If Your Blood Runs Red & Black...

The calendar has flipped to the month of August. Which means its time to officially get pumped up about the forthcoming football season. And if you know anything about me, that means only 2 colors start to flow through my blood: Red and Black.

It’s hard to believe that just about 15 years have passed since late August 1994 when a fresh faced Yankee from Langhorne, PA set foot on the campus of the University of Georgia at Redcoat band camp (insert “one time” joke). It was amazing meeting so many new faces and joining a group that was 350 strong. But that was just the beginning.

My first game in the fall of 1994 was in the Roach Bowl in Columbia, SC. We barely made it in the stands by kickoff. I sat down and then proceeded to watch Eric Zeier zip a long touchdown pass and for the first time I played, and felt “Glory Glory to Ol’ Georgia”. The next week was the first time Between the Hedges, and I recall being in awe of the size of the players and the how Sanford Stadium just kept rising and rising high into the warm September evening.

The 4 years spent at UGA went by in a blink, but the memories will undoubtedly last a lifetime. Many of those memorable moments were spent as a Redcoat and seeing the Dawgs battle it out in the SEC and against our in state foes from the North Avenue Trade School. Once I graduated, I made the VERY wise decision to purchase 2 season tickets and begin to take in football games as a proud alumnus. While my vantage point (and access to the field) may have changed, my enthusiasm did not. More great memories continued to flow, and now I am extremely proud to involve my whole family in fall Saturdays in Athens, GA.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to share some of my favorite UGA football memories in the past decade and a half via a series of countdowns. Get ready for a stroll down memory lane with many exciting plays, games, players, and moments. I have one self-imposed caveat: in order for the list to be as personally authentic as possible, I am going to only include items where I personally was in the stands to see the moment, player, etc. That means, alas, no Hobnailed Boot, Pollack sack/INT/touchdown in one, or end zone celebration references, as I was not in attendance at those games. But I hope to provide some great memories for Dawg fans and highlight some under the radar moments that you all may have forgotten, but I sure haven't.

Stay tuned and as Tom Jackson asks, "Keep you seats everyone".