It’s sort of funny.
I was never really a fan of the Georgia Bulldogs, particularly in football. But if I had stayed in Anderson, S.C., for the 1984 football season, I would have had the opportunity to cover the beat.
I didn’t, though, and Anderson ended up being a nine-month stay that separated a year and a half in Gastonia, N.C., from two and a half years in St. Louis. The one football season I spent in the Palmetto State saw me commuting to Columbia twice a week and covering the South Carolina Gamecocks.
I did make it to Athens for one game Between the Hedges. USC and Georgia were playing their annual game on the Bulldogs’ turf.
I think that fall was the first time I heard the expression “How ’bout them Dawgs,” and I heard it as the punchline of a joke by the late Lewis Grizzard, a Georgian to the bone.
There was a machine created that would talk to people based on their level of education, all the way from doctoral candidates down to high school dropouts. The grad students would get a talk about international trade, college graduates would hear about U.S. history, high school graduates would get movie reviews and the dropouts would get four words.
“How ’bout them Dawgs!”
You hear a lot about the South and its love of college football, and the late great Dan Jenkins once described a character in one of his books by saying he was so southern, he thought Auburn and Clemson were states.
Of course both those schools are among the many southern universities that have won national championships in football.
But let’s be reasonable. It isn’t just a southern thing. Folks in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Ohio and other states are every bit as fanatical about their teams as any southern state. If you’re wondering why I don’t include Texas, it’s because Texas is one of the places where they may actually love high school football even more.
But folks here in the Peach State surely do love them some Dawgs, and Georgia’s 33-18 victory over Alabama Monday night in the championship game was wonderful for more than just being the Dawgs’ first NCAA football title since 1980.
Nobody dominates the college game like Alabama, and the Crimson Tides’ 41-24 victory over previously unbeaten Georgia in the Southeastern Conference title game spoiled a perfect season for the Dawgs and left their fans with at least some doubt heading into the playoffs.
But Georgia pummeled Michigan in the semifinals and then rallied to beat Alabama in the championship game.
A great, great season.
There’s really nothing to be said but …
“HOW ‘BOUT THEM DAWGS!”