Victories and Championships Pale When Compared to Being a Dawg

Continuing my ongoing self-therapy, and affirming my standing in the most righteous Nation of people. The Bulldawg Nation.

I was not born a Dawg. I was born a Seminole.

As a youngster my first introduction to Hugh Durham was not as a Dawg, but as the Coach of the Florida State Seminoles. Coach of an FSU team that would go to the Final Four, beating Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith in the process before finally losing to John Wooden. That would be my first, all be it belated, introduction to the DawgNation.

My generation knows, Coach Durham came to Georgia from Tallahassee. It is not relevant but for the fact that tonight’s basketball game brought back memories of how I became a Dawg.

Tonight’s basketball game against the #23 Ole Miss Rebels kind of defined my experience as a Georgia Bulldog. The Dawgs were in it all the way, but ended up losing 80-76. Close, but no cigar. The chorus of my Dawg song. A chorus I never mind singing along to.

The Georgia Bulldogs of Herschel Walker, Buck Belue, Lindsay Scott, and Rex Robinson won the National Championship in 1980. Vince Dooley and his Dawgs followed this with two more SEC crowns.

Hugh Durham and Vern Fleming took the Dawgs to the Final Four in 1983. Durham went on to win 633 games as a NCAA basketball coach, the eigth most of all time. They won the regular season championship my senior year in Athens.

I met Coach Durham, and Coach Dooley, when I visited The University of Georgia as a senior in high School.

My cousin, who was a writer for the Red and Black before signing on with the USA Today, introduced me to both of the UGA coaching legends. At the time, I was stricken more by the smell of live stock than the coaching genius before me. The impromptu meeting had taken place in the halls of Stegman prior to today’s version. I was young and foolish.

My mother, a dyed in the wool Seminole, had experienced many encounters with Coach Durham. She worked for Tom’s Foods, a supporter of the Dawg’s program back then. She and Coach Durham often spoke of the FSU days.

As a junior in high school I had been accepted to all of my college choices. Mom approved of Georgia and FSU. Dad approved of “all of the above”. Dad went to FSU, though his degree says “University of Maryland” thanks to the Army and Vietnam, or the draft.

I enrolled at FSU in the fall of 1986. I liked the Dawgs, I rooted for them often. I attended many of their games. I hated Auburn. I always envisioned going to Florida State so I did. My father probably would have preferred otherwise being a landowner in Georgia and Alabama.

Growing up in close proximity to Auburn, I was afforded the opportunity to witness several Georgia-Auburn games. Heck, I was able to attend many Alabama and Auburn games no matter who they were playing. Still, I chose Florida State in large part due to their football prowess at the time.

After a year at FSU, in state residence took on a new meaning. My grades were, to say the least, poor. My father had a way of calculating grade point average per dollar. It did not calculate to his desire. Yes, I could have achieved residence in Florida, but how much was it going to cost him? It no longer mattered that he went to FSU, finances now ruled.

Truth is, Dad knew I had been partying. He knew I had spent as much time in Athens and St. Simons, Auburn and Gulf Shores, as I had in Tallahassee. Mom still has not heard, nor seen any evil, but the verdict was rendered. I was no longer going to be a student of the Florida State university. I had to say good bye to Sally Beach and it’s sun worshipers.

Auburn? Tuscaloosa? Hell no! I never even applied to Tech. Georgia was the only school I had a welcome mat at. Georgia here I come!

Having witnessed so many Georgia games over my life, always rooting for the Dawgs (or rooting against their foe) I took to Athens lke a fish to water. I got Athens. Athens got me.

Tallahassee was full of Yankees with tans. They were not my people. I ate biscuits for breakfast, they wanted bagels.

Tallahassee had been overtaken with transplants. Metallica blared in the dorms. Despite my birth, Tallahassee was foreign. Athens was home. The Allman Brothers were always readily available in Athens. I never experienced dorm life in Athens, but I can still say confidently musicianship and vocal skills are a prerequisite for our music aficionados.

All of this is my long way of saying I missed out on the glory days of UGA Athletics. Sure the peripheral sports have accomplished much. The Diamond Dawgs even won the World Series my senior year. I got to watch Durham, Kessler and Willie Anderson as a a student. The basketball Dawgs even won a regular season championship my senior year, beating the Shaq led Bengal Tigers.

I am proud to be a Georgia Bulldog, but I was not a Dawg in the Hershel years. In my time, Georgia has never been the best, Not as far as pollsters are concerned. This shouldn’t matter so much.

The University of Georgia has contributed much to our nation academically and athletically before and since my time. Sadly, I have missed out on the halcyon days of men’s sports.

I will not bore you with the Grady graduates that have made their mark on our society or the other academics, I know it is sports that you crave. In sports we have made our mark to be sure.

I remember when Rodney Hampton was named a future all-pro by sports illustrated during his freshman season. I am too lazy too look up the details, but they predicted greatness for the running back from Houston. He was great, but it did not translate into greatness for the Bulldogs.

Perhaps that conditioned me for the unfulfilled promise of one Matthew Stafford.

Since my time as an official Georgia Bulldog, greatness has never been accomplished on the gridiron or the hardwoods of basketball. Still, I have always felt great, and always been treated as such by my peers.

Wherever I go people revere The University of Georgia. When I travel to football games, our foes act envious. Should they win the game, they still hold reverence for The University of Georgia. In their eyes, we are special, even if we sometimes forget.

That respect, or animosity, is granted to only a select few. Uga and his many offspring have received a lot of adulation. It is the University of Georgia, the oldest public university in the land, that has achieved that recognition. Uga is but a beloved symbol of our school.

I may have missed the National Championships and the Final Fours, but I still walked the prettiest campus in America. I heard the best music, ate the best pizza, and threw my cup in the finest football stadium in the land.

Tonight, as with last weekend, victory alluded me.

Kirby Smart refused my offer to come home.

Still, I am a Georgia Bulldog. I will always be a Georgia Bulldog. You can’t take that way from me. You can’t take that way from my parents.

They, those that would mock us, can never be the University of Georgia. There is only one.

Enjoy your victory tonight, Ole Miss.

Enjoy your championship, Alabama.

Bid Tebow farewell, Florida.

None of their accomplishments puts you on a scale with my University of Georgia.

We have the next game, the next season to redeem ourselves athletically, you have no course of action to match The University of Georgia. For that, I am forever proud.

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