The presentation of the 2006 College Football Blogger Awards continues here at Dawg Sports and, for those of you who have had trouble following the bouncing ball, the festivities have taken us from Best New Blog to The Trev to The Dr. Z Award to Best M.S.M. Blog to The Jenn Sterger's Rack Award to The Jay Sherman Award to The Brady Quinn Award.
Like millions of other college football fans around the country, Kristin Davis intently awaits the announcement of the next College Football Blogger Award. (Photograph from Yahoo! GeoCities.)
It now falls to me to present The Job Award, which goes to the weblogger who suffered through his favorite team's disappointing season in the manner most worthy of note. A few words of explanation are in order before I present the award.
The name of the award isn't "job," as in "employment," it's "Job," as in the longsuffering Old Testament figure. Also, even though "Job" is pronounced the same as the stage name of George Oscar Bluth II, this award has nothing to do with "Arrested Development" . . . although I suspect the humor in the short-lived Fox situation comedy would be right up the winner's alley.
Finally, although a fellow denizen of The Dawgosphere took home the hardware in this category, I don't know that it's entirely fair to claim that Georgia's season, on the whole, was such a letdown. After all, the Bulldogs won nine games, three of their four losses came by a touchdown or less (including a seven-point setback suffered at the hands of the eventual national champion), and the Red and Black ended the campaign with three straight wins over ranked opponents, with two of those victories coming in rivalry games.
Nevertheless, the 2006 campaign was not without its valleys in Bulldog Nation and, during that maddening seven-week stretch, no Georgia fan's outrage was more spectacularly visceral than that of Hey Jenny Slater's Doug Gillett.
T. Kyle King (right) presents the Job Award to an ebullient Doug Gillett (center). Doug's sister, Ann (left), is on hand to share this glorious moment in her brother's life.
Some honors are bestowed upon their recipients in recognition of a single memorable act that will endure perpetually in lore. Theron Sapp's jersey was retired because he broke the drought by scoring the winning touchdown against Georgia Tech in 1957. A selfless act of heroism earned Stacy Searels the N.C.A.A. Award of Valor. George C. Scott wrapped up the Academy Award for "Patton" during the speech at the beginning of the film.
So it was with Doug, who earned the Job Award by taking the life of an innocent toaster oven in a Hulk-like fit of fury during the Georgia-Colorado game. Here is an excerpt from the statement Doug gave to the law enforcement officials investigating the incident:
This turned out to be an astute decision on our part, because after Matt Stafford's fumble to end the first drive of the third quarter, I knocked a chair over in the kitchen, then picked it up and threw it a ways. And when Georgia's next drive also ended in a fumble, I yanked my toaster oven off the counter and hurled it off my balcony.
Just imagine how Doug would have reacted if he had low self-esteem . . . or if Georgia had lost that game!
Unfortunately for Doug, the family of the victim successfully sued him over this senseless deed, so the toaster oven's survivors were able to take away his Job Award in partial satisfaction of the judgment against him.
Honorable mention goes to the runner-up in this category, Orange 44. Think about how rough a ride Syracuse has had on the gridiron the last few years . . . since right about the time the school neutered its mascot by dropping the "men" from the Orangemen, as a matter of fact.
Now imagine the level of dedication it would take to wade hip-deep into such disappointment on a weekly basis, reveling in double-overtime victories over Wyoming and praising the resurgent squad thusly:
And now Syracuse sits at the .500 mark midway through its 2006 campaign. Sporting wins over Wyoming, Miami (OH), and Illinois -- three teams that Syracuse likely would have fell to last season -- and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against Wake Forest and Iowa, Syracuse is roughly three games more victorious at this point in the season than I thought it would be in August.
Ultimately, though, following Syracuse football is an exercise in aggravation . . . as evidenced by the "Countdown to Football Frustration" clock atop the site. That earned Orange 44 a second-place finish for the Job Award.
Kudos to Hey Jenny Slater and Orange 44 on their respective gold and silver medals in the Job Award.
Go 'Dawgs!