Once a Dawg, always a Dawg
The great Atlanta columnist Louis Grizzard wrote far more poetically about the University of Georgia Bulldogs than I ever will. Yet, here I type the day after the Bulldogs snagged, in high style, their back-to-back national championship.
My late father’s most prized possession was his University of Georgia class ring.
Growing up I had a rather heavy handed University of Georgia influence. My father purchased a red and black sedan. We had a UGA toilet seat. Toolboxes, hunting and fishing gear, and more were festooned with stickers depicting the school’s mascot, a bulldog wearing a studded collar.
My dad loved to go to Athens and drive around not only the campus, but also the surrounding city. We would drive down Milledge Avenue and he would point out his old fraternity house, which in the late 1940s was inhabited by a rough and tumble collection of veterans taking advantage of the G.I. Bill.
It was a requirement that we lunch at the old downtown Varsity restaurant with its own set of traditions and the finest onion rings ever to embrace this planet.
We would walk the historic north campus and visit the quaint chapel and go around back to ring the famous Georgia bell.
With all that firm indoctrination, one would think that I would have sent my tuition money in as soon as possible. Not so.
For a kid, it was just too much. Too many bulldogs and too many Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts were just too too much. The University of Georgia was the last place on earth I wanted to attend college.
It was the spring of 1971, and I sat in the auditorium of Thomson High School in Thomson, Georgia. We were anticipating a concert by the University of Georgia Men’s Glee Club. I was gobsmacked. I had never heard such a collection of men’s voices sung with such energy, panache, and style.
At the end of the concert, I went up on stage and introduced myself to the group’s charismatic conductor, E. Pearce Arant. I announced that I intended to matriculate at UGA in the fall, and hoped that I would pass the audition for his group. He replied, “See you in the fall.”
A few weeks later, I auditioned for a music scholarship in voice. I received the top scholarship, a whopping one hundred and fifty dollars a year. UGA was on the quarter system back then, and I proudly received my check for fifty dollars at the beginning of each quarter. Sometimes it covered books, as long as I did not take a science course.
I think the next four years were the happiest of my father’s life, especially during football season. My parents would arrive very early on game day Saturday and stake out a parking spot near the stadium. They would bring fried chicken, deviled eggs, potato salad and more. On my October birthday, they would arrive with presents. They would always warmly welcome any date that I would bring, and after the game we would reassemble for more food and tearful goodbyes.
And so I became a Bulldog with a capital B. I grew to love Athens as much as my dad. I learned from some very cool professors and even had my heart broken a few times. I learned about opera and even sang in a few. I played guitar in the University of Georgia (by audition only) Men’s Glee Club Folk Rock Group. That’s right, The UGABAOMGCFRG.
Oh, that charismatic conductor who welcomed me so warmly that day in my hometown? He became my choral conductor and voice teacher, and many years later, I lifted my voice, along with over a hundred other young men, at his funeral service.
Oh, and I must offer full disclosure: My wife, brother, daughter, and son-in-law all possess degrees from UGA from the Ph.D. down to the bachelor’s.
So yes, I wore my Georgia sweatshirt all day yesterday. In a morning Zoom, three Southern California filmmakers gave me high grief for sporting such gaudy sports related attire during a production meeting.
I wore my Georgia sweatshirt to the grocery store here in Los Lunas, New Mexico. Nobody noticed, or if they did, they kept their comments to themselves.
And yes, I wore my Georgia sweatshirt as Coach Kirby Smart kissed the national championship trophy for the second time in 12 months.
Once a Dawg, always a Dawg.
Go Dawgs. Sic ’em.
Oh, one more thing. My son, the apple of my dad’s eye? He also graduated from an excellent institute of higher learning: Georgia Tech. Oh, Dad. I did my best.