Saturday Night Fever

As I often do this time of year, I went out this night in my Georgia Bulldogs T shirt. I call it the "Super G". Like the Superman S but with a G, and red and black. It's kinda the same. It's an all red T Shirt with a giant G in the middle. Now, 90% of the year, people don't have a clue what I'm wearing or why. But thanks to a stupidly high ESPN ranking people are getting familiar. The G stood out tonight. It started with me eating at Chili's and hearing a "GO DOGS!" from across the bar. I saw the ring on his right hand right away. I was steeling myself for what I knew was coming. Then it went something like..

ME: Go Dawgs!

Dude: Yea

Me: Where you from?

Dude: I’m an AGGIE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

Me: Cool. Welcome to the SEC.

Dude: We could have been a number 5 team!

Me: Don’t you need to like win and stuff to be top 5?

Dude: It was in our heads, we just couldn’t finish.

Me: UGA had that issue against LSU in Atlanta, rolling in that depth hurt us. Depth is huge in the SEC.

Dude: It wasn’t depth, we just got stupid coaches! WWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

Me. Oh sweet Jesus.

Dude: Like I was saying, I remember playing Y’all a few years back , we had that.

Me: I was at that game. I remember it being cold and we beat the tar out of you.

Dude: We just can’t finish. We were so ahead in that game until the turnover just before the half.

Me: Isnt this a 4 Quarter game, and we beat you like by 4 TDs or something?

Dude: Our Coaches can’t finish! We got a good chance in the SEC. Mizzou is the real deal (followed by a discussion of how they suck)

Me: Jesus Lord I am never going to Chili’s again and I don’t think I’m talking about football for the rest of my life.

(I am not going into the "Bama deserved to be in the NC" discussion because I almost went crazy).

But then, it got better. I went to my pool joint (I shoot billiards, on a team, yada yada). And it got much better. The G stood out.

I bumped into my pool league teammate M: "You just can’t wait for football, can you?". "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". Good catch M. You seem to get it. He let on he was looking forward to Oklahoma. We smiled, I watched him try and do old testament things to his lady friend. Wish I was joking*.

From across the bar comes a fellow, prior Air Force, shook my hand, and said "Is that for G E O R G I A?", and I said, "Yea, I am a 4^th Gen Bulldog." ** He says "IF I COULD BE THERE RIGHT NOW I WOULD". I can only say, I can't argue with that one freaking bit. He shook my hand for the 100^th time and walked away. I thought, "The Lord truly works in mysterious ways.". I was happy. We were willing to teleport anywhere in the state of Georgia for BBQ at that moment. That's a serous bond friends.

Then the coup de tat came around (if anyone besides NCT calls me out for that spelling or grammar I will hurt you). A strange fellow stared at me and my shirt. I knew (Dawg2011, thanks for our convo, you will get this) the dude was German or European. I can’t say I have a big rack to check out. Then he says "Cool shirt." I said "thank you." He comes around to " That’s Georgia, right?" and I say, "yep, sure is" and he says "I lived in Savannah (aircraft industry and a German)" and I’m all "HELL YEA, I want to retire there!" and we chit chat until I say "WTH happened to Germany in the Euro?" Oops. End of dialogue. But that was cool. Germany giving UGA props. Obviously, living in Savannah made an impression beyond freaking soccer.

I have no idea what this post is for other than to say this is a damn good time to fly the colors. UGA is in the news, and sometimes news is good, even if bad. Not everyone knows the "ESPN Narrative" – they just know the G. The G means something. It’s a super G. We got a brand, a logo that people recognize (screw you Nike) and it’s important. You never know who or what or when someone is going to strike up a "HOW BOUT THEM DAWGS!"

GO DAWGS!

* M's lady friend said Cotton was the ugliest dog ever. I think that makes things pretty clear where they're headed.

** 4th Gen is a slight, uh, exaggeration told in the moment.