As I noted last evening, it’s a big weekend for a couple of damn good ‘Dawgs at different stages of their lives and careers, both of whom deserve a mention.
At 2:00 this afternoon, Russell Henley will be featured on CBS’s "Next on the Tee: The Future of Golf." At a time when the Tiger Woods scandal has damaged the popularity of the sport, some of the most promising and likable figures in golf have ties to the University of Georgia. Harris English, Bryden Macpherson, and Bubba Watson all have engaged the attention of Bulldog Nation while having success outside the collegiate game. Henley, who won this year’s Stadion Classic as an amateur, has a bright future ahead of him, and it can only be to the credit of the program in Athens that he is garnering this much attention so early in his career.
Not quite 24 hours later, roughly at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon, the greatest Bulldog of ‘em all will throw out the first pitch at Turner Field prior to the start of the Atlanta Braves’ home game against the Florida Marlins as Dan Magill collects on one of the gifts he received on the occasion of his 90th birthday earlier this year. Coach Magill’s contributions to the University are so varied and impressive as to defy summation; he grew up in Athens, knew personally virtually every significant figure in Georgia athletic history, knows more University lore by far than any other living human being, won a pair of NCAA championships and a then-record 706 matches in a 34-year career as the Bulldogs’ head men’s tennis coach, served as sports information director, founded the Georgia Bulldog Club, continues to serve as the curator of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Hall of Fame (which is located on the University of Georgia campus), and still plays tennis twice a week.
If the opportunity to recognize the achievements of a couple of Bulldogs---one recently graduated from the University, the other commemorating the start of his tenth decade of devotion to the Red and Black---doesn’t get your weekend off to a good start, I don’t know what will.
Go ‘Dawgs!