“Once a Dawg, always a Dawg, how sweet it is!”
That celebratory chant shouted by members of UGA’s Redcoat Band near the end of their postgame performances has been around for decades, but it struck me recently that it has become something of a creed for Bulldogs fans.
Former players and coaches might stray from the Red and Black through the course of their careers, and fans might sour on them for a while, but these days it seems that, more than ever, an old Greek saying that I used to hear growing up in Georgia’s Classic City is true: All roads lead to Athens.
Just this week, peripatetic coach Mike Bobo, a former Dawgs quarterback and longtime assistant coach at UGA, made his way back to Athens and Kirby Smart’s staff. A former head coach at Colorado State and offensive coordinator at South Carolina and, most recently, Auburn, Bobo is following the example of another Dawgs player, former Florida and South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp, who returned to Athens last year.
Also, I thought a photo that former UGA coach Jim Donnan shared after the recent day of celebration in Athens for the national championship was especially notable: All four of Smart’s predecessors — Vince Dooley, Ray Goff, Donnan and Mark Richt — were on hand.
As UGA sports broadcaster Jeff Dantzler, like me a lifelong fan, marveled when we were chatting this weekend, “there’s such overwhelming passion and support and devotion to Georgia … every living former coach we’ve had still lives here in Athens! It’s a really neat thing; this is home.”
Another recent example of what the Redcoats chant about is the way Dawgs fans have become Los Angeles Rams fans on social media during the NFL playoffs, because of former quarterback Matthew Stafford — though, as Dantzler noted, it should be a point of pride for Bulldog Nation that all four teams who made it to the NFC and AFC championship games leading up to the Super Bowl feature former Georgia Bulldogs players.
The support for Stafford is particularly notable, though, because he wasn’t always basking in love from Dawg Nation, despite the fact that, during the three seasons he spent playing in Athens, the most physically gifted QB I’ve seen at Georgia provided lots of fond memories, including the first snap he took during his first G-Day game, when he threw deep down the left side for a 64-yard touchdown.
Stafford, who eventually became the starter in a bumpy first season with the Dawgs, went on to quite a few highlights, including throwing for 219 yards and two touchdowns and running for 83 yards in an upset of No. 5 Auburn that ended the Tigers’ hopes for a BCS berth in 2006 … leading the thrilling last scoring drive that gave Georgia a 15-12 win over the ACC Coastal Division champion Yellow Jackets that same season … the “one and done” overtime touchdown pass to Mikey Henderson to beat Bama at Tuscaloosa in 2007 … the end zone “celebration” win over the Gators that included an 84-yard touchdown bomb from Stafford to Mohamed Massaquoi … and the first two “Blackout” games, against Auburn and Hawaii.
Of course, when Stafford left Athens after his junior season, to become the top NFL draft pick, some UGA fans weren’t too thrilled with the big-armed quarterback, especially since he and backfield mate Knowshon Moreno departed Athens without ever winning any sort of championship.
But, I guess a dozen years in Detroit was penance enough for Stafford, and now Dawgs fans are willing to reclaim him.
Actually, Stafford never really strayed from the pack. A genuinely good guy, Stafford always kept up his UGA ties. He’s returned for G-Day appearances, done ESPN spots with Hairy Dawg, and, among the many generous charitable donations made by Stafford and wife Kelly (a former UGA cheerleader) was $1.5 million to UGA’s social justice initiative.
Along the same lines, Blawg reader Jim Sandifer said in a recent note to me that he’s been struck by the way Dawg Nation continues to embrace Richt.
The former head coach certainly did enough during his 15 years at the helm in Athens to solidify his claim to damn-good-Dawg status. Richt had a 145-51 overall record at UGA, which ranks him 10th on the all-time winningest SEC coaches list. The Dawgs made five appearances in SEC Championship games under Richt, winning the title twice, in 2002 and 2005. And, Richt, a two-time SEC Coach of the Year honoree, led UGA to nine bowl wins, including Sugar Bowl victories in the 2002 and 2007 seasons.
The Dawgs finished at No. 3 nationally for the season in 2002, and at No. 2 in 2007 under Richt, but never got a chance to play for the national championship that UGA so badly wanted. And, when it became clear that he’d hit a plateau of very-good-but-not-quite-great teams, the university’s athletic administration made the decision to let him go, in order to hire someone they thought could break through that glass ceiling.
So, Richt’s 2015 firing brought back to the fold Smart, another prodigal who had spent years away, coaching for Nick Saban (and against Georgia) while at Alabama.
I welcomed Smart’s return to Athens, but, I had been tremendously proud of the way Richt represented my alma mater, as both a person and a coach. His concern for his players, even years after they’d left UGA, was genuine and heartfelt.
And no one who saw how emotional Richt was on the field after the big win over LSU in Athens in 2013 (which came days after the death of former Bulldog Paul Oliver) could question that he really did care intensely about not just winning such games, but for his players, as well.
Many of us had conflicted feelings when UGA let Richt go. We recognized it was time for a change, but we were saddened to lose such a profoundly good and decent man, who had brought the football program back to prominence.
Richt went on to coach a few seasons at his alma mater, Miami, but much of his family (and, it seems, his heart) remained in Athens, and, now, he’s back there.
Even before it was assured that his replacement was going to give Georgia the natty that fans wanted, UGA and Bulldog Nation already had embraced the 61-year-old former coach, who has Parkinson’s disease. He was celebrated this past season with an emotional day Between the Hedges, with the Redcoat Marching Band playing “In the Air Tonight” while spelling out his name in formation, a video tribute on the jumbotron and Rich and his wife Katharyn (the former “Water Girl”) receiving a commemorative football from Athletic Director Josh Brooks while 40 of Richt’s former UGA captains stood behind him on the field. The ovation Richt received from the Sanford Stadium crowd was the loudest heard that day.
“We are so appreciative of all of Coach Richt’s contributions to the University of Georgia,” Brooks said. “His impact on Georgia football, the Athletic Association and the Athens community is immeasurable. We are thrilled we are able to honor him at Sanford Stadium this season.”
For his part, the former head coach cheered on Smart and the Dawgs as they finally achieved what had eluded him: “Well, it just didn’t happen in my time,” Richt told the AJC’s Chip Towers. “But I’ve gotten a chance to see most of it, and it’s pretty spectacular, I can say that.”
“All is forgiven” seems to be the Georgia way, once prodigal sons find their way back home. Who knows, maybe even wide receiver Jermaine Burton, cursed by some Dawgs fans as a “traitor” for transferring to Bama to further his career goals after being a part of Smart’s national championship team, will be forgiven one day, especially if he comes back to Athens in some sort of coaching position.
Because, yes, once a Dawg, always a Dawg, and the Dawgs seem to unite the people of this state like nothing else, providing a bond for those who otherwise have little in common. Dawgs fans represent widely varying viewpoints and walks of life, but we’re sort of one big, diverse “family” that’s tied together by the University of Georgia and its teams.
I liked the way columnist Cy Brown put it in Athens’ Flagpole weekly: “I was lucky enough to be one of the Dawg fans at the game in Indianapolis. I’ve never seen a group of people so collectively happy. … Kirby Smart has made this whole season about ‘connection’ within the team. As cheesy as it sounds, during the game and after, I felt a deep connection to every Dawg fan in that building. I know I would disagree with many of them on matters both large and small. But we were a big, dysfunctional Dawg family, and I’m happy for every one of y’all.”
As Loran Smith noted in a recent column for the Athens Banner-Herald, “there is something special about the connection that the state university has with the people of this state. You travel the backroads of this state and you see the connection with the University of Georgia reflected everywhere … When Dan Magill organized the Bulldog Club network in 1954, he was able to organize a club in every one of Georgia’s 159 counties, which caused him to remind everybody that, ‘we are the majority party in this state.’”
I thought my son, Bill, who now lives in Raleigh, summed it up perfectly after the win over Bama in Indy: UGA football fandom, he said in a post to his social media accounts, is “the lingua franca of Georgia when everything else feels so loaded, and can serve as connective tissue within families, including mine. It’s a foundational part of the culture of northeast Georgia, where my family has been since before there even was a UGA, and of Athens, which manages to be indie, while still losing its mind over football. I rarely feel more connection to home than I do when I see UGA take the field.”
Dantzler agreed. “Sports is the great unifier,” he told me, “and the Bulldogs bring us together.”
Which is one of the reasons all roads really do seem to lead to Athens.
Like the Redcoats say …
