It’s happened to him before. Just two weeks ago in Auburn.
Why should anybody have to lose a game like this? A tie at Auburn cost Georgia the Southeastern Conference title and the Sugar Bowl trip.
A tie Saturday, and neither Tech nor Georgia would have suffered the slightest pain. The Yellow Jackets would still have had their Peach Bowl bid, and the Bulldogs would have kept their date in Houston’s Bluebonnet, and ABC would still have had the hit of their collegiate telecast season.
Tech-Georgia 1978 was more than a game. It was a spectacle. A classic. One team, Georgia Tech, builds an early lead. Twenty-to-nothing. But the other team, Georgia, fights back and with the sta dium falling in, scores to lead 21-20.
But Georgia Tech won’t hold, either. Drew Hill runs the kickoff back 102 yards for a touchdown, and the score is 28-21. ABC should double its payment to both schools for the right to show the rest of the nation such a show.
It isn’t over. Here come the Bulldogs behind a boy-child quarterback named Buck Belue. And Georgia scores. Twenty-eight-to-twenty seven. Two minutes, twenty-four seconds remaining.
Of course, Vince Dooley went for the two points and the victory. And his people in red were successful in the attempt, and despite what I thought, somebody did have to lose Saturday—Georgia Tech.
Twenty-nine to twenty-eight.
“It was the best Tech-Georgia game I have ever seen,” said Georgia publicist and historian, Dan Magill.
Georgia celebrated into the dusk. There is something Bulldog fans say at a time like this. They say, “How ’bout them Dawgs?” a grammatical insult, but it gets the point across.
There is something Georgia Tech people say at a time like this too, and player after player was saying it in the Tech dressing quarters after the game. That’s as far as I will go. Use your imagination.
I had rather be a brain surgeon than a big-time college football coach. There’s less pressure. Lose in brain surgery, and you can say you did your best, and you still get paid.
“What are they doing over on the winner’s side?” asked Pepper Rodgers, a big-time college football coach who wished he had chosen another line of work after the heartbreak of Saturday.
The Tech players were stunned. They sat there, staring at nothing, slowly pulling off equipment and tossing it into a heap of tape and bloodied jerseys on the floor.
I’ve been to funerals more lively. And speaking of funerals, Rodgers did: “This is like a death in the family,” he said.
“I want it to hurt! I want it to hurt!” a Georgia fan, flowing in the spirit, said to the Tech team as it filed off the field. He got his wish.
Georgia was brilliant in its comeback. And credit the Bulldog faithful. At 20-0, Tech, they were still on their feet, beseeching their team to recover from enough early mistakes to lose five games. The crowd was worth at least a touchdown.
And Georgia Tech was so close. Had Eddie Lee Ivery, the best player on the field, not been injured in the second half, the Jackets would have likely been able to hold their lead that vanished at the eleventh hour.
“It was like losing a tennis match when the last shot hits the tape,” said Rodgers.
There is something both sides should remember after the events of Saturday. It’s something a Georgia man said to me once.
It was a dozen years ago, and I was talking to Bulldog lineman John Kasay, now a Dooley assistant. Georgia had won a big game. The Bulldog dressing room was New Year’s Eve.
But John Kasay looked around him and put the moment in its proper perspective.
“Why is it,” he asked, “the highs are never as high as the lows are low?”
There is another way to put it. Losing hurts worse than winning feels good.
A tie, dammit. Georgia 28. Georgia Tech 28. Everybody shake hands and go home happy.
LARRY MUNSON: BETTER THAN BEING THERE
SOMETIME IN THE WEE hours of Sunday morning, my telephone rang. Even the ring sounded drunk. Among a number of other bad things, alcohol in large quantities dulls the ability of the user to tell time.
I muttered a groggy, hesitant, “Hello?”
“Gooooooo Daaaawgs!” was the reply from the other end. Deliver me from Billy Bulldog when it’s the middle of the night, Georgia won, and the whiskey hasn’t run out.
“That you, Dorsey?” I asked. It had to be. It had to be Dorsey Hill, the world’s biggest Bulldog fan. Dorsey Hill thinks when you die you go to Vince Dooley’s house. He can’t wait.
Last year, when Georgia lost to Kentucky, 33-0, Dorsey claimed it didn’t count because Kentucky was on probation for recruiting violations and had too many players from New Jersey.
“Best team money could buy,” is how he described the victorious Wildcats, who went on to tie for the Southeastern Conference title. Dorsey dies hard.
I was awake enough by now to realize why the telephone call. Only hours before, Georgia had avenged last season’s loss to Kentucky with a thrilling 17-16 victory in Lexington. The Bulldogs had trailed 16-0 in the third quarter.
“I never gave up,” Dorsey said. “After the miracle at Grant Field Saturday, I knew the Lord would give us one, too.”
He was referring to Georgia Tech’s equally thrilling 17-13 defeat of Florida Saturday afternoon. Dorsey doesn’t like Georgia Tech or anybody who does.
“I like it when we sweep a double-header,” he explains. “That’s when Georgia wins and Tech loses.”
I have never quite understood that thinking, but there are those among the Georgia Tech followers who feel the same about the Bulldogs.
“I wouldn’t pull for Georgia,” a Tech man once told me, “with one engine out on the team plane.”
I thought Saturday was one of the grandest days in Georgia collegiate football history. Tech wins its sixth straight and Grant Field hasn’t been that full of life in years. That old house on North Avenue literally trembled with delight when Eddie Lee Ivery scored the Yellow Jackets’ winning touchdown.
And Georgia’s drive to the Rex Robinson field goal in the final moments was a classic profile in sporting courage. Georgia is only two victories—Florida and Auburn—away from another SEC championship and a trip to the Sugar Bowl. That is astounding when you consider that in the pre-season, the Bulldogs bore a strong resemblance to Vanderbilt.
I am almost frightened to consider the ramifications of a Falcons’ victory over the Rams Monday night at the Stadium. If the clinkers win, close the schools and banks and I demand a parade.
There was one other hero Saturday besides the Eddie Lee Iverys, the Willie McClendons and the Rex Robinsons. He is a fiftyish fellow from Minnesota.
He worked in Wyoming for a time, and then spent years and years in Nashville. He moved to Atlanta only a few months ago, but he is one of us now.
“The traffic here,” he says, “is murder.”
Larry Munson has been broadcasting Georgia football games for thirteen years. Saturday night was his finest hour. His description of the closing moments of the Georgia-Kentucky game, said a man listening with me, “is Bobby Thomson’s home run against the Dodgers all over again.”
It was so good, the Sunday paper reprinted Munson’s call of the winning Georgia field goal word-for-word.
“It’s set down, it looks good—watch it! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! Three seconds left! Rex Robinson put ’em ahead, 17-16!”
It was so good, Dorsey Hill said, “listening to Larry Munson was better than being there.”
Frame that one, Larry. There is no higher praise.
TWO LITTLE GIRLS
TWO LITTLE GIRLS WENT out to play in the sun one day. One wore a pretty yellow dress. She was tall, and she wore her hair in a pigtail.
The other little girl wore blue shorts. She was shorter, and her hair was red. She had many freckles.
It was very hot this day.
“What should we play?” asked the little girl with the pigtail.
“How about tennis?” said the little girl with red hair.
/> “That sounds like fun,” said her friend. “I’ll serve.”
The two little girls played tennis for a long, long time.
The little girl with the pigtail won the first five games. Her friend won the sixth game, but soon the first set was over. The score was 6-1.
The little girl with red hair played much better the second set and won by the same score. Six games to one.
“Let’s play one more,” she said.
“I’ll serve,” said her friend.
The two little girls played on and on. The redheaded girl led 2-0. Then, she lost three straight games. The score became 5-5. Golly, what a neato match. Back and forth and back and forth went the tennis balls. There were crosscourt backhands and down-the-line forehands. There were deep lobs and excellent gets and much top-spin.
One time, the little girl with red hair had a match point against her. She hit a drop-shot winner. Jimmy Conners wouldn’t try a drop-shot winner facing a match point.
The little girl with the red hair was not old enough to know better.
It was very exciting, but suddenly the two little girls weren’t having as much fun as they thought they would. So tense was the little girl with the pigtail, she began to cry after missing an easy shot.
She cried and cried, and she stomped her foot and she contorted her face into an awful shape.
The little girl with red hair did not cry, but when she missed a shot, it hurt her very badly. Once, she hit herself on the head with her racquet because she missed a shot.
“Dummy,” she muttered to herself.
By this time, the little girls were covered in perspiration and their cute play outfits were soaking wet.
The sun beat down on them ferociously during the final game. The little girl with red hair was leading 6-5, serving for the match.
She had three match points, but each time the little girl with the pigtail sent the game back to deuce. The little girl with the pigtail cried between almost every point.
“I wish we had decided to play something else,” she thought to herself.
Suddenly, it was over. The little girl with the pigtail hit a backhand over the baseline. She said, “Nice match” to her friend and then she cried some more.
Many people had gathered to watch the two little girls play tennis because they played so well. “There is probably a quarter of a million dollars worth of lessons between them,” said a man.
Other men made wagers on the outcome of the tennis match between the two little girls who will probably grow up to be million airesses.
The two little girls each received a silver dish for playing so well. The little girl with the red hair got a bigger dish because she won the match.
Her name was Margaret Hopkins, and she lives in Illinois. Her friend was Cari Hagey. She lives in California. They played at the Bitsy Grant Tennis Center in Atlanta.
Margaret Hopkins, because she beat Cari Hagey, is now the top-ranked twelve-year-old girl tennis player in all of the nation. When the match was over, she smiled and showed her braces.
It was the first time either of the two little girls had smiled in over two hours. Wow. Tennis is such fun.
EIGHTY-POUND LAWSUIT
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN a bit skeptical about organized athletics for children not old enough to have all their permanent teeth.
What is it about a society that will put a bat in the hand of a six-year-old, dress him in a baseball uniform, and ask him to perform on a diamond with real bases and everything, including umpires, coaches, and shouting spectators?
There is something called the “T-League.” That’s for kids who have just graduated from potty training. How can a child who hasn’t learned his ABCs yet be expected to know to hit the cutoff man?
In the T-League, there is no pitcher. The ball is placed on a tee at the plate and the batter takes his cuts. Once I saw a T-League game where there was a close play at the plate. The runner was called out.
The runner’s coach disputed the call. A grown man who would argue with an umpire at a baseball game involving toddlers is a sick person.
As the rhubarb continued, the opposing team’s centerfielder became bored with the proceedings. He took off his glove, sat down in the outfield and began playing in the sand next to the fence.
Now, the other coach came storming out of his dugout. “Johnny!” he screamed to the youngster. “Do you want to play baseball, son?”
The child, still engrossed in the sand, studied his coach’s inquiry for a moment, and then answered him by shaking his head, “No.” Sand is marvelous when you are six, but it’s lonely in centerfield.
I read an incredible story in the newspaper the other day about children playing organized athletics. It happened in Cobb County. Two midget football teams, nine-to-eleven year olds, play a game Saturday that ended in an 8-8 tie.
The winner would have gone on to the league playoffs that lead to an eventual “Super Bowl” championship. I am convinced adults organize children’s athletic teams for their own enjoyment and glorification. Otherwise, who would care which team of nine-to-eleven year olds would emerge as champions over other teams of nine-to-eleven year olds?
Since the game ended in a tie, neither team qualified for more play. Wait until next year, and let’s all go home and play with the dog.
But, first, let’s file a lawsuit.
Adults involved with the Mableton team claimed the other team, South Cobb, had hired its own officials for the game and had not gone by rules stating officials should be named by something called the Cobb County Midget Football Conference.
They wanted the game played over. They filed a protest to the conference. Protest denied. They hired an attorney. He asked a Superior Court judge to stop the playoffs until the matter could be settled.
“When you set up an organization, you say you are going to go by the rules,” attorney for the plaintiff, Laurie Davis, told me. “But when there is a clear violation and nobody will listen to you, where do you go?
“Do you have a fistfight to settle it? No, you try to find somebody who will listen and make a fair decision.”
That is Laurie Davis’ explanation of why an issue involving eighty-pound football players was taken to court.
Good for Judge Luther Hames. Why he even agreed to hear the case is a puzzle, but at least he denied the request to stop the league playoffs and found there was no reason whatsoever for the court to get involved further.
Why not let children be children while they have the chance? Whatever happened to games where you chose sides and played in the yard and made up your own rules and never invited the over grown kid across the street because he could hit the ball too far?
Whatever happened to damming creeks and climbing trees and playing in mud and marbles?
And what do you tell your ten-year-old son, the quarterback, when he asks, “Hey, dad, what’s a lawsuit?”
GATEWOOD DOOPER AT THE MASTERS
AUGUSTA—THE PRESS CORPS that covers the Masters at Augusta National ranks just above the guys with the pointed sticks who go around the course picking up paper “the best gallery in golf” strews from Flowering Paranoia to Blooming Threeputtomia.
I was lucky enough this year not to qualify for a Genuine, Official, Keep-It-Pinned-on-Your-Person-at-All-Times press badge.
So I have set up shop in a tree overlooking the beautiful par-three twelfth. I have disguised myself as Tom Weiskopf having a nervous breakdown.
Tom Weiskopf is one of my favorite golfers. Last year, he shot a bad round in the Masters and stormed out of the locker room with a number of reporters in hot pursuit. He slammed the screen door that leads to the clubhouse grill with such force it knocked the frown off a Pinkerton man.
“Tommy takes a bad round hard,” somebody said. They should take away his shoelaces and hide all sharp objects while Weiskopf is on the grounds.
The toughest thing about being a member of the press corps for the Masters tournament is the players’ interviews. Contendin
g players sit on a platform in the press barn while grown men from Tokyo to Tuscaloosa write down everything the golfers say concerning their day’s rounds.
The fun part is when a golfer “goes over his round.” Going over one’s round is describing in full detail every blow struck for eighteen holes. . . .
“On number 1, I hit a driver 267 yards just to the right, hit an eight-iron twenty-three feet, six inches from the pin, etc., etc.”
It is not as boring as watching wheelchair needlepoint, but it is close. I have this recurring fantasy about listening to a golfer go over his round. I know what Nicklaus did. He hit a drive down the middle 4,000 yards, hit a wedge to the stick and tapped it in with his middle finger. On 16, he walked across the water to the green after holing his tee shot. That’s everyday stuff.
I want them to bring in Gatewood Dooper from the Clubfoot Links in Oshkosh who got into the tournament by some strange quirk of Masters eligibility fate and then played like a goat with muscular distrophy.
Let me hear him go over his round with the world’s press assembled. Here is Gatewood Dooper describing his 107, worst round in Masters history.
“On the first tee, I wet my pants. That’s a two-stroke penalty and very embarrassing. I was hitting three on my opening drive. It landed in a trap. I wound up with a nine. My wife went back to the car.
“On 2, I went into the trap again. The one behind number 3 green. I managed to save double bogey. My sponsor made an obscene gesture and went looking for my wife.
“On 3, 4 and 5, I had bogeys. My caddy agreed to stay for one more hole. I triple-bogeyed 6 and he went back to my car, too. To slice my tires.
“At 7, I hit a spectator. I had to. He came at me with a rock.
“I made the turn at seventeen-over. Before I teed off on 10, the tournament committee asked me to withdraw, my wife came back to the course and asked me for a divorce, and my sponsor stripped his company’s name off my bag and hat.
“I fell into the lake on 12. One of the marshals pushed me. My drive went into the crowd lining the fairway at 13. I had to take another penalty. They hid my ball.
Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You: A good beer joint is hard to find and other facts of life Page 9