Go Dawgs

It was around 3:30am at a casino center bar in Las Vegas in December 2005. I started chatting with this brunette who looked to a couple years older than me. She recognized my accent and asked me where I was from. When I told her that I was from Athens GA, her eyes lit up. She told me that she went to school at UGA as well, and even went to business school there, which I was doing at the time. She told me that she was working in Philadelphia these days. We chatted about Athens and the Terry College and at one point I remarked on how she didn't have a southern accent. To that, she responded "If you ever want to get anywhere, you have to drop that. People won't take you seriously."

I probably get asked a minimum of five times a week where I'm from. Most people guess Texas, although my experiences in that state are limited to sitting on an airplane for half an hour at DFW. It seems like everyone asks. They know I'm not from the northwest. I don't know if they take me any more or less seriously when they hear me, I never really think about it. And it doesn't really bother me.

I appreciated what that woman in Las Vegas told me, and looking back, it seems somewhat poignant now, even though it just felt like a late night thing at the time. This is who I am.

I am very proud of where I came from. I am very proud of my education. I'm proud to be able to hang my diploma on the wall, and I'm proud to put my little ceramic Bulldog on the balcony facing the southeast, facing toward home. If I have to start changing all that just to be "taken seriously".... then I must not think too much of things the way they are. That's just how I feel about it.

I think that we'll beat Florida in, as I write this, about 11 hours from now. I'm picking 20-17 Dawgs. But win or lose, I'll love Georgia and UGA just as much on Sunday as I do right now.