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Page 4 • UGA: Am Independent Look • May 1990
The stories that
By Jeff Wohl
After The Red and Black went
independent from the University in fall of
1980, the student staff had more challenges
than just keeping the paper's balance sheet
healthy Young journalists covered some of
the most stirring events in University
history.
The Red and Black showed the sugar-
sweet elation of a national championship
football win, but did not shy away from
tumultuous issues of academic reform
during the decade In 1986, the aftershock of
the Jan Kemp lawsuit was felt far beyond the
University campus, as was the heated
resignation of former University President
Fred Davison which came soon after.
The newspaper charted the rapid rise of
local band ItE.M. from the time the band
played at fratemties for beer money, and it
charted the gradual demise of the celebrated,
inebriated social scene. In between the fun
and frivolity, the staff also was called on to
show the darker side of life, as in the case of
Clinton Bankston, Jr., an Athens teen
convicted of slaving five Athens residents,
including two retired University professors.
We could never include all of the
important issues and achievements of the
past 10 years. We can only touch on the
headline-grabbing highlights.
• Dawg Fever sweeps state •
On the night of January 1, 1981, Dawg
fans 'round the world listened and watched
as Herschel Walker, Scott Woemer and the
rest of the Georgia Bulldog football team
defeated Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl 17-
10. Walker had hurt his arm on the first
offensive drive but was still able to score two
touchdowns and gain 150 yards en route to
the University's first national championship.
"Unbeaten, Untied and Unbelievable"
proclaimed the Atlanta papers
Unbeaten. The team went 12-0, including
the miracle play of Buck Belue to Lindsay
Scott for a 93-yard touchdown in the closing
minutes of the Florida game.
Untied. While few Georgia fans
remember, it took a Notre Dame-Georgia
Tech tie to vault Georgia into the top spot on
the same November weekend as the Florida
game.
Unbelievable. The idea of a Georgia
team taking the top spot in the nation after
coming so close before was astounding. In
1942, the Dogs finished second only to
UCLA.
The state crazily rooted for the Bulldogs.
The Cadaver, the newspaper of the Medical
College of Georgia, printed a column about
the "increasingly prevalent form of presenile
dementia: Dawg fever." Symptoms included:
Vince Dooley: Scored his 200th victory
against Georgia Tech in 1988
a glassy-eyed appearance from looking at the
AP and UPI polls and the incessant
utterance "How 'bout them Dawgs." As for a
cure, none has really been found. "Dawg
fever" still takes siege of the city every
autumn.
• R-E.M. travels to the top •
It was 10 years ago that R.E.M. played its
first performance, in a now-demolished
church on Oconee Street.
"Peter threw up," drummer Bill Berry
says. "We almost did not go on But no one
would leave so we had to do it."
The progressive band's performance was
for Kathleen O'Brien's birthday party, on
April 5, 1980. This could have been the sole
show of the then-unnamed foursome, if
someone hadn't stolen tapis from their beer
kegs. But Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and
Michael Stipe played their next gig at
Tyrone's O.C. to help pay for the taps and
made enough money to want to continue as
R.E.M.
R.E.M. put out its first EP, "Chronic
Town," on I.ILS. Records in 1982, and in
1983, the LP "Murmur" reached number 50
on the Billboard chart. "Murmur" sent the
critics raving with its unprecedented sound
and captured the spot of Rolling Stone
Magazine's album of the year. A year later
"Reckoning" was released to almost equal
praise.
The third album, "Fables of the
Reconstruction," marked a turning p»int for
R-E M., who weren't sure they wanted to
remain together, and the record reflected the
band's misery and indecision. In 1986,
however, "Lifes Rich Pageant" went gold,
and R.E.M. played on, releasing "Document"
the next year, whose single "The One I Love"
made Billboard's top 10. This led to a $13
million contract with Warner Bros., and
RE.M.'s latest album, "Green."
Ten years, seven records and several
world tours later, R.E.M. still can't get the
audience to leave their shows until they play,
and they don't even announce them in
Athens, to keep the crowd relatively small.
They commemorated their 10th anniversary,
in April, with an unannounced show at the
40 Watt Club.
•Drinking age dampens social scene*
Fraternity parties aren't quite the bashes
that they used to be, according to Eddie
Ausband, 1981 Interfratemity Council
president.
Ausband, who now owns a car dealership
in McDonough, says in the early '80s there
wasn't any paranoia associated with piulling
out all the stop* in prursuit of the ultimate
party experience.'The drinking age was still
18, and there wasn't any problem with
having kegs at open fraternity parties," he
says. At that time it wasn't a violation of IFC
or state laws to have alcohol at a fraternity
function.
"We even had a keg at each month's IFC
meeting," says the Lambda Chi Alpha
alumnus. "Everyone was of age, so it wasn't a
big deal."
For many University students, September
30,1986 — the day the drinking age was
raised to 21 in Georgia — is a day that will
live in infamy. About 75 percent of
traditional-age college students became
Catapulted into fame: A baby-faced Michael
Stipe in 1981