The Countdown 2011: 91 Days to Go

God Is a Bulldog
By: Lewis Grizzard

Jacksonville, Fla. - Dorsey Hill, the world's biggest Bulldog fan, left here Sunday afternoon, bound for Auburn, Alabama, where Georgia's undefeated football team next appears.

“I don't think you can get from Jacksonville to Auburn,”I had said to him.

“You can change buses in Waycross and Columbus,” Dorsey answered.

“You aren't going home first?”

“Home?” He screamed back. “I haven't worked since Texas A&M, and I haven't slept since Clemson. You expect me to go back home when we play Auburn in only six more days?”

I lost my head, I suppose.

A lot of people lost their heads here Saturday afternoon. Georgia played Florida. Georgia won the game, 26-21. It's a lot more complicated than that, however.

Georgia came into the game ranked second in the nation. To continue to compete for its first Big Banana ever, the national championship, Georgia had to continue its winning streak. Florida ( “bunch of swamp lizards and beach bums,” according to Dorsey Hill), wanted to step on Georgia's dream.

Dorsey arrived here Thursday afternoon with thousands of others who made the early departure south from various points in Georgia. Many of those individuals were as drunk as five eyed owls by the time they reached the Florida line.

As local wit Rex Edmondson says, the Georgia-Florida game is the “annual celebration of the repeal of prohibition.”

Dorsey waited until Friday to get into his serious pre-game drinking, however.

“I stopped at the New Perry Hotel Thursday for lunch and filled up on collards,” he said. “It's hard to drink on a belly full of collards.”

Agreed.

Now that I have had time to digest all that did eventually happen in college football Saturday, I think I can say without fear of charges of blasphemy that the whole thing was a religious experience. “Deacon Dan” Magill, the “Baptist Bulldog,” read a prayer to the Georgia faithful in which he beseeched the Almighty to help the Bulldogs “smite the Florida Philistines.”

Then there was the game itself. Georgia behind 21-20, ninety-three yards away, time running out.

“We need a miracle!” screamed Dorsey Hill, now fortified with more than collards.

Georgia got its miracle. Buck Belue to Lindsay Scott, for ninety-three yards and the winning touchdown with only seconds remaining. If that wasn't enough, there was the astounding news from Atlanta. Georgia Tech had tied No.1 Notre Dame. Surely, Georgia will be ranked first in America when the ratings are released.

“A tie was a gift from Heaven,” said Dorsey. “Notre Dame gets knocked out of number one but Tech doesn't get a win. God is a Bulldog.”

Verily.

I must make one confession here. I did it, and I must suffer the consequences.

I gave up at Jacksonville Saturday afternoon. Florida had the ball. Florida had the lead. There was only three minutes to play. I left the stadium. I was in the street when the miracle came.

“You are a gutless disgrace,” Dorsey Hill said to me later.

He detailed my punishment: “We're going to a tattoo parlor in this very town tonight,” he began. “And you're going to have '26' tattooed on one of your cheeks in red. And you're going to have '21' tattooed in black on the other cheek. I don't want you to forget what you did.”

I won't, but which cheeks is between me and the tattooist.

- This story comes from Grizzard's 1981 book, Don't Sit Under the Grits Tree With Anyone Else But Me. You can buy this book here.

Happy 64th, Lewis!

Lewis Grizzard would have turned 64 years old today. I would love to hear his thoughts on the current state of the world, everything from iPods to the struggles of the Dawgs and the continued "wussification" of the NFL that has taken place this week.





We miss ya Lewis!

Georgia Football is 107 days and a whole bunch of boring soccer matches away...

Next Thursday, we will begin the 100 day countdown to the start of the 2010 football season for the Georgia Bulldogs. Be sure to come back each day and see who the next player is in our countdown of the 100 Greatest Players in Georgia History. Football season is just 107 days away, but for a good portion of those days, the media will telling us we need to like the other football. Yes, I am talking about soccer, and in case you have slept through every ESPN commercial break since December, you know the World Cup starts next month. Some people love soccer and that's fine. But personally, I could care less. Lewis Grizzard shared my sentiments in an article entitle, "Soccer is Boring".

Soccer Is Boring

By Lewis Grizzard

I don't want to sound flippant about all those people getting killed in European soccer riots, but I honestly think I know part of the reason for the violence that surrounds the sport in other parts of the world.

It's because soccer is boring to watch. If I had to watch a soccer match or a bowling match, I would take bowling every time.

At least in bowling, you always can laugh at those silly bowling shirts and shoes the bowlers wear. The only thing uglier than a bowling shoe is Gloria Vanderbilt.

Nothing ever happens in one soccer game to set it apart from another. The two teams run up and down the field for a couple of hours and then maybe - just maybe - one of the teams will score a goal.

I can give you the soccer scores for an entire season right here. They will be 0-0, 1-0 or 1-1 most of the time, and occasionally there will be a real slugfest that ends 2-1.

What happens in Europe is, all those people get together for a soccer match and they start drinking and they become bored with what's happening on the field, so they riot.
Bet, don't riot

Imagine a riot breaking out in the middle of a close American football game. There is too much head-knocking on the field for such a thing to take place, and since most of the people in the stands have a bet down on the game, they aren't going to get involved in a fight because they might have a week's salary wagered on the outcome.

I've never seen a soccer match in person. I avoid soccer matches with the same intensity that I avoid the dentist.

However, I did see a match on television once. I was in London and I turned on the set in my hotel room and the BBC was televising the English soccer version of the Super Bowl.

You don't have a lot of choices when it comes to watching the telly in London, so, fool that I was, I sat there and watched the soccer match.
The crowd sang.

The two teams kicked the ball up and down the field for an entire afternoon, but nobody could get the ball past the goalkeepers and the match ended 0-0.

No problem. They decided to try again in a couple of days. I found myself in front of the television in my hotel room watching the second stanza of this yawner. I had to see if anybody would ever score.

Late in the second match, somebody kicked the ball and it hit a player in the back of his head and accidentally went into the goal. Team A took the championship 1-0. I've seen more excitement at a K mart tire sale.

What the crowds at the two matches did most is sing. There was nothing to watch on the field, so they sang - which, of course, is better than rioting, but some of the best fights I've ever seen started with a bunch of drunks trying to sing at a bar.

What comes off the top of my head as a means of making soccer more exciting is to give the players baseball bats and if the match happens to end in a tie, then let the respective goalies fight it out in a bare knuckles tie-breaker.

As we have proved with many of our popular American sports, it is better to have the violence on the field than in the bleachers.

- This and other Lewis Grizzard articles can be found at www.lewisgrizzard.com

It's Opening Day!

"Baseball is a pure game, an orderly game. The reason the uneducated think it's a dull, slow game is they don't realize the intricacies involved on every pitch." - Lewis Grizzard

This is a Georgia blog first, but today is one of my favorite days of the year. The Braves take on the Cubs to open the 2010 season and unfortunately I am stuck in the office. Let's hope Bobby Cox's final year brings winning championships back to Atlanta.

I'll be back later this week for my G-Day preview.

GO BRAVES!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of Turkey day, here is a Lewis Grizzard classic about how he spent one particular Thanksgiving:

Thanks For The Memory by Lewis Grizzard

It was three years ago, or maybe it was two. Thanksgivings come and Thanksgivings go. I overslept and missed the family gathering at my uncle's house out in the country. Country folks like to eat early, and like I said, I overslept.

B.A. called about 1 in the afternoon. He was down in Savannah, alone.
"Had lunch yet?" I asked him.
"I was just going to pick up a hamburger," he answered.
"No Thanksgiving feast?"
"No. I had some work to catch up on and couldn't get to Montgomery to my mother's. What are you doing?"
"No plans," I said.
"Catch a plane," B.A. said. "The Hyatt bar is open even if nothing else is."

I was at the Savannah airport three hours later. We never made it to the Hyatt bar. We stopped instead at a little beer joint just outside the airport. Silent men playing pool. There were a couple of pool tables inside and young men wearing hats with the names of various heavy equipment companies sewn on them were playing. Cigarettes dangled from their mouths. They were silent and expressionless. One got the idea heavy stakes were involved.

A few old men sat around the bar drinking beer. A man and a woman worked behind the bar. There was a jukebox playing country music. "Keep your mouth shut," B.A. said, "and we'll probably be OK."

Probably. We had a few beers and played a few tunes of our own. Nobody had spoken to us until a graybeard sitting a few stools down looked up from his can of Budweiser and asked, "Y'all ain't from around here, are you?" We said we weren't.
"Y'all going to stay for supper?" the man went on.
"Stay for what?" I asked.
"Supper," he said. "We have it here every year on Thanksgiving. It's mostly for the regulars who don't have nowhere else to go, but I'm sure nobody would mi nd if y'all stayed." We didn't say yes. But we didn't say no, either. Lining up for the feast

A half hour later, the door to the joint opened and in walked five or six ladies bearing plates of food. Lots of food. They set up a table near the jukebox. Turkey and dressing. A ham. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Green beans. Butterbeans. Creamed corn. Homemade rolls. There were also cakes and pies. The customers put down their beers and cuesticks. They lined up, plates in hand, for the feast in front of them.

"Y'all more than welcome to eat," said the woman behind the bar. We got in line. The food was wonderful. We went back twice.
"You do this every year, huh?" I asked one of the ladies that brought the food.
"They's lots of people don't have nowhere to go on Thanksgiving," she said. "Some of 'em come in here to drink 'cause it ain't as lonely as staying home. We all live in the neighborhood, and we just try to share what we got with others."

We stayed until 9 or 10. We tried to pay extra for the food, but nobody would take our money. Thanksgivings come and Thanksgivings go and, occasionally, one comes along that is very special.

*** Check out this and other Lewis Grizzard stories at www.lewisgrizzard.com.

Happy Birthday, Lewis Grizzard

Today, October 20, is the anniversary of the birth of our lord and savvy-ior, Lewis Grizzard.

There's an appreciation of Lewis by most everyone from the South. However, when you become a Georgia fan, you begin to understand an entirely new appreciation for the man and what he represented for every Dawg out there. Obviously, Dawg fans everywhere have shown him the love in return for his contributions.

We wouldn't be here without Lewis (or we might just have another ridiculous name), so we'd like to share one of our favorite columns from the man himself. Rather than being about football, it covers two other important things in life; stupid rules and whiskey.


Whiskey Nazis In The Night

It had been a long day. My head hurt. My neck hurt. My stomach hurt. Airplane food.
There had been the long flight after sitting at a typewriter for five hours and also talking to a man who said I needed more life insurance.

I told him what I needed was a beneficiary.

The cabdriver who took me from the airport to my hotel had been sullen. It was raining.

I checked into my hotel. Some silly looking little man gave me a card I was supposed to put in a slot in my door to get in my room.

Those things never work for me. Whatever happened to metal keys?

Before I went to my room, I decided to stop by the bar and get a drink to take up with me.

Just one. It might ease some of the pain and help get me to sleep.

I ordered my drink. The bartender brought it to me. I started to walk out of the bar with it. The bartender said, "You can't take that out of here."

I asked, "Why not?"

He said, "It's a rule."

I said, "Whose rule?"

He said, "It's just a rule. I don't make 'em, I just follow 'em."

I vas just following orders.

Then I knew whose rule it was - the Whiskey Nazis.

I'm against drinking and driving. I'm against anybody not old enough to have studied geometry drinking at all.

But you give the Whiskey Nazis some rope and they'll eventually hang you with it.

"Listen," I went on, "I understand about bars possibly being held responsible when a customer gets smashed and then goes out and runs into something or somebody in his car.

"But I'm just taking this drink up to my room."

"How do I know you aren't going to get in your car with it? There's an open-c ontainer law," said the bartender.

"How you know is, I don't have a car here," I explained. "I came from the airport in a cab driven by a jerk. I'm a registered guest here. Here's this little card they gave me to get in my room."

"You still can't take that drink out of the bar," the bartender said.

At that point I realized the simplest thing to do would be to leave the drink in the bar go to my room, and, if I could get in, order one from room serivce.

But, like I said, it had been a long day, and I've got a stubborn streak.

"Exactly what are you going to do if I walk out of here with this drink and take it to my room?" I asked.

"Call my manager," the bartender answered.

Probably a guy in jackboots.

I said, "So call your manager."

As the bartender went for the phone, I exited the bar with my drink, took the elevator and went to my room.

My card worked this time, and two minutes after leaving the bar I was alone in the room with my drink and nobody came later and kicked in my door and hauled me off to headquarters for interrogation.

The bartender and his manager didn't know my name nor my room number.

I had beaten the Whiskey Nazis.

You can't do this. You can't do that. Where will all this end?

I had my drink, went to sleep and dreamed the Speech and Thought Nazis got me for publicly agreeing with Sen. Ernest Hollings.

*taken from http://www.lewisgrizzard.com

Happy Columbus Day from Lewis Grizzard

With all the doom and gloom going on in the Bulldog Nation, here's something to take your mind off of the current state of things:

It's time somebody stood up and defended Christopher Columbus, who wasn't trying to do anybody any harm when he discovered the New World 500 years ago.

Chris was just inquisitive, and he wasn't going for any of that business about the world being flat.

Chris was always saying to his friends, "If the world is flat and there is no New World out there somewhere, I'll eat my hat."

And Christopher Columbus, in renderings I have seen, usually was wearing a large hat with some feathers on it.

It's one thing to eat a baseball cap or a beret, but try to get a large hat with feathers on it down the hatch and you've got quite the gastronomical dilemma on your hands. Columbus had a lot of risk here.

And somebody finally took him up on his bet.

He said, "OK, Mr. Know-It-All, why don't we get three ships and start sailing out to sea? If we come to the end of the Earth, we can turn around and sail back and we'll watch you eat that goofy hat of yours.

"But if we find out the world is round and there's a New World out there like you say there is, I'll eat your hat and come over to your house on Saturday mornings for a month and wax your car."

Columbus replied, "It's 1492. We don't have cars."

"OK," said his challenger, "then I'll wax your horse."

Columbus couldn't back down. But he had a problem. He didn't have the money for the three ships. So he went to Queen Isabella.

"I'll give you the money for your three ships," the queen said to Columbus, "but if you do find the world is round and there is a New World, I want you to bring me back a hair dryer, a Lady Schick electric razor, a case of Jack Daniels and some shag carpet.

Columbus agreed. He bought three ships with the money Queen Isabella gave him and named them Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria for the original Shirelles, who got their start in Europe in the late 1400s, as did Columbus.

So off Columbus went. There was a lot of scurvy and rickets during the trip, but the world turned out to be round just like Columbus said it was.

He landed in the New World, bought a condo on an oceanfront golf development, picked up everything Queen Isabella wanted and sailed home.

His challenger did, in fact, eat Columbus's hat. Unfortunately, it was the only hat Columbus had and, being unable to keep his head warm, the brave explorer caught pneumonia, died and was never able to return to live in his condo or see Disney World.

He did, however, leave the shiniest horse in town.

But it's politically correct now to blame Columbus for what was to come later, a mass exodus of people from the Old World to the New World, which led to New York City, congresspersons, smog, Miami Beach, shopping malls, various diseases and the disappearance of the snail darter.

The popular phrase now is, "Columbus didn't discover America, he conquered it."

Listen, somebody else would have done it sooner or later. Humans have always sought new horizons.

And we're still doing it 500 years later. What about all those astronauts we sent into outer space? We look upon them as heroes, but there are those who want to defame Christopher Columbus.

Did any of our astronauts have to deal with scurvy or rickets? Did any of the m have to raise their own money to pay for the trip? No.

I say hats off to Columbus. It's like Queen Isabella said when he delivered the hair dryer, the Lady Schick razor, the booze and the carpet.

"Chris, you da man."

- Lewis Grizzard, "A Case of Jack Daniels Please" - Atlanta Constitution, October 12, 1992

*** Check out this and other Lewis Grizzard stories at http://www.lewisgrizzard.com/.

Welcome to BNE, AUMaverick

As some of you have noticed, there is a new contributor to the BNE staff...me. So, in the spirit of Lewis Grizzard, who loved the State of Georgia, UGA, and SEC football, I'd like to say WAR EAGLE to all you Georgia Dawgs as well as everyone else who follows this blog. I know Lewis wouldn't mind someone from "the other side" contributing to a blog dedicated to UGA and college football; afterall, the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry is between Auburn and UGA. Besides, just like CNN, FOX News and the AJC, every good editorial needs to be fair and balanced.

That being said, I'd also like to say GO DAWGS! No, you didn't read incorrectly, and no I am not a traitor to my school. I happen to love UGA and Auburn equally, except of course for one Saturday out of the year. For those of you who don't know, I was raised all over the world and I happen to call Georgia home. Belive it or not, I even lived in Athens for a short time. I have spent many nights in Athens with my Dawg friends, enjoying all the great scenery and atmosphere that only Athens can offer. My favorite restaurant is in Athens and I even met my wife in Athens one summer long ago. So, while UGA and Auburn have a very deep and bitter rivalry, it is still a friendly rivalry, and, being a great lover of SEC football and all things from the state of Georga, I too can root for UGA...most of the year.


So, from time to time, I will contribute my thoughts and observations on all things SEC football, UGA, and of course, Auburn. I will try to keep my thoughts fair and balanced, giving a voice to the others out there who may not always see the red between the black and white. I also vow, here and now, to hate Alabama and all things crimson and houndstooth. God hates BAMA just as much as he hates giant lizzards and stinging flying bugs. I make no apologies and that is the one thing I will always keep a hatred toward in my heart. However, I will keep my hatred for Bama out of the mix for as much as possible and focus soley on football.


With that, I'd like to close with a quote from Lewis Grizzard and I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming season. Lewis once said, "The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity." Go Dawgs and WAR EAGLE!




*With this brief introduction, BNE invites you to become familiar with and ask that you please welcome AUMaverick to the contributing staff. His primary and first responsibility will be to manage this fall's upcoming BNE College Football Pick 'Em Pool, which you will learn more about in the coming days. We wanted to give AUMaverick this opportunity to introduce himself humbly to our faitful reader base in advance of the launch of this season's pool. Be sure to send AUMaverick your love & thoughts via the comments section of this post and by e-mailing him through his profile link. Go Dawgs! BFR & the BNE Staff

Grizzard - "They Didn't Last Year"

Lewis Grizzard - "Mating Call of the Georgia Peach"

Lewis on southern language and the northern interpretation. The mating call of the Georgia Peach is about 1:40-2:10 in, but it's all good.

Lewis Grizzard - "God Talks Like We Do"

Thanks to bulldog1447 on YouTube for posting some classic Lewis Grizzard clips during the past few months. We'll be posting these during the next few days along with continuing the "Countdown to Kickoff."

We start with "God Talks Like We Do" in a tribute to the subtitle of our blog.

What would Lewis think about moving the Georgia-Florida game?

I was wondering what Lewis Grizzard might have thought about the current controversy surrounding the location of the Georgia-Florida game when I came across the article below, written in November of 1992. I'm not sure he would have the same opinion today, seeing as the game did go to a home and home during the late 90's and Florida proceeding to hang 50+ on us in Athens.

Dogs vs. Gators - Fear replaces fun

Jacksonville - The universities of Georgia and Florida, both fine schools, need to make an immediate decision to move their annual football game out of this city's Gator Bowl before somebody gets killed. Jacksonville can't handle this thing anymore. No city could. Putting an equal number of Florida and Georgia fans, who absolutely hate each other, together in an 82,000-seat stadium just invites disaster. This isn't the World's Largest Cocktail Party anymore. It's the World's Largest Crazy House. There are about 40,000 Georgia fans and a like number of Florida fans in the Gator Bowl on a Halloween Saturday night, and rival fans often sit near each other. The taunting never stops. Some of it is fun, but most of it is not. This rivalry has become so intense, it's primed for a riot. There already have been brawls. I remember a year when Florida students stormed the field after the game and tried to destroy it. A Georgia student rushed onto the field and tackled a couple of shirtless guys carrying away part of a goal post. Five or six Florida students then beat the kid from Georgia to a pulp. It was just as ugly and just as mean here Saturday night. Maybe worse.

I went to Georgia and I'm biased, but I witnessed behavior Saturday night in the Gator Bowl I'd never seen at a college football game before. When it was over, and Florida had won 26-24, a few of the Florida players strutted arrogantly in front of thousands of Georgia fans, and made obscene gestures. One Gator grabbed his crotch in front of the Georgians. Another gave a pelvic thrust and shouted an obscenity. The players left, but then returned to rub it in further. A man who I presume was a Florida coach finally had the decency to shove the players away. Leaving the stadium, Florida fans barked directly into the faces of Georgia fans. Georgia fans retaliated with explicit instructions on what the Gator fans could do with their victory. And to think people used to wear coats and ties to college football games, and shook hands at game's end. I stood in front of my car with a group 0 fellow Georgia fans for an hour after the game. We were insulted by passing motorists or Gators strolling by about every two minutes. A drunken teenage girl told us to eat something humans don't eat.

It's out of control. And it's no longer fun. Orlando wants the game, but Georgia doesn't want to play the Gators any deeper in Florida. The best idea is to make the series a home-and-home arrangement. That way the visiting team would get only a few tickets and there wouldn't be this 40,000 versus 40,000 situation, and more control could be administered. "I'll never come back here," a Georgia friend told me Sunday morning. "I'd like to get Florida between the hedges in Athens every other year, and when the game's in Gainesville I'll just watch it on TV. In other countries, soccer fans riot and kill one another. Georgia-Florida in the Gator Bowl isn't that yet, but go home-and-home before one Halloween night it becomes a nightmare.

- This article appeared in the AJC in November of 1992. Please check out more of Grizzard's work at http://www.lewisgrizzard.com/.

Lewis Grizzard on Basketball and Recruiting

With Georgia currently in the national headlines concerning the potential of Bobby Knight coming to Athens and National Signing Day just two days away, I thought it appropriate to share this Lewis Grizzard story concerning recruiting violations, college basketball, and how he might fix the entire mess.

"My alma mater, the University of Georgia, has been placed on probation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for recruiting violations within its basketball program.
Georgia gave a prospect a T-shirt. It is against the NCAA rules to give a prospect anything, even a T-shirt.
Georgia gave a friend of another prospect a ride to a restaurant and then to his hotel.
It is also against NCAA rules to give a friend of a prospect anything, even a four-mile ride.
A T-shirt here, a pair of shoes there, a ride for a prospect's friend and Georgia's Athletic Department and the enitre school suffers the embarrassment of probation.
"I know the charges were minor," a member of the Athletic Department told me. "But nobody outside the inner circle really pays attention to the details and so people think we are buying and selling kids like we were slave holders."
What was the Georgia coach supposed to do when the prospect's friend asked for a ride? Tell him to walk and probably lose the prospect because he turned his friend out on the street?
We're talking big-time college basketball here, where millions of dollars and extended contracts are on the line. If a tall kid who can dunk with both hands asks for a T-shirt, you give him a T-shirt.
I'm not defending my school, here. Georgia knows the rules, yet Georgia broke the rules, as silly as they might be, and they got caught and they got punished and that's the name of that tune.
But the NCAA is like the IRS. They go after you, they get you, with even some help from college coaches who turn each other in, some standing on their pedestals claiming piously "We will bring these cheaters to their knees."
Horse dung. They turn each other in for strictly selfish reasons. You get you r rival in trouble with the NCAA and the NCAA takes away a few of its scholarships, and all of a sudden you're beating his brains out and you become a genius with a fat raise.
College basketball players are shaving points for gamblers and are going to jail for it. Millions are being handed out for television contracts, big-time coaches are getting rich and the NCAA is worrying about a high school kid getting a free T-shirt?
I don't have a solution for all this idiocy, but I know how I wish college basketball and footall worked.
Whack Hyder, who coached basketball at Georgia Tech before he got sick of recruiting and quit, had the idea years ago.
"What I would like to be able to do," said Whack, "is to put a sign on the bulletin board in the PE department that said, `Any student desiring to try out for the men's basketball team, report to the gym at 4 o'clock.'
"I play with the kids who happen to come to my school. You play with the kids who happen to come to yours."
Thus, recruiting becomes a thing of the past. The sport purifies itself and all the athletes get are a pair of shoes, socks, a jock, and an opportunity to have a little good clean fun."

- Lewis Grizzard, "Georgia on Probation"

***This story and others can be found at the official Lewis Grizzard website, http://www.lewisgrizzard.com/columns/archive/.

Merry Chirstmas from Bubba 'N Earl

From everyone here at Bubba 'N Earl Sittin' on the 50, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas. Hopefully we all get copies of Munson's Greatest Calls and Georgia branded grill toppers to brighten what has been a sad time since the loss to NATS. For a good Christmas laugh, here a couple of Christmas-themed Lewis stories to brighten your day.

Bing Won't be Home...

Christmas Moose Smooch

What would Lewis Grizzard have written about Chizik?

With the fiasco that has been Auburn hiring Gene Chizik, you have to wonder what Lewis Grizzard would have thought about the whole situation. In 1980, Grizzard wrote a piece about Doug Barfield who had recently left as Auburn's coach. Auburn was attempting to hire Vince Dooley away from Athens and in all the media mess, Barfield became the forgotten man. It seems like the Auburn boosters were sticking their noses into the football business even back then:

I remember back several weeks ago when the rumors started flying that Barfield would be fired. A man named Charles Smith, a member of the Auburn Board of Trustees, made all sorts of noise about finding a coach who could be tougher on the players than Barfield.

Charles Smith runs a laundry in Montgomery. Can you imagine having some guy who runs a laundry deciding how well you were performing in your chosen profession?

More on Doug Barfield from my friend in Auburn:
“He’s warm. He has more class than he’s ever been given credit for. He’s kind. And under all this pressure and criticism, he was a man of steel.”

While auburn officials offered Dooley the farm this week, Doug Barfield quietly resigned. He said, “I don’t want to be anyplace I’m not wanted.” He also said, “But I don’t feel like I have to hide my face.”

I wouldn’t be a football coach if you gave me the pick of cheerleaders.

Monday, when all the hoopla about Dooley was at its height, Doug Barfield was in Montgomery.

He had been summoned for federal court jury duty. Each prospective juror was asked to stand before the court and give his name, place of residence, and occupation.
Doug Barfield stood and said:
“Doug Barfield.
“Auburn, Alabama.
“Unemployed.”
War Eagle. ***

How many people remember Doug Barfield? Probably about as many people who will one day remember Gene Chizik.

***You can read the rest of this story and others from the 1980 season in "Don't Sit Under the Grits Tree With Anyone Else But Me" by Lewis Grizzard available HERE.

Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate

Here is a masterpiece from Lewis himself. This was written after the 1993 Georgia-NATS game. The Dawgs won 43-10.


I Promise I Won’t Razz the Jackets, at least not much

It would really be a great time to crow. First, my beloved Georgia Bulldogs defeated the dratted Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech Thursday in what may have been - I have no facts to back this up, but that has never stopped me before - the earliest starting Eastern time zone college football game since television took over the sport. They kicked this thing off at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, the oldest college football stadium near a fast food restaurant in America, at 11 in the morning. Imagine if you lived in Hawaii. The game would have appeared on your set at something like 5 a.m. One day, television will ask two collegiated combatants to tee it up at 6 on Christmas morning, figuring a lot of people will be up watching the kids open presents and it will thus have a captive audience. And two schools, slaves to the revenue as gender equity marches on, will agree to it. Lord, please don't let one of them be the University of Georgia. Secondly, Georgia not only beat the Jackets, the game turned out to be a laugher. A slaughter. Georgia won 43-10. It won the second half 30-0.

The crowd seated near me, all adorned in red and black, chanted "We want 50!" I’ll settle for the 43. It covered everything I had in the works. Thirdly, there was a helluva fight between the two teams near the end of the game. I had Georgia winning that on my card, too. ABC's Keith Jackson, I was told, commented it was Georgia's coach, Ray Goff who was responsible for the fight because he was running up the score. I thought Bill Lewis of Georgia Tech was responsible for keeping the other team from scoring a lot of points. And, finally, there was the jerk driving the van northward from the stadium as my happy group headed home. Our vehicle did, in fact, have a Georgia sticker on the back bumper and we had displayed one of those right-after-the-game score cards that read 43-10 in the front window. We were in the right lane. The van, covered in Tech stickers, tailgated us for several blocks, and the driver was having a large time with his horn. We finally pulled over so he could pass. On the right. As he roared by, he screamed out his window, "Get out of our lane!" That made me mad. "Your lane?" I thought. "So Tech owns the streets now. No wonder the traffic is so bad in Atlanta."

So I had and I have every reason to sit here and do my best to add further to the Tech misery. But I won't and here's why. All season I've listened to fellow Georgia fans discuss the shambles they say is now the Bulldogs' football program. I've read the sports pages that buried the Dawgs on a daily basis. And I've listened to the radio talk shows and heard our own describe the situation in Athens with such adjectives as "pitiful" and even "sickening." I certainly agree it's been a year the locusts have feasted upon our crops. But if we're in all that bad a shape, think of the relative condition of the Tech program. The Jackets lost to a Georgia team that has been derided unmercifully by 33 points.

--Lewis Grizzard