Jorts and Helmets, meet in a 2012 schedule

Even though she's carrying a future middle linebacker in her belly, Kerri ain't complaining. Instead she took it upon herself to create a jorted version of the 2012 SEC Helmet Schedule. Sure, there's others out there. But she found them unsatisfactory.


High Four Kerri! GATA.

Coach Mark Richt in cell phone purgatory, vol II

This time he didn't pocket text by accident. But he lost telephone privileges for two weeks for mentioning Josh Harvey-Clemons as a signee before the recruit actually signed.

Mark Richt's premature commenting on Josh Harvey-Clemons on signing day cost the Georgia head coach two weeks of telephone priviledges. 

Back on Feb. 1, Harvey-Clemons announcement his commitment to Georgia. It was the day's major signing for Georgia - except Harvey-Clemons didn't sign until the next day, as his grandfather wavered on signing the letter-of-intent. In the meantime, however, Richt had talked about the defensive standout from Valdosta during an interview on ESPNU.

Georgia reported the secondary violation the next day. The SEC returned its verdict on April 23, according to documents provided by UGA: Richt was prohibited from "placing recruiting telephone calls for a period of two weeks." The violation was also termed a Level II violation, the lesser of the secondary violations.

That is the only secondary violation the football program has reported since February. The men's tennis and volleyball programs have each reported two.

Meanwhile I mentioned JHC WAY early, yet received no punishment. Life of a blogger. And I hate talking on the phone.

Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2012/05/04/2014564/harvey-clemons-talk-sends-richt.html#storylink=cpy

Diamond Dawgs mow down Barners

Behind a stellar pitching performance behind Alex Wood, the Dawgs get some good at bats late to edge Auburn 5-2 in the first game of the weekend series.

Flashback Friday: Dominique Wilkins

The early to mid 1990's will always be my favorite era for men's hoops. (Neville Austin from the charity stripe anyone?) Carlos Strong and Terrell Bell were Jaguars that stayed home to play for Durham. I happen to be a product of Cedar Shoals HS. The fact that I couldn't dribble a basketball somehow kept me off the gym floor....*sigh*...


Back on point, Shandon Anderson was probably my favorite player to watch. But Dominique Wilkins is considered the best to ever play ball in Stegeman. And yet it was the year after he left that we made the Final Four for what has proven to be the only time in Men's Basketball history. 


The pic below is from a Sports Illustrated in the early 1980's obviously. Thanks to Dawg19 for sharing. I was a little too young to remember much from #21 in a Georgia uniform, but remember plenty of The Human Highlight Film in The Omni after he left Athens. Is Dominique the best ever? He's the record holder for points in a season, but Litterial Green has the career point record. Aside from the best ever discourse...who's the Hoop Dawg you think of most? 

DING DONG! The bastard is finally...

...taking his yankee carpet baggin' ass out of Athens.


Michael Adams is a polarizing figure. Some see his long tenure and applaud the growth, development and academic achievements. But while Adams enjoyed taking credit for those I prefer to see things realistically. The University of Georgia has long needed new leadership from the top. Now the Board of Regents will have several months to find it.


The campus and university as a whole has enjoyed tremendous growth since Adams took office in 1997. He deserves credit there. Maybe not as much as he demands, but for the most part he helped raise a lot of money and stood out of the way of UGA's brick and mortar expansion.


Athletics has been more of a mixed bag. Sure, the UGAA has enjoyed profits and success during Adams' time on campus. But there's just as much of an argument that he stood in the way of greater success as one that he was responsible for what Georgia has enjoyed.


Overall, if you ask me how I'll look back on Adams' time as President of the University of Georgia I would say it was a good time to be a student and part of the alumni. I'll always wonder if it could've been greater. I don't care for his hands-on style meddling ways when it comes to athletics. I hope the successor gets along better with the faculty and stays away from Butts-Mehre as much as possible.


But that's just me. I eat grits and don't wear jeans to the Intramural Fields.

"An almost boring" game "explodes in the waning seconds"

A couple weeks ago we looked at the night Herschel's jersey was retired. It was Labor Day 1985 and Bama was in town for a night game. Well now, carlmilton has uploaded the final minute of that game. It was more than a little nuts, with a blocked punt, an excessive celebration and then a drive by future Bama head man Mike Shula.


And now, here's the dulcet tones of Keith Jackson...circa the Reagan era...

Shula was 5 of 8 for 67 yards before that last drive. Nice of Bill Lewis to give us a preview of WilMart's pass defense so early and before it's time.

Adams almost done bagging carpet in Athens

It's not effective until June 2013, but Prez Adams in retiring from his post at UGA. The Chapel Bell should be ringing all night. I just cracked open a celebratory beer. Join me.


More tomorrow.

Coach Magill reflects, and predicts on Men's Tennis

Grabbed this from Coach Diaz's channel, one of my favorite YouTube ones to follow because it has classic gold like this:

The NCAA Tourney starts Thursday May 17th in Athens. Fulls session tickets went on sale yesterday. Single session tickets go on sale May 14th. Georgia is a #2 seed and will take on South Carolina State first in a bracket that includes FSU and Boise State. 


Here's a link to the complete bracket. Hope to see you out there.

Humpday Hilarity - never too young to jive

I can dance like this too. But it takes a table that is adjacent to an open bar.

GATArchives: the Railroad Track Crowd eviction

They were not players. They never scored a single touchdown. In fact, they never really bothered to sober up for kickoff. They probably even approached their studies in much the same manner. Yet they are The Railroad Track Crowd. They earned Erk Russell's respect and their stories are those of legend. Therefore, they are to be honored with an archive here.

Source: AJC
Date: Sun 11/30/1980
Photo credit: Steve Deal

First, I was neither of age to celebrate amongst the Track People, nor was I conceived among them. That puts me about knee high to Amp Arnold around the time of their hey day. On Sunday mornings I recall riding along East Campus Rd on the way to church. After a home game the rocky embankment that led up to the railroad track was completely littered with bottles, tailgating remnants and the occasional underclassman.

If you wanted to party with these guys you had to be ready Friday afternoon and your insurance had to cover the occasional tumble down the rocky slope to the street's pavement below. Saturday November 29th, 1980 was the last home game before Sanford was enlarged and enclosed on the east end (in the picture you can see the beginnings of the construction). About 4000 fans took to The Tracks for one last view of a football game from the perch they had come to know and love. No doubt feeding off of that energy, the Bulldogs used two 4th quarter touchdowns to beat visiting Tech 38-20 that day. It finished an undefeated regular season and put Dooley's team in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day against Notre Dame.

The fact that the last team they saw became Georgia's best team ever was no coincidence. You see, Erk Russell had written that it was to be so. On July 7th, 1980 the Georgia defensive coordinator wrote a heartfelt letter referencing the "Railroad Track Crowd" addressed to his "Gentlemen: (and Linemen)". He openly challenged his Dawgs to not only be the last team they saw from the tracks, but also the best.

And it was so.

But in the years leading up to that time just before and during the magical 1980 season, the citizens of the tracks had already begun to wear out their welcome. In the article that accompanies the picture, Alan Truex explains that a student suffered a spinal injury due at least in part to a fight on the tracks in 1979. If you speak to those around campus at the time this was fairly frequent behavior, along with thrown bottles and confrontations with local police. And all that was before even the first trashbags were used to clean up the free seats.

As with the more recent case on North Campus, the UGA tailgating scene knows that it takes just a few bad apples to kill the buzz. It's hard to imagine the decision to enclose the east end being about anything more than money, but doing away with the free seats was surely a welcome byproduct of the stadium's growth.

Still, the Railroad Track Crowd is largely and affectionately remembered as they should be: die hard fans that cherished their spot, greeted the team before and after each home game, and generally bled red and black. But don't take my word for it, here's Scott Woerner:

"It's gonna be sad not having those people there. I can tell how much the team is gonna miss these people. When you drive up and see all the people, and know that some of 'em stayed out all night long up there, you get chills and a warm feeling."

Yes. It might be hard for today's fan - and player for that matter - to understand. But back in the 1970's the Track People were as big a part of the Georgia football gameday tradition as Munson, the cheerleaders and even Uga. They won the hearts of the players. And they gave each game their all.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Some bonus readings:

- I certainly don't believe in the curse (it's Bleacher Report after all), but the "legend" of Rusty McKay provides a decent picture of who many of these fans were.

- Rex talked about what it was like to be a player during the tradition of getting off the bus to the Tracks. The comments provide some great memories as well. I especially chuckled at the reference to the "hippie lettuce". 

- Same is true for Garbin, "as long as there was whiskey to drink and Larry Munson on his radio."

- And make sure and visit the official website where you can read Erk's letter in its entirety as well as grab a commemorative t-shirt.

Jarvis, the HOT name for 2013 draft

With the 2012 NFL Draft in the books, many analysts are already looking at who might crack the top spots in next year's draft. Naturally a name that is going to keep coming up is Georgia's Jarvis Jones.


Even though he's still not a lock to leave campus early (he's a RS Junior this season), many feel he could be the best defensive player potentially available for NFL teams next year.

The 2011 All-American is listed as the top outside linebacker prospect by Chad Reuter of the NFL Network.

Jones is the No. 4 overall prospect behind Southern California quarterback Matt Barkley, South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore and Southern California receiver Robert Woods on a top 30 list by Bucky Brooks of NFL.com.

“Jones is the most dynamic pass rusher in college football,” Brooks writes. “He possesses explosive first-step quickness and burst, and flashes the balance and body control needed to blow past blockers around the corner. While he is still learning the finer points of the position in pass coverage, Jones’ ability to completely dominate the game as a pass rusher makes him a valued commodity in the eyes of evaluators.”

FoxSports.com’s Peter Schrager also mentions Jones in this video clip of the elite prospects for 2013. He says that Jones would have been a first-round pick if he left after last season.

Of course, Jones didn’t leave after making a decision during the season that he wasn’t even considering going.

During spring ball, he even talked like it wasn’t a lock he was gone after next season when he was discussing the outside linebackers.

“We’re young, man, we’re really young,” Jones said. “I’ve still got this year and next year left. If you look at it as a whole, we’re really young.”

SEC Video: NFL Draft recap

Hannah Chalker looks at the 2012 NFL Draft through an SEC lens.

Monday's Meatloaf - more schlameel and less schlamazul

And they'll do it their way. Yes, their way...


One of the great mysteries in life I'm convinced will forever go unsolved. I don't know why I spend even a moment of my day trying to come to a logical conclusion. After all, it's been confounding the male species for decades. Personally I blame Mary Kay. But to be honest, Miss Clairol is just as likely a suspect.

Schlameel! Schlamazul! Hosenfeffer incorporated! 

Of course, I'm talking about what takes women so damn long in the bathroom once they get in front of that mirror...or in the shower...or with all 963 hair instruments. You have the standard curler, the rollers, the dryer, the sprays, the conditioners, the flat iron, not to mention a dozen or so hair brushes. I can count the times my family has been on time for church on one hand. For my own sake I hope the good Lord appreciates me bringing a handsome family into his house more than he frowns on our tardiness.


This has to be innate behavior. Some kind of switch in their little brain is flipped around the age of two and all we can do is wait downstairs while the tools are all laid out on the vanity and the magic commences. Before the door closes the bathroom is clean and clutter free. And it doesn't open again until it looks like a bomb went off on the Health and Beauty aisle of a grocery store. Cans and bottles are everywhere, drawers are half open, brushes are coming out of every nook and cranny...and there's a distinct smell of burnt hair.


Now mind you, don't complain about the end result. There's not a time when our little girls and our significant others are more beautiful. Somehow the curling iron and the flat iron set aside their creative differences long enough to get every hair on their heads in the right shape and in the correct place. The pencils and the brush applicators work together more closely than Laverne and Shirley. It's a finely tuned orchestra, each component in conjunction with the other to produce a somewhat detained, yet very fashionable woman.


No, don't blame the end result. Just be glad all the time didn't tick away and that she didn't ask you to tell her which shoes looked best.


Today's Ingredients

Livin' the dream!

• Let's lead off at DawgSports where Kyle gives us his comprehensive weekend wrapup, including seven red and black draft picks.
• CCRider recaps the NFL Draft, both for winners and for losers.
• Big win in Red Stick yesterday for the Diamond Dawgs. Here's Ching's week in review.
• Ever wanted to read all those mushy words Coach T sends the new signees to prepare them for their first summer in Athens? ecdawg obliges.
• Speaking of S&C, The Lady Sportswriter thinks the newly revamped staff could be a HIT.
• Reuben Foster says he's not de-committing from Bama, yet ($$).
• The NCAA Men's tennis championship draw will be announced tomorrow. You can purchase tickets by clicking here.
• HoopDawg looks at the scheduling, both this year and next.
• Wipe your feet off real good before treading on this Dawg carpet. (h/t Tyler)
• Lastly, like JaxDawg said...I've always felt a unique kinship with Chaz Reinhold. (WARNING - NSFW!) Right down to the red and black robe.

The last day of April. When we were ushered into the month we were full of madness. Now we're just a few weeks away from freshmen reporting to Coach T's office. Maybe I shouldn't type it out loud but it seems like this off season is whizzing right by. Before we know it the Buffalo Bills will be in town to help usher in the new season.

All due respect Chan...please get off my field.

I mean, I'm trying not to get ahead of myself...but what's going to be more awkward, playing against Chan Gailey again, or Cordy Glenn? I know right? I didn't know Gailey was still coaching either. Even his Wiki page still has a picture of him losing while wearing a bee cap. I guess ALL that money Dave "Braine" paid him wasn't enough to retire the ol' 4th and long playbook.

At least he has enough smart people with tackle football knowledge around him to draft a Georgia guy. Excuse me..I'm getting a call...

Okay, so Darren informs me the seasons opener is against the Buffalo Bulls. Not the Buffalo Bills. So in that case we can't just assume we're getting a mediocre team with a crappy coach at the end of his crappy career. Better be ready. Let's start planning the tailgate! Here's the meatloaf Reader. Don't spill any on the silk robe.

Bernie

Diamond Dawgs hold on 5-3 in Red Stick

Powered by two Justin Bryan homers and some clutch pitching, the Diamond Dawgs avoid the sweep against LSU.

Fox's end game?

I'm both pissed and hopeful. We have a coach that can actually wear red and black coach a basketball team, unlike his predecessor. And yet we're still knocking our head against a wall for no real apparent reason. I can't imagine being within 60 miles of a gold mine and not at least learning to swing an pick axe.


Fox is cool with his standard operating procedure. That's great. You "settle" for a kid like Kessler and "hope" he develops. That's a 50-50 proposition at best. Meanwhile we swing and miss on a near "sure thing". We couldn't sell Parker on possibilities and dreams, so we're banking on the status quo.


Redonkulously awesome AAU teams thrive within a hour of Stegeman. Somehow we refuse to acknowledge them. Most Georgia fans and alumni couldn't care less. I'm in the minority.


I want to win.