth football. Richt said the goal was to show up, support those communities and "bless as many of those little guys as we could," whether or not it ever turned into a future star.
Now, of course, Malachi Toney turned into a star for Miami.
Mark Richt took a picture with Malachi Toney back in 2016
S/O to get @MarkRicht getting out in the community in 2016. The fruits of this labor paying off in 2026 as young Mali stands next to him on the right. pic.twitter.com/sLiGUe4jVZ
— Greentree All-American (@NordyCane2) January 13, 2026
Toney, a Fort Lauderdale American Heritage product, arrived at Miami as one of the state's most decorated prospects. He was the 2024 Nat Moore Award winner and the MaxPreps' Florida Player of the Year.
Now, he is a central piece of why Miami is playing for it all. Entering the national championship game, Toney has 99 receptions for 1,089 yards and nine touchdowns. Toney has also earned ACC Rookie of the Year and Offensive Rookie of the Year honors this season.
Richt did not pretend a youth camp alone was what got Toney to play for the Hurricanes. He mentioned that Toney probably would have gone anyway, but at this point, it is undeniable that Richt's "long-game" has paid dividends.