It’s time UGA wasn’t so low-key in celebrating its athletic history at Sanford Stadium.
When Dawgs fans enter the stadium Sept. 10 for the home opener, you’d think they’d be greeted by some special acknowledgement of last season’s College Football Playoff championship win — or, for that matter, all three of the school’s consensus national titles in football — aside from another pennant flying atop the east end and a 2021 sign added to the list of championship years on the front of the club section.
I mean, flags are fine, but when the wind isn’t blowing, they’re not very noticeable, and the national championship signage is pretty modest. Surely something with a bit more flair is planned?
Well, no. When I asked Senior Associate Athletic Director Claude Felton whether anything else was in the works, he replied: “My understanding is that what you mentioned would be the plan for this year.”
That’s too bad. Now that the Dawgs have a recent title to celebrate, it seems like a great time to offer a more prominent tribute to the three natties and all those SEC championships, too.
I’m not talking about draping the stadium with tacky banners the way Auburn has done in the past.
However, there are a couple of prime spots at the stadium that would make a good location for paying tribute to those championship years.
The first that comes to mind is the back of the scoreboard, facing Sanford Drive at Gillis Bridge. Right now, aside from the power-G logo and the lettering “SANFORD STADIUM UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA,” it’s a curiously blank, gray space, without even the eye-catching red panels featured on the back of the previous scoreboard.
Back in the 1980s, during the Vince Dooley era, the scoreboard featured the 1980 national championship and SEC titles, with a red and black background.
A little garish, perhaps, but something more refined could be designed and, given the prominence of the scoreboard — with its visibility from the bridge and Lumpkin Street — it’s certainly a prominent way to celebrate titles.
I showed a mock-up of what that could look like to a few people. “I like it a lot — solid and dignified,” Betz Tillitsky said.
And, she added, if UGA didn’t want to add anything to the back of the scoreboard for some reason, “maybe a space could be found just outside or inside the stadium where people could pose with [the tribute] for pictures. Sounds like something that would be popular.”
The other prime spot for a celebration of UGA athletics is that ugly exposed stairway pillar on the east side of the stadium. That would be an ideal location for a celebratory mural.
The image could be a representation of the three national title teams, or just a mix of great scenes from Georgia football. Perhaps even better might be a more abstract mural of a giant nonspecific Georgia player or players, rather like one done recently in downtown Raleigh, NC, for the Carolina Hurricanes. That mural dresses up an otherwise ugly parking deck pillar very similar to the one at UGA’s stadium.
Or, Scott Peacocke said, “How about some sort of engravings on the blank walls, with names of all the team members listed for each title team?”
Alan Cason, who runs the Dawg Bites fan page on Facebook, also likes the mural idea. “Those walls need some help of some sort for sure,” he said, adding that, at the very least, “the markers on the upper level facade need to be enlarged.”
Derek Luiz, one of my son’s former UGA roommates, said he likes the idea of listing championships on the back of the scoreboard, and “anything to cover the asylum-gray walls would be nice, too.”
Inside the stadium, aside from some wall graphics put up in recent years, there’s really nothing representing UGA’s football legacy.
I’ve often wondered why you see so little of the university’s football history at Sanford, in contrast to schools like the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where Tar Heel history is a tangible presence at Kenan Memorial Stadium (which had the same designer as Sanford). And, Clemson even honors its other non-championship College Football Playoff appearances in its stadium; Georgia barely mentions its national titles.
I’ve previously suggested adding some plaques and busts of athletic heroes in Reed Plaza. Maybe that would be a good place for a listing of Georgia’s championships, too.
Derek thinks UGA ought to go a step further, and create some sort of monument garden inside the stadium, along the lines of what the Atlanta Braves have done at Truist Park.
“I think something like that would be great,” he said, adding that, depending on the location and space available, “you can honor national and SEC championships, All-Americans, show past jerseys, etc. I know we have a lot of stuff like that on display at Butts-Mehre, but it would be honored more inside Sanford somewhere.” He suggested a possible location would be under the bridge in the northwest corner of the stadium, where the granite bulldog mascot and Olympic Torch are located.
Darrell Huckaby, who said he has “thought for a long time that we should do more to honor our traditions,” suggested installing “large panels along the entry plaza — or wherever the most people could see them — with a montage” of the seasons Georgia won the national championship.
That way, he said, “we could add a new panel each time we win.”
Another idea, which would be relatively simple for UGA, came from Dan Pelletier, who suggested “a painted tribute in the end zones listing the years and a large NATIONAL CHAMPION below.”
Jason Hasty, the keeper of UGA sports history at the Hargrett Library on campus, agreed “there are things that we could do better about celebrating our national championships.
“We Georgia fans know better than any other fan base how precious and rare those championship seasons are, for sure. I like the idea of utilizing the ‘bridge side’ of the scoreboard to promote the championship years.”
He added that “it would be nice if the championship years were added around the edge of the mid-field ‘G’.”
And, Betz noted, if adding the years made the field logo “too busy,” UGA still could paint “National Champions” under the “G” on the field this season.
It’s also possible that, with the addition of the vertical expansion coming to the stadium’s southwest corner in the second stage of a $68.5 million renovation at Sanford, some suitably prominent acknowledgement of the Bulldogs’ championships might be incorporated there.
Bottom line: Bulldogs football history deserves more recognition than it’s getting at Sanford Stadium.
POOCH KICKS ...
Due to returns from visiting teams, a limited number of tickets to three of Georgia’s 2022 home football games were put on sale this week: Samford on Sept. 10 at $55, Kent State on Sept. 24 at $55 and Vanderbilt on Oct. 15 at $75. The Kent State tickets were all gone within a day, but, at this writing, tickets to the Samford and Vandy games remain available.
It’s true that, with two neutral-site games this season, the home schedule for the Dawgs is rather lackluster (with those three games being the least attractive), but it would be a shame if Sanford Stadium’s current streak of 58 straight sellout games came to an end. The streak began with the Sept. 15, 2012, game against Florida Atlantic; the last non-sellout game was Sept. 1, 2012, against Buffalo.
The record sellout streak for Sanford is 64 games, which ran from the Sept. 1, 2002, game against Arkansas State through the Sept. 10, 2011 game against South Carolina. …
Coca-Cola’s second try this year at a special bottle commemorating UGA’s latest national championship finally is in (some) stores in six-packs, but distribution appears to be rather spotty. I read on Facebook about someone buying them somewhere in Alabama, and yet they’re still very difficult to find in parts of metro Atlanta.
As for the bottle itself, which was front and center at Kirby Smart’s preseason press conference, it’s better than the first try earlier this year, but quite a few fans are dismayed that, instead of the images being printed on the glass bottle (as with the 1980 collectible), the graphics by well-known Georgia artist Steve Penley are printed on a sheet of plastic wrapped around the 8-ounce bottle. If you’re planning on keeping these for posterity, better protect them well. …
I’ve heard from fans who have taken offense at the defending national champion Dawgs being ranked third behind Alabama (1) and Ohio State (2) in the largely meaningless preseason college football polls put out by the Associated Press and USA Today/American Football Coaches Association.
I don’t have any problem with Georgia’s placement, though. Considering how much talent departed the program for the NFL at the end of last season, having the Dawgs ranked in the Top 3 is a testament to the elite recruiting Smart has been doing in recent years.
Also, it’s worth noting that there have been only 11 preseason No. 1 teams that have finished the season No. 1 since the AP began its preseason polls in 1950, and even Bama has done it only twice. ...
Finally, on a non-football note (but a subject near and dear to the hearts of many Dawgs fans), this past week marked the 45th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s passing. You can time-travel with me back to Memphis and Tupelo, where I was sent after Presley’s 1977 death to talk with those who knew the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Their memories were sweet and treasured, and told with the warmth usually reserved for talking about a family member. Click here to read what they had to say.
