A BIG BOWL OF INDEPENDENCE

Hello Reader! We find ourselves still basking in the warm seasonal glow of another Christmas come and gone. Hopefully you have all been able to overcome your holly jolly hangover brought on by a bit too much merriment and one too many trips to the kitchen for just one more yummy something. So now we turn our attention toward the upcoming year and embrace all the hope that it brings. That means several things…winter finally comes to Georgia, the gym dogs go after yet another national championship, Mark Fox and his DAWGS will be finding their way through the SEC schedule on the hard courts, the diamond dogs take the field soon and a new season of DAWGS football too. All of that will be great, but we can’t get ahead of ourselves just yet. Just in case it may have slipped your mind, our DAWGS have still got a bowl game to play in Louisiana on Monday. That’s right…2009 isn’t over just yet.

I’ve heard and read a lot since the bowls were announced about a lack of interest in the DAWGS game and how the Georgia people won’t travel well to Shreveport because we’ve somehow gotten spoiled the last few years with flashy bowl destinations and prime time game slots. In a very self-fulfilling prophecy, the more I have read and seen on television about the sad state of affairs over at the football offices of Butts-Mehre that I have noticed the thick malaise that is strangling the life out of everything that is associated with the red and the black.

Well, I for one refuse to be a part of it. For me, this time of year, it starts with the bowls in general. I have always loved the bowls and I still do. I have memories of watching the Orange, the Cotton, the Sugar, the Citrus, the Gator and the Liberty bowls and loving them all the same. Granted, I could do without all of the sponsorships that have made the bowls open to easy ridicule by some in recent years, but I understand that it is just a sign of the times in which we live and I simply opt to not mention them when I talk about the bowls. I enjoy all the pageantry of the bowls, the weird schedules that they are played on, the unusual locales in which they are played and the widely varied match-ups that they present. I am a fan of the bowls and that has not and will not change. I am excited that Georgia will be playing Texas A&M in the Independence Bowl on Monday and I will be cheering just as hard as I ever have for a DAWGS victory. This game is a fantastic treat that will help our little group bridge the gap from Christmas to the New Year’s Eve and we will celebrate it as we do most everything this time of year. This Georgia team has earned my respect and they deserve my support regardless of where or who they are playing. I cannot be in Shreveport in person because I will be working…that is the nature of this 24 hour business that I am a part of…but that doesn’t mean that my point of view is any less credible than that of any other DAWG fan. My friends and I…true DAWGS every one…will be cheering full throat from the first whistle to the last on Monday because it is who we are and it is what we do.

Soon enough we can turn our sights towards all things football that the new-year brings…national signing day, spring practice, summer workouts and the 2010 season. But for now, I would like use this very modest forum to humbly suggest that you take advantage of the opportunity to cheer on the 2009 edition of your DAWGS one last time because changes are absolutely coming in 2010…for better or worse.

GO DAWGS!!!