Even more on the celebration

I second the Senator from Awesome Town.

More on the celebration

Sportswriting machine David Ching has a transcription of some of Richt's comments up on his blog:

... so I told them after that Vandy game, ‘We’re gonna liven this thing up. We’re gonna create some excitement here. The way we’re gonna do it is when we score that first touchdown in the Florida game, we’re gonna celebrate.’ I said, ‘As a matter of fact, if you guys don’t get a celebration penalty, I’m gonna be upset with y’all and I’m gonna run y’all.’ That’s kinda how it started. As the two weeks went on, I could sense that some of the guys who might possibly score were starting to get their little idea of how they were gonna celebrate to get this penalty. I kinda was sensing that it was gonna be some kinda individual act that I didn’t want to happen. So the day of the game, right before we left the hotel, I spoke to the group right after our chapel service and I said, ‘I want to make sure we all understand thing thing here. This celebration thing is a team thing. I don’t want any individual to do anything off on his own because I guarantee there’s 10 other guys that helped him get in there. Plus there was probably a defensive play that probably helped you get in position and there’s probably a bunch of scout teamers who didn’t dress for this game that also helped you get here by preparing everybody these last two weeks. So it’s not an individual thing, it’s a team thing. I said I want you to understand, this is gonna be a team thing, I want a team celebration and I want it to happen only once.

The celebration

To anyone in the media who doesn't like our celebration Saturday: We don't care what you think.

And to the Florida people: We're glad it pissed you off.













Grant Blankenship, The Macon Telegraph.

As for where Saturday's win leaves us in the SEC race, I'm with Coach Richt. As always.

"Here's the deal, we're going to let everybody else talk about where we might end up being. We're going to talk about Troy. We're going to talk about trying to play just one more time. We're not going to talk about anything else."

Speaking of Coach Richt, this just in, he is the man.

Awetasticredible

I tell you what - I've been involved in some fairly awesome and ridiculous things in my life. But this weekend, if it's even fair to call what just happened a weekend, may have topped them all.

I love my friends and I love the Dawgs.














"I'd of been happy if we lost." - My buddy Joe.

Good luck to the Dawgs

Awesomest. Family. Ever

My family got together last night because my sister is moving to San Diego (you know, after it stops being on fire) and to take the annual Christmas card picture. We had to take it inside because it was raining. And it was night time.

Here we are:













Like the president and vice president, we should never all be on a plane together.

Shelter from the storm

A buddy of mine got married this weekend.

Yeah, I had to fly to Connecticut for an 11 a.m. Saturday morning dry wedding during football season. But I'm a sucker for weddings.



Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you, shelter from the storm."

Getting past the cringe

I went down to Poplar Street here in Macon this evening to check out a free dinner and Bible study that a local church, Word Aflame Tabernacle, runs each Tuesday for the homeless.

I was going to write a story about it, but it turns out we ran something about a nearly identical Thursday night program, operated by another church, on Saturday. Poorly kept secret: I don't always read the paper.

But the folks at Word Aflame deserve some recognition. I was there less than half an hour, but it's obvious they genuinely care for the people there. They brought their children. They played in a city fountain with a homeless man. They laughed, they shared, they hugged.

And it put me in mind of a story I read about a man named Abdul Sattar Edhi.

Edhi ministers to orphans in Pakistan. He builds hospitals and buries dead bodies that he finds in the street. He refuses government funding. He puts cribs outside each of his foundation offices for unwanted babies.

His foundation Web site says that 20,000 children have been saved. The National Geographic article noted that Edhi has given away hundreds of brides.

This quote is attributed to him in a summary of his biography:

I had accepted at the outset that charity was distorted and completely unrelated to its original concept. Reverting to the ideal was like diverting an ocean of wild waters. Another major obstacle in the promotion of welfare was exposed...the disgust of man towards mankind. There was only one expression, one reaction from everyone...cringing.

From the grimacing faces of my colleagues I understood that I was the only one not disgusted. They washed their hands vigorously, smelt their clothes repeatedly and complained incessantly of the stench having seeped under their skins. Then they rushed home to bathe, scrubbed their clothes and disinfected them, sometimes gave them away saying, "The very weave was stricken."

There was nowhere to go with this attitude. We could not reduce suffering unless we rose above our own senses...cringing was the first and the greatest hinderance that blocked our way, the most brutal, but also the most understandable.

I know that Macon, Georgia, is not Pakistan. But God bless people who have gotten past the cringe.

If you'd like more information about Word Aflame's efforts you can call their outreach assistants Grady and Faye Bennett at (478)750-0241 or (478)390-1646.

If you'd like more information about Mr. Edhi's foundation, visit it here.

We should do that with Athens

Every now and then I read a sentence that just blows my mind. This one is from the September National Geographic, in a story about spiders that live in caves:

Evolved in isolation and unable to disperse, species often consist of just a handful of individuals in one cave, or one room of one cave.

More cowbell

I was watching the pong thing below (making my employers proud every day) and I thought: "I don't hear Rocky theme music often enough."

Now that's a fairly incredible statement, because I bet I've seen one of the now six Rocky movies at an average of once every two weeks since I hit puberty.

Yeah, it's a full life.

Any way, I'm pretty sure we've got a new regular feature. Lord bless people with this much time on their hands, Sylvester Stallone, the fine people at MGM and Al Gore, inventor of the Youtubes.

ALS

Growing up, a good friend of mine's dad suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as ALS. Just a hell of a great family. He sent me this email over the weekend.

Go here. It's a buck.

The Dollar4Life campaign is dedicated to raising $1 million from one million donors, a dollar at a time, to help find a cure for a disease that strikes people of all ages, rapidly destroying their physical functions. It kills thousands of people every year, often within a few years of diagnosis. Through Dollar4Life, everyone can make a difference by making a small donation and spreading the word. The power of 1 can be magnified a million times, with your help.

Every dollar raised through Dollar4Life will go to fund ALS research through Prize4Life, an innovative non-profit organization that is already removing the obstacles that stand in the way of a cure. Prize4Life was founded by Avi Kremer, who was only 29 years old when he was diagnosed with this fatal disease three years ago. Together with his friends and top researchers in the field, Avi created an organization that encourages scientists from all around the world to work toward a cure for ALS.

Now Prize4Life needs your help, and that of your friends and family. Please give $1 at www.dollar4life.org and then spread the word about this unique campaign. Your support in spreading the word is even more valuable than your individual donation; Prize4Life aims to demonstrate how a large number of small donations can have a meaningful impact on the lives of ALS patients everywhere.

Is 5-2 really that bad?

In a word, kinda.

We needed a lucky fumble and a field goal to beat Vanderbilt yesterday, but we did beat them. We need a few miracles to win the SEC, but really don't deserve to. We're rebuilding. It happens.

But let's look at the season a minute. Going in I predicted 8-4 with losses to South Carolina (they were due), Tennessee (they know how to run), Auburn (ditto) and Georgia tech (begrudgingly, ditto).

I think I'll change that now to 8-4 with a prayer, a win over tech and a loss to Kentucky.

Yes, that means I think we'll beat Florida. I'm ridiculous.

But the point is - we're about where I thought we'd be, though I didn't expect to get embarrassed in Knoxville. And you can't judge a team too harshly for living up to your expectations.

So let's see what happens. And somebody tell me: What's wrong with Caleb King?

We're down to one scholarship tailback (Moreno) and we're talking about using former walk-on Jason Johnson and a couple of second-string fullbacks at running back instead of burning the red shirt on our supposedly all-star freshman who's going to have to be ready to play next year because of numbers. There's a reason for that.

It's even set to the Rocky theme

I have a new hero.

SON OF A ....

#&&^%*)@#*%$@)#($^&(%$#@)#($%$&^(@)@(%^&()#@!!!!!!

More on Mack Strong

We gotta get this guy back in Athens.

From USA Today:

Strong joined the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent in 1993, making the practice squad. He had flown to Seattle from Georgia with luggage he borrowed from his mother, his shoes stuffed in a plastic trash bag.

"Talk about humble beginnings," he said. "I remember going out to the carousel at baggage claim and somebody said, 'God, somebody put a garbage bag on here.' I walked away for a little while and I waited until everybody left and then I went and got it."

Mack Strong, Bulldog, retiring from the NFL

Mack Strong, who played for Georgia in the early 1990s and might have been the best fullback in the NFL the last few years, is retiring because of a spinal cord injury.

Reports are that he will be OK, just not play-in-the-NFL OK.

Strong is one hell of a Bulldog. I'd love to see him back in Athens someday soon as special assistant in charge of turning players into bad ass wrecking balls.

Damn good Dawg.














Courtesy Georgia Athletic Department

Welcome to Whammyville. Population: Georgia

What can be said good about Saturday's game? I don't know - that it ended?

From The AJC:

Knoxville — Wanna bet Mark Richt has Tennessee in his Top 25 now?

Actually, the more pertinent question is where will the Georgia coach, who left Tennessee off his ballot a week ago, put his team? Or where should anybody place Georgia?

If they watched the No. 12 Bulldogs (make that formerly No. 12 Bulldogs) fall face first on national TV, 35-14 to the unranked Vols (3-2, 1-1) in front of 107,052 fans at Neyland Stadium Saturday, the most likely answer might be the Sun Belt Conference.

Seriously, Sun Belt member Arkansas State, which scored 27 in Knoxville earlier this year, might have given Tennessee more of a challenge. This game was 28-0 before Georgia made its second first down.

And that's the main story. Not a column, the main story. The bolded line kind of made me want to stab myself in the chest with a fork. Where do I sign up for 8-4?

In college football, anything can happen. Look only to USC as proof on Saturday. They lost, at home, to a terrible Stanford team that was using a backup quarterback forced into his first start because the first stringer was having seizures.

So, yeah, things can get weird.

We're ridiculously young, and for my money undersized on defense. But the question is: Do we really have the young talent we thought, and is that talent getting coached up like it should?

We'll know for sure next year. For the moment we need to learn how to:

1. Block.
2. Tackle.
3. Cover. And by this, I mean at least be in the same zip code as the other team's wide receivers.
4. Matt Stafford needs to become accurate, but see No. 1 for a possible explanation on that one.

My buddy Joe said we looked hungover Saturday. Are the bars in Knoxville really that good? The Dawgs didn't look like they got drunk Friday night, they looked like me and my friends got drunk, then stole their uniforms.

Where was the meanness, the intimidation, the freaking pride? I took a nap during the second half. It was my second best decision of the day, just after not going to Knoxville to see this travesty in person.

Sigh.

Saturday was probably the worst loss of the Richt era, which I suppose is a positive. And we have the same SEC record as Florida, even if our losses are to all the wrong teams (SEC Eastern ones) and Florida hasn't looked like a bunch of girls wearing skirts.

I remember after one terrible loss of the Donnan era I heard Charles Grant on the post-game radio show.

"Come together like a family," he said.

That's really all you can do. And trust Coach Richt to right this ship. Forget the SEC. We were never good enough to win that this year anyway. Focus on beating Vanderbilt.

And, if that doesn't work, maybe we can hire Tim Tebow to run the program. I've got his cel number.

Finally, there is some comfort here:

Let us suppose that 2007 turns out to be as frustrating for Georgia fans as 2006. (We should remember that our definition of "disaster" has been upgraded considerably during the Mark Richt era; a 5-5-1 record in 1969 and a 5-5 record in 1970 generated much frustration in Bulldog Nation, which since has come to view a 9-4 campaign in 2006 followed by a 4-2 start in 2007 as cause for wailing and gnashing of teeth.)

If so, we may take some comfort in the knowledge that, in Coach Dooley's eighth season in 1971, the 'Dawgs rebounded to go 11-1. Georgia could do so again in Coach Richt's eighth season in 2008.

For you Panic fans

A good read on Widespread Panic lead guitarist Jimmy Herring.

Injustice anywhere... blah, blah, blah.

Two thoughts on the ongoing situation in Burma:

1. Wouldn't it be nice if the people of Iraq were marching in the streets for Democracy?

2. Too bad Burma doesn't have oil and terrorists.

Richt: No Thursday night games in Athens

I'm looking forward to watching Kentucky-South Carolina tonight. But the big boys play football on Saturdays.

From David Ching:

On whether (Coach Mark Richt) thinks Georgia will ever play on Thursday nights:
"Not at home. I don’t know if we’ve ever been asked to play away or not. But I don’t want to step out of line because I’m not sure if Damon’s given some policies. I know we’re not gonna play any at home – and you can’t. You’ve got an on-campus stadium. You would literally have to shut down the school. We’re not gonna shut down the school. We shouldn’t shut down the school for that. I suppose if there’s an away game, it could probably work if you opened dates for it just right, but I don’t want to go on a five-day (span) where you play Saturday and then Thursday."

Don't forget your power towel

Remember the "I'm Georgia" campaign a few years back at Sanford Stadium?

This is worse. Way, way, way worse. Sent by a buddy of mine:

Also, how come the K-State mascot has a huge hairy head, but no hair on his arms or legs?

Down on Rocky Top

Listening to Rocky Top makes me want to go to Knoxville with an aluminum baseball bat.

But in the interest of research, I did it anyway. Here are some of the things actually espoused in that song, the pride of the Tennessee Volunteer Nation:

- Not having a telephone.
- Dating women who are half bear, half cat.
- Drinking moonshine.
- Killing trespassers.

Rocky Top lyrics.

So, to all Tennessee fans, who love hanging out on a mountain, wearing creamsicle-orange overalls, without a phone, while drinking homemade corn liquor and having sex with some sort of bestial half-breed - hey, good luck with that.

You won't have to worry about me trespassing, save once every two years. And I'll leave just as soon as I get that W.

Beat Tennessee 2

Remember last year's second-half beatdown?

Once the country music starts, I suggest you turn off the sound.

Beat Tennessee

Good win against Ole Miss. But all it does is keep us in the hunt.

And it was nice to see Auburn beat Florida, but that really doesn't change the SEC math.

So beat Tennessee. And get tougher. Because, as my buddy Nick said, Auburn showed that's how you beat Florida.



When you see Vince Dooley leading the band, you know it's been a good day.