The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
City embraces tonight's spotlight
Atlanta, UGA fans eager for game after years of work, ‘magical’ season.
Dennis Adamovich hasn’t slept much in recent days and isn’t planning to rest until at least the end of the month. So is the life of the CEO of the College Football Hall of Fame.
On Friday, he was running around the increasingly busy downtown facility, monitoring at least two television and radio shows being broadcast live from the campus.
“This is a great way to end the season,” Adamovich said.
It’s better than great for a University of Georgia fan base pining for a national championship, having last won it all in 1980. It could be better than great for a city that has invested heavily in cementing itself as the center of the college football universe to
reap the rewards of moments such as this.
Tonight’s national championship game is the culmination of an unprecedented year of college football in Atlanta. It follows the Kick-Off Classic, the SEC Championship, the Celebration Bowl (where the black college national champion was crowned), and the Peach Bowl.
Adamovich, standing beneath the 776 college football helmets in the foyer of the Hall of Fame, says Atlanta is built to host major events, having invested well in infrastructure and facilities, most notably Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“We want to have anything
and everything happening here. That is what makes us special.”
It could be potentially special in more ways than one for Atlanta’s new mayor.
Tonight, Keisha Lance Bottoms and her husband, Derek, a UGA graduate, will be rooting for the Dawgs. Beyond football, Bottoms knows the city and her young administration wins with a successfully staged event.
“I am very excited, one because this is in the very early stages of my tenure as mayor and we are hosting this major event. And two, the Georgia Bulldogs are playing,” said Bottoms, who was 10 years old when the Bulldogs last won the national title.
The mayor is hoping for a win and some momentum for the Bulldogs and the city, which is slated to also host the 2019 Super Bowl and the 2020 Final Four.
“It is shaping up to be a big 2018 ... hopefully this will be the preview of the next four years.”
For Mark Konter and other UGA fans, this past year has been an unexpected delight.
“Pure excitement, honestly,” he said. “It has been such a fun ride all year long and unbelievable to see it culminate and have an opportunity to play for a national championship in Atlanta.”
Konter, who is 36 and a 2004 UGA grad, grew up in Savannah. His parents and grandparents attended UGA. Konter met his wife, Allison, at UGA.
A season ticket holder, Konter was in Orlando Friday for a conference, but was hoping to fly to Atlanta for the game. Konter will wear the same outfit he has worn to every game he attends since his days in college: a white UGA polo shirt, red slacks and black boots.
Konter described the thrilling comeback win over Oklahoma as “the most exciting sporting event I have seen by any measure.” He has already watched the game in full, as well as watching the game highlights, multiple
times.
For Steve Koonin, Atlanta Hawks CEO and 1979 UGA grad and diehard fan who has watched UGA win an opportunity to play for a national championship, the timing is special.
Koonin remembers driving in the back of a Camaro 37 years ago and staying at the only place where he and his friends could find available beds in New Orleans, at a psychiatric hospital, to watch his beloved Dawgs play Notre Dame and win the national championship. Koonin, a season ticket holder who never misses watching a UGA game (watching some games in person, others on TV or his smartphone), looked out a window in his 19th-floor office downtown Friday afternoon as the city hummed with energy and excitement.
“It is electric,” said Koonin. “It is great to host a national championship game, but a lot of times no one has skin in the game. But to have our team 73 miles away, and to have so many connections, and the way we won, makes a storybook ending no matter the result.”
Zari Wilson doesn’t have a ticket to tonight’s game, but the 22-year-old 2017 UGA graduate has a plan.
“I will be watching in the prayer chapel,” said Wilson, a Gwinnett native who still lives in Athens and works as an intern for the school’s The Wesley Foundation, an on-campus ministry. “We are going to be praying for the Dawgs.”
It was Friday and Wilson was already dressed in red and black. She painfully recounted all the UGA games she has attended against Alabama — all losses. There was the 32-28 loss in the 2012 SEC Championship Game when she was a senior in high school. There was the 38-10 pasting in Athens in 2015 in a downpour.
“I stood in the rain all day to watch that game,” Wilson said. “But on Monday, we will redeem ourselves. But most importantly, all of this gives us a lot of attention. It is bringing some unity on campus and giving us something to rally around. And it gives more weight to our degrees. People are recognizing our institution nationwide.”
Meagan Mwanda is not going to the game, either. But she is taking it a little harder.
The 20-year-old UGA junior has been shut out of the ticket-buying process and has been scrambling all week to score a seat. No luck.
“I looked for tickets online and they were $2,000. Are you kidding me?” Mwanda said. Only about 500 tickets were set aside for students, and they were placed in a lottery. “I recognize this is all about generating revenue, but they should be more sensitive to the students.”
Meanwhile, everyone here, it seems, is all in for UGA. House Speaker David Ralston is swept up in Bulldog fever. He continually referred to the season as “magical” and pushed the Legislature to take a day off on Tuesday to celebrate the game. After all, he noted, lawmakers took time off last year for the Atlanta Falcons’ Super Bowl appearance.
Gov. Nathan Deal, not an avid sports fan, has also embraced the team. He donned a Georgia jersey with his staff to sign a proclamation declaring “UGA Football Friday” and signed an order closing state offices in Atlanta a few hours early today to clear out for the game.
He also trumpeted a decision to plant a Georgia logo smack in the middle of Liberty Park — the greenspace just outside the capital — with a tweet that borrowed from coach Kirby Smart’s favorite saying: “Here at the Capitol, I’m keeping the main thing the main thing.”
‘It is shaping up to be a big 2018 ... hopefully this will be the preview of the next four years.’
Keisha Lance Bottoms Atlanta mayor