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.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
The Worst Parts of Me
Been a while, right?
I decided that I wanted to do something different this weekend. Everyone was going to Leavenworth, which I understand to be like small faux German village in a valley in the Cascades. So I decided not to go. Instead, I wanted to watch Georgia and Tennessee, and I wanted to watch it by myself. I hadn't watched a game by myself in a long time, and for some reason, I just wanted to this past Saturday. Not being anti-social or anything, I just felt like spending some alone time with it. So everyone else went to Leavenworth on Saturday and I stayed behind. I slept semi-late, went for a walk, grabbed a couple of sandwiches at Subway, and turned on the TV at 12:30.
Not that I need to further profess my love for The G, so it goes without saying that Saturday was a big deal. I'd been calling for us to win the SEC ever since we beat Auburn last year (students and alums can refer to the team as "we" in my book) and my prediction was shared by Phil Steele, the author of the most accurate pre-season college magazine out there. Losing to South Carolina put us behind the 8-ball, but with Florida going down last week, the SEC East was again wide open as we rolled into Rocky Top.
So I'm sitting here in my apartment, by myself as planned, with a foot long sandwich on a plate in my lap, as we take the field, arms locked (like the last time we played in Knoxville). Arm in arm, the team walked onto the field in front of 106,000 people.
That was pretty much the last time on Saturday that I was feeling good.
Right from the opening kick, it was a disaster. The offense was terrible, so was the defense, and we gave up a blocked punt for good measure. I'm pacing around my apartment, but not good pacing, not the kind of pacing you do right before you head into overtime, for example. Bad pacing. I walked into my bathroom any number of times during stoppages in play and just stood there. Or I'd stand in the hall. Or catch a knee on the floor. Somehow, I guess I thought that if I changed positions in the living room, things would be different. But they weren't.
I'm sure that we've all had exams in college that we felt confident in taking, didn't really prepare for, and then two questions in realized how much trouble we were in. That's what it felt like Saturday. That's the most accurate way I can describe it. The first quarter was like being on number 5 of a 50 question test, and knowing that you've missed the first 4 questions. It's just a feeling of despair, and you realize that you now have to pay the price for something, and it's your own fault.
We were completely unprepared out there, at least that's how it looked to me, and it didn't take very long to figure that we were in a world of trouble. As poor as our fundamentals were and as much as the focus appeared to be lacking, the lack of a solid game plan or any visible preparation is what bothers me the most. Our coaching staff should be better than what we saw Saturday.
The game ended and we lost 35-14. Shortly thereafter, I stretched out on the couch and went to sleep for an hour or so. When I woke up, I didn't feel much better. I didn't Sunday and I don't today. It's just a hard feeling to shake, seeing something that important to you fail so miserably.
I've seen Georgia lose games before, but again, this one was just different. This wasn't like losing to Tennessee last year, or Florida in 05 when we were 8-0, or any of the other losses under Mark Richt. In all of Richt's six years coming into 2007, we'd only lost two other games that were unwinnable going into the 4th quarter. One was to eventual national champ LSU in the 2003 SECCG. The other was to Auburn the following year, when they went undefeated and finished #2. There was no shame in either. In 03, it was in the SEC Championship Game. At least we'd gotten there. In 04, we weren't going back to the SECCG anyway, but had still put up a good season. Saturday we were dominated by a team who might be fortunate to play a game in January. Saturday was lost for the sixth consecutive time to an SEC East opponent. Saturday dropped our record to 13-7 since we won the 2005 SEC crown.
As much as all of those factors were irritating me, I really can't say that's what had me in such a blue funk. Forget the SEC East losing streak or the 13-7 mark. Saturday depressed me only because of what I saw, and didn't see, on Saturday.
Sometime later on, it hit me why I was so despondent.
I spent a long time Saturday after the game thinking about some of the disappointments in my life, and they all seemed to be a lot like that game. High, perhaps unrealistic, expectations, a quick realization that trouble was afoot, and no mechanism to stop it. By the time you realized there was trouble, it was too late to address it. It's such a powerless feeling to be sitting there, unable to put the brakes on things, and KNOWING that it's going to be a bitter pill to swallow, and all you can do is wait on it. You get that feeling down deep in your stomach of impending gloom and doom. I think about the times that I took exams at Georgia that I wasn't ready for, and I'd sit at my desk and think "oh no.... why didn't I do more to avoid this? This is going to be ugly."
I think that's why Saturday struck such a bad chord with me and with a lot of other die hard Georgia fans. It was a systematic failure, like we all run across with a bad relationship, or a bad test, or bad vacation, whatever, only you saw it play it with the one entity who you really thought to be above that sort of thing. The one group that you thought could never be unprepared, never be unready, and never have their confidence shaken. You know that Mark Richt and UGA don't owe you anything, but you still feel let down. I know I do.
I decided that I wanted to do something different this weekend. Everyone was going to Leavenworth, which I understand to be like small faux German village in a valley in the Cascades. So I decided not to go. Instead, I wanted to watch Georgia and Tennessee, and I wanted to watch it by myself. I hadn't watched a game by myself in a long time, and for some reason, I just wanted to this past Saturday. Not being anti-social or anything, I just felt like spending some alone time with it. So everyone else went to Leavenworth on Saturday and I stayed behind. I slept semi-late, went for a walk, grabbed a couple of sandwiches at Subway, and turned on the TV at 12:30.
Not that I need to further profess my love for The G, so it goes without saying that Saturday was a big deal. I'd been calling for us to win the SEC ever since we beat Auburn last year (students and alums can refer to the team as "we" in my book) and my prediction was shared by Phil Steele, the author of the most accurate pre-season college magazine out there. Losing to South Carolina put us behind the 8-ball, but with Florida going down last week, the SEC East was again wide open as we rolled into Rocky Top.
So I'm sitting here in my apartment, by myself as planned, with a foot long sandwich on a plate in my lap, as we take the field, arms locked (like the last time we played in Knoxville). Arm in arm, the team walked onto the field in front of 106,000 people.
That was pretty much the last time on Saturday that I was feeling good.
Right from the opening kick, it was a disaster. The offense was terrible, so was the defense, and we gave up a blocked punt for good measure. I'm pacing around my apartment, but not good pacing, not the kind of pacing you do right before you head into overtime, for example. Bad pacing. I walked into my bathroom any number of times during stoppages in play and just stood there. Or I'd stand in the hall. Or catch a knee on the floor. Somehow, I guess I thought that if I changed positions in the living room, things would be different. But they weren't.
I'm sure that we've all had exams in college that we felt confident in taking, didn't really prepare for, and then two questions in realized how much trouble we were in. That's what it felt like Saturday. That's the most accurate way I can describe it. The first quarter was like being on number 5 of a 50 question test, and knowing that you've missed the first 4 questions. It's just a feeling of despair, and you realize that you now have to pay the price for something, and it's your own fault.
We were completely unprepared out there, at least that's how it looked to me, and it didn't take very long to figure that we were in a world of trouble. As poor as our fundamentals were and as much as the focus appeared to be lacking, the lack of a solid game plan or any visible preparation is what bothers me the most. Our coaching staff should be better than what we saw Saturday.
The game ended and we lost 35-14. Shortly thereafter, I stretched out on the couch and went to sleep for an hour or so. When I woke up, I didn't feel much better. I didn't Sunday and I don't today. It's just a hard feeling to shake, seeing something that important to you fail so miserably.
I've seen Georgia lose games before, but again, this one was just different. This wasn't like losing to Tennessee last year, or Florida in 05 when we were 8-0, or any of the other losses under Mark Richt. In all of Richt's six years coming into 2007, we'd only lost two other games that were unwinnable going into the 4th quarter. One was to eventual national champ LSU in the 2003 SECCG. The other was to Auburn the following year, when they went undefeated and finished #2. There was no shame in either. In 03, it was in the SEC Championship Game. At least we'd gotten there. In 04, we weren't going back to the SECCG anyway, but had still put up a good season. Saturday we were dominated by a team who might be fortunate to play a game in January. Saturday was lost for the sixth consecutive time to an SEC East opponent. Saturday dropped our record to 13-7 since we won the 2005 SEC crown.
As much as all of those factors were irritating me, I really can't say that's what had me in such a blue funk. Forget the SEC East losing streak or the 13-7 mark. Saturday depressed me only because of what I saw, and didn't see, on Saturday.
Sometime later on, it hit me why I was so despondent.
I spent a long time Saturday after the game thinking about some of the disappointments in my life, and they all seemed to be a lot like that game. High, perhaps unrealistic, expectations, a quick realization that trouble was afoot, and no mechanism to stop it. By the time you realized there was trouble, it was too late to address it. It's such a powerless feeling to be sitting there, unable to put the brakes on things, and KNOWING that it's going to be a bitter pill to swallow, and all you can do is wait on it. You get that feeling down deep in your stomach of impending gloom and doom. I think about the times that I took exams at Georgia that I wasn't ready for, and I'd sit at my desk and think "oh no.... why didn't I do more to avoid this? This is going to be ugly."
I think that's why Saturday struck such a bad chord with me and with a lot of other die hard Georgia fans. It was a systematic failure, like we all run across with a bad relationship, or a bad test, or bad vacation, whatever, only you saw it play it with the one entity who you really thought to be above that sort of thing. The one group that you thought could never be unprepared, never be unready, and never have their confidence shaken. You know that Mark Richt and UGA don't owe you anything, but you still feel let down. I know I do.
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