‘Twas the night before football

You know, I considered doing the whole silly poetry schtick. But then I remembered that I can barely string together a comprehensible sentence, much less one that rhymes. Besides, the only rhymes I know are of an amphibrachic nature, if you know what I mean. And, honestly, we’re all the better for not having to go through that limerical experience.

So… Football! Tomorrow! Just hours away! Y’all ready? I’ve just had a sign that, I think, bodes well for our future. Long story short, I was poised to help a friend move into a new place this weekend. But then I received a text from her telling me that “I’m off the hook : )” because movers have been hired.

I realize that some things are vastly more important than other things. I do. I realize that. Really. And so I say, I’m very proud of my friend for what she has accomplished through a difficult time. She has done many good things that will help important people. Very well done, Liz.

(And I get to watch football!)

Victory

You know what’s interesting to me? Y’all are familiar with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, right? “Dun-Dun-Dun Daaah!” So powerful. And here’s the interesting bit. Morse code for the letter “V” is Dot-Dot-Dot Dash. The Roman numeral for the number five is “V”. And, as we all know, V stands for Victory. This all occurred to me today, June 6th.

Also a Damn Good Dawg.

So I spent a few moments thinking about the brave men and women who, 67 years ago today, embarked upon a “Great Crusade” to save the world. I would never claim to be a scholar of World War II. I mean, I’ve read a few books, seen a few movies and I may have played Castle Wolfenstein once or twice back in the day. I know how vitally important an undertaking this invasion of Europe was to our war efforts. And so I mean no disrespect when I segue from D Day into talking about the Dawgs.

You see, I was browsing through my Twitter feed a minute ago and came upon tweet after tweet from our recruits as they said their goodbyes to friends and family. As you all know, today is the day they all report to Athens and the University of Georgia to become Bulldogs. Today is the day that most of these guys have worked most of their lives towards. And now, today is the day that they embark towards the great unknown, away from home and a lifetime of familiarity.

While the challenges ahead faced by our recruits aren’t remotely comparable to what happened on Omaha, Utah, Sword, Juno and Gold 67 years ago, today is no less a momentous occasion for them.

So know this, boys. It’s like Ike said:

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to
duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less
than full Victory!

Go Dawgs!

Happy First!

Happy first day of Spring Training, everyone! We’ve gone through a few changes in the off season so far and today’s practice will mark the first time where a lot of these changes come together. For instance, we’ve got two new assistant coaches in offensive line coach, Will Friend and linebackers coach, Kirk Olivadotti. What better way to really start a new job than on the practice field, right? That’s got to be one of the coolest offices to have, where one’s brand new office door leads to so many possibilities.

In addition, we will all get to witness for the first time the effects of the changes made to our strength and conditioning program. A source of great hemming and hawing these last few months, these changes in the weight room as well as in areas of nutrition should, by now, begin to show fruition. We’ve all seen the tweets by some of our players regarding the new workout routines. Seems they weren’t exaggerating.

Of note, Robinson is up 15 pounds to 230 after playing at 215 last season. He’s moving over to Akeem Dent’s middle linebacker spot. Tight end Orson Charles is now pushing 250, and quarterback Aaron Murray was adamant that it was a chiseled 250. Murray has also gained 15 pounds and weighs 215 going into the spring. Alec Ogletree, who’s moving from safety to inside linebacker, is pushing 240 pounds.

And speaking of tweets, let’s take a brief look at what some of our players are thinking about today’s practice:

http://twitter.com/#!/KoltonHouston75/status/45856389238767616

http://twitter.com/#!/chasevasser33/status/45854932422762496

http://twitter.com/#!/HMason14/status/45824795639689217

The players are excited, the coaches are excited and I’m definitely excited. Next thing you know, the boys will be back from Spring Break and onto the practice fields once again. Then we’ll head on into G-Day and before you know it the season will be here. See, I really believe what I just wrote. Every year. But then the long Summer months show up and spoil everything. Every year. Hope Springs eternal, which leads to an eventual Fall. But that’s when football is played.

Go Dawgs!

Neighbors From Hell

With some of our recent misses as far as recruiting goes, I got to thinking about why it’s so hard for Georgia to keep the top in-state talent at home. I mean, we’ve got a tradition-rich football program, our facilities are up to date and by all accounts, quite nice, the city of Athens is obviously the best SEC town and our coaches are well liked. So what’s the problem? Well, after the past few seasons, there are many problems. But one of them is that we’ve got neighbors from Hell.

We are surrounded by the enemy. Seven of them, to be exact. Clemson and South Carolina are just a few short hours away from Athens. Take a look at middle and south Georgia and notice the proximity to Auburn, FSU and Florida. All of these neighbors are happy to poach talent from within the state of Georgia. While all of this is hardly a revelation, the point was underscored for me last night when I discovered that I have my own neighbor from Hell. Observe:

The pictures above demonstrate what happens when a neighbor runs into your air conditioner with a U-Haul, ripping it out of the window and completely destroying the frame of the window in the process. There was even structural damage to the brickwork outside, which I’m assuming will have to be completely rebuilt. Oh, and the air conditioner? Brand new, just replaced a few short months ago. And here it is now:

To make matters worse, this neighbor of mine is from Knoxville. Just fucking lovely.

So, yeah, the University of Georgia struggles with its troublesome neighbors, as do I. I’m probably going to be pretty busy dealing with this over the next few days/weeks so fret not if I’m unable to update the blog during this trying time.

Go Dawgs!

Need A Vehicle

You know what sucks? Having car troubles. The car is something that we rely on pretty much every day. For some of us, it’s something that’s just always there, ready to be used at our leisure. Some of us take the car for granted, never really giving it much thought until, all of a sudden, it’s no longer there for us. Then what do we do? We curse the car, we kick the tires and we slam the hood. We heap upon it further abuse, even after it’s already suffered through much wear and tear.

But who among us can deny that no matter how frustrated or angered we may be at the broken down car at this moment, deep down, we love the car. Because it’s always been there for us and we rely on it. We don’t really remember a time when the car was not there. However, we are soon reminded of another aspect of this love/hate relationship we have with the car: we fix the car, but at what cost?

In the end, it turns out that cost is no matter. Because we need the car. And so the unhappy decision must be made on whether it is worth continuing to try and fix the car or to perhaps get a new car. There is no thought of getting a different car. But maybe a newer model of the same car could be very appealing.

You know what else sucks? Having to make unhappy decisions.

Go Dawgs!

Practice Photos Part 2

Apologies, first off, as I’d meant to make this post yesterday afternoon. But important, end of the year type stuff got in the way of that so here we are.

Yesterday’s practice was off limits to the general public and I didn’t feel like pressing my luck with my “press pass” so, instead, here are a few more photos I took on my previous visit to a Dawgs’ bowl practice.

As practice began, the team lined up on one sideline and worked their way to the opposite sideline doing all sorts of little hops and high steps along the way:

With that all done, the guys split into two groups on opposite sides of the field with one group practicing punt returns and the other group doing the same with kick off returns. Drew Butler was in top form, thumping several balls high in the air:

Next up, the groups split up to do position drills. I was closest to the receivers and so got a few pictures of Coach Tony Ball running the guys through some route running drills as well as strip drills:

I mentioned in yesterday’s post how impressed I was with Coach Belin’s well-projected voice. Well, Coach Ball ain’t no slouch in that regard either. He was on Israel Troupe for seemingly the whole practice, providing constant encouragement by way of some light and not so light-hearted ribbing.

As I watched each position group practice, I began to notice some of the players who weren’t participating in the day’s practice. First up, Richard Samuel, who pretty much spent the time walking along the track:

I also got to see Quintin Banks hanging around. Quintin, if you’ll recall, decided to end his football playing career after a series of unfortunate knee injuries kept him from performing at a hundred percent for most of his time with the Dawgs. The other seniors on the team took it upon themselves to honor Banks by taking turns wearing his jersey number throughout the season. Very cool.

Here’s a photo of Justin Houston and Carlton Thomas on the sideline between drills.

And here’s one of Alec Ogletree, Brandon Boykin, Bacarri Rambo and Sanders Commings watching the kickoff return drill while Coach Scott Lakatos confers with Jordan Love:

Alright, that’s it for now. I had a great time watching practice and was glad to be able to snap a few photos before my hands froze off. Quite an unfortunate event, really, losing one’s hands to the cold. Which gives me the perfect excuse for why this post may be filled with typoes (in reality, I’m making this post from my iRobot phone so apologies for any grammatical errors).

Go Dawgs!

Photos From Practice

So I’ve never been to a bowl practice before. I didn’t even know if security would let me past the front gate and in the case of such an unfortunate eventuality, I planned ahead. You see, I dummied myself up some credentials in the form of a pretty slick and professional looking press pass:

As I pulled up to the guard shack, I imagined just how it would all go down:

Draconian Guard: (Motioning for me to stop my car) Papers, please.
Innocent Me: (Handing over my press pass) I think you’ll find that everything is in order.
Draconian Guard: (Peering suspiciously at me and then the press pass) Get out of the car, sir.

That’s as far as I got with my little espionage fantasy before I found myself rolling down my car window at the guard shack. What really transpired was that the guard was exceedingly courteous and more than happy to direct me to a parking spot so that I could watch the Dawgs practice.

OK, with that adventure out of the way, on to the cool stuff, starting with the coolest thing first. As the team were milling about on the field with individual players warming up here and there, I noticed a tall fellow in a track suit walking along the sideline by himself. Further inspection revealed this person to be T.J. Stripling.

If you’ll recall, he suffered a pretty bad looking knee injury during the Colorado game and had season-ending surgery shortly thereafter. While the team practiced, T.J. walked around the track and on his second time around, he walked right in front of where I was sitting and looked up towards the stands. I gave him my biggest smile and asked how his knee was doing to which he replied with a grin, “It’s doing good”. You hear that, folks? It’s doing good.

Prior to practice starting, Coach Richt called the team together and gave a little talk.

It was at this exact moment that some grounds crew guy decided to start up his weed whacker so I was only able to hear snippets of what Coach Richt had to say. But I did hear “discipline” and “play hard” mentioned as well as something along the lines of not embarrassing the Presidents. I suppose this was in reference to playing in the Liberty Bowl, which I think is where we beat the British to advance to the next round of the playoffs for the Independence Bowl (played in Louisiana, naturally, where in 1814 General Jackson chased the British down the Mighty Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico).

One thing that struck me during practice was the voices of the coaches. Coach Warren Belin’s voice, in particular, stood out. It wasn’t like he was bellowing but let’s just say the man is able to project his voice quite ably. I suspect that if James Earl Jones ever got tired of saying the “This is CNN” slogan, Coach Belin could take over without much fuss.

I’ll post up a few more photos later on, along with some thoughts on the practice itself. But here’s one more:

I believe practice was listed as starting at 1:45pm. I got there early and upon rounding the corner into the stadium, I saw Aaron Murray and Hutson Mason having a game of catch in the endzone. This was roughly twenty minutes before anyone else other than a few coaches and miscellaneous staff was around. Watching them, it really reminded me of back in the day when a buddy of mine and I would spend hours just tossing the football around on his street or at the intramural fields. Well, except that maybe their passes might have had a bit more zip to them.

Go Dawgs!

Mission Accomplished

Got a chance to see the Dawgs practice earlier today and managed to take a few photos in the process. Here’s one of Aron White discussing important football matters with members of the sideline staff:

I’ll post up a few more photos tomorrow. In the meantime, take a look at this “Hot Seat” interview with Dawgs commit, Corey Moore, over on Scout. Something about that kid makes me like him.

Also, seems Coach Fox’s boys are playing a game against Charleston Southern in Stegeman right now. Well, actually, it’s at the half and Georgia is up by 21.

Practice Photos 1
Practice Photos 2

Go Dawgs!

Merry Keithmas!

On this day in 1943, Keith Richards was born. At the early age of six months, Keith would prove to us all that he had plans for hanging around a while when he narrowly cheated death by avoiding a V-1 rocket launched at his flat in Kent, England. Unkillable, even by Nazis.

Starting back in high school, my friends and I refer to this day as Keithmas. I’m not really sure how that came to be and, come to think of it, there were really only three of us who actually celebrated this day as such. But we were young and Keith was cool. Now we’re old and, well, Keith is still cool.

I think it’s because he walked before they made him run.

Football Interruptus

This is a non-football or Dawgs related post so feel free to skip it.

You know how there’s always that person at work who everyone ends up avoiding for whatever reason? It might be from a lack of personal hygiene or any number of annoyances that add up after a while. In my case, there’s a person I work with who will talk to anyone all the time about absolutely nothing. Don’t get me wrong, this person (whom I will henceforth refer to as Mr. Kill Me Now) is incredibly nice. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Kill Me Now is also incredibly boring and lacks the ability to tell when others are bored, preferring, instead, to prattle on endlessly. About nothing.

For instance, the other day, Mr. Kill Me Now was feeling a little under the weather and decided to call in. I was unlucky enough to answer the phone. So I take the call, inwardly groaning when I realize who I’m talking to and hurriedly try to get off the phone as soon as possible. Imagine my annoyance when Mr. Kill Me Now launches into a tirade about the philosophical ideaology of calling in to work. At six in the morning.

Lately, Mr. Kill Me Now has gotten it into his head that I care. Because he’s taken to talking to me about his love life. Now, I don’t know about you guys but I don’t necessarily need nor want to hear about anyone’s love life. OK, strictly speaking, this isn’t true. I mean, if Mr. Kill Me Now were a twenty-something Swedish girl who is into seltzer water and experimentation, then, yeah, I’m an avid listener. As it is, not so much.

Alright, rant over. Moral of the story: Swedish girls are cool.