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September 2nd Kickoff

UGA's record when I am in attendance

Paulwesterdawg brought this up a couple of weeks ago, but it’s an interesting question to consider.

What is Georgia’s record in football games where you have been in attendance?

After reviewing the stats, my personal record is:

54-10-1 (Overall)

4-2-1 (Away)

3-1 (Neutral sites)

The neutral site games include two Florida games and two bowl games, while the away games include 5 trips to Auburn, a trip to Clemson (Auburn with a lake), and a trip to lovely Starkville, Mississippi last year (it seems I only attend games in a big metropolis).

Of note was the only tie on my record, it came at the end of Ray Goff’s tenure with the Bulldogs when they tied Auburn on the plains in 1994. I would suspect that a fair number of Georgia fans have never attended a game that ended in a tie. This particular game was like a win for a 5-4 Georgia squad and a virtual loss for an Auburn team that entered the game 9-0 (though, surprise, surprise, Auburn was on probation).

Like most college football fans, I’m glad the possibility of “kissing your sister” was eliminated with the introduction of overtime, the 1996 game with Auburn being a great example.

This also brings up my disappointment in the announcement of the cut-offs for Georgia’s away games this year. I had made plans to attend my first game in Oxford, Mississippi and ordered tickets. Unfortunately, every other Georgia fan was enticed by the draw of Oxford and a cut-off of 12,850 points was set. Needless to say I haven’t been able to attain that type of contribution level in the years since I’ve graduated. So if any affluent season ticket holder would like to donate two tickets to me, I’ll gladly accept. Alas, there is always Tuscaloosa next year to improve the away game record…..

How I became a Bulldog

I was born and raised near Macon, GA. I am the eldest son of two Alabama natives, who instilled their love for football, Auburn football, in me at an early age. The first college football game I attended was to watch Auburn beat Georgia Tech (31-10). Two truths remain from my experiences that day, the first is that college football will be in my blood forever, the second is that there is something truly invigorating about watching Georgia Tech lose. My family taught me about the traditions of college football, about the love, emotion, passion for your team and the game. I remember the first time I cried after watching a football game was when Auburn lost to LSU (7-6) in 1988, a.k.a. “the earthquake game”. My folks also taught me about the rivalries and about the hate. Hate was reserved for Alabama.

Alabama was the antithesis of Auburn. The idea that “Alabama is Alabama, and Alabama is gonna win” was a stark contrast to the ideals of humility and hard work my parents believed in. Georgia football was a completely different story all together.

I was never taught to hate Georgia. After all, Vince Dooley had gone to Auburn and Pat Dye had gone to Georgia. Everybody loved Herschel. I can never remember anyone from my family, or any Auburn fan for that matter, actively pulling for Georgia to lose except for those Saturdays when they played Auburn, and whether Georgia won or Auburn won, my folks still respected Georgia.

My parents eventually became Auburn season ticket holders, so instead of going to two or three college football games a year I was going to 7 or 8. College football seemed to impact every aspect of my young life. My opinion of prospective girlfriends was affected by football. The girl didn’t have to know anything about the game, but she had to appreciate the fact that I loved football. Most guys are familiar with the awkward conversations with their dates father, but if I ever dated a girl who’s daddy was a football fan we could talk like men for hours, whether it was football season or not.

My Senior year of high school things began to change. I applied to several schools throughout the south to study engineering, but knew I wanted to go to either Auburn or UGA. Let me say I never wanted to go to Georgia Tech, never filled out the application they mailed to my house, and don’t think I would’ve gone there if they offered me a brand new Corvette. Ultimately I decided to go to UGA, for a myriad of reasons, but I think my father still has my acceptance letter and scholarship offer from Auburn in a filing cabinet somewhere. Initially I thought I would continue to pull for Georgia to go 10-1 every year and lose to Auburn, just as I had the previous 18 years of my life. But I was wrong.

I am proud to say that I missed my very first college class (Early American History), not because I slept in, or couldn’t find it’s location, but because I was standing in line at Stegeman Coliseum for student football tickets. Athens was my new home and the people at UGA were my friends and new family. I didn’t just see the football players on Saturdays in the fall, but I knew them, and much to my surprise even had classes with several of them over the years (I’m still not sure why WR Tony Small was sitting behind me in….Calculus 3). So when November rolled around and Georgia played Auburn it was naïve of me to think I could root against the team whose student section I had sat and hollered in all year. More than that, I couldn’t pull against Mike, Matt, Jon, or Tony, I wanted to see them win, I wanted to pat them on the back on Monday and say great job. I didn’t want them to beat Auburn, I wanted them to kill ‘em.

The love for Georgia football only grew and intensified over time. In 1999, I asked my father to come up to Athens and watch the Georgia-LSU game in the student section with me, and he cheered as loud as anyone else in our section when Will Witherspoon jumped a mile in the air to deflect that fourth quarter 2 point conversion to secure the one point victory. In October 2000 I invited the girl I was dating to attend her first college football game, we were playing Tennessee. At the conclusion of that game, there was no doubt she would be a Georgia fan for the rest of her days, oh and we’ve been married over 2 years now.

It’s not always easy being a Georgia fan in an Auburn family. In 2002 when I stood cheering in my father’s season ticket seat in Auburn after Green connected on a fourth down pass to Johnson, my parents looked at me in disappointment. Even last fall, after Alabama throttled Florida, and I talked to my father about how happy I was to see Florida lose, he said “that’s not how you were raised”. I’ve been called a traitor and a turn-coat by those folks that know about my Auburn upbringing, but I respond with a biblical quote “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.”

I can’t blame fans of other schools for the way they think, or the things they believe in, but as for me, I’ve seen the promised land, and it looks a lot like Athens.

Glory, Glory, to ole Georgia!

GO DAWGS!