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FOOTBALL IS NEVER HAVING
TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY
friend Rip is an eighth-semester sophomore.
"Go Dogs!" Rip greeted me when I ran into him
downtown the other day.
"What's up?" I responded.
"Can you believe we're only 14?" he asked.
I figured it had something to do with football. Rip has ar
ranged his academic schedule so that he is beginning his eighth
season at Georgia, with no end in sight. It is his belief that the
school exists to provide comfortable accommodations for the team
between games.
"What are you taking this semester?" I asked Rip.
"Hell, it's getting so you
can't take much of anything
unless you're in one of those
skyboxes," he said, "but I guess
I'll have a pint of grain in my
boot."
"No, I mean courses," I said.
"Oh," Rip said. Right now
I've got English, Anthropology,
a journalism course and two sci
ences."
"Pretty impressive," I said.
"Yeah. I'll drop three of them
by the Kentucky game." he said.
"If I'm not careful, I could end
up a junior this year."
What's so bad about that?"
Rip looked at me incredu
lously. "I don't want graduation
staring me in the face."
"Isn't that the whole point
of coming to college?"
"The whole point of coming
to college is football," Rip said
firmly.
"But you can come to the
games after you graduate," I
said.
"Coming to the games is
only the icing on the cake," Rip
said. "You've got to live football
24/7. you can't do that if you're
stuck in some job somewhere
in South Georgia, where you've
got to think about something
else all week and then get in
the road and drive all the way
up here just to go to the game
and then drive back. That's not
football: that's prison."
"But Rip," I said. "You can't
just go on forever being in
school." | A,- xi'-'mj'-
"Why not?" Rip asked. "The * .
Hope will take you a long way, 3
and then the Athens food ser- ?5 .
vice industry will keep you go
ing in a profession that doesn't mess vith your head while leaving
plenty of time for classes and football."
"But don't you aspire to success?"
"We won the SEC last year."
"Rip," I said. "I think you're living in a fantasy world. Nobody
can follow the Dogs 24/7 and get anything else done."
"You've got it backward," Rip said. "The Dogs—that's reality.
Work and school and all: that's fantasy. I mean, when you're doing
that stuff, you're doing what somebody else wants you to do. The
Dogs: that's what you want to do. What you do for yourself is a lot
more real than what you do for somebody else, isn't it?"
I had to agree he had a point.
"So, you just plan to do this indefinitely?" I asked him.
"Well of course," he said.
"What about marriage?" I asked him
"She'd really have to love football," he said.
"And children?"
"A quarterback and a cheerleader," he said.
"Meanwhile, you just concentrate on the Dogs, try to get by in
school and work enough to support yourself?"
"Getting by is not enough," Rip said. "Coach Richt says every
body should do his absolute best on every play, so I always try for
A's in the courses that I don't drop."
"Amazing," I said.
"Besides," Rip said, "the courses make my mind sharp for keep
ing up with the Dogs."
"Does that require a sharp mind?" I asked
"Well, first there are the sports pages and the magazines," Rip
said. "Then there are all the blogs—it could take you all day just
keeping up with those. Then there are the talk radio shows and TV
sports news, and of course there are all the games. You can't keep
up witH the Dogs unless you keep up with Auburn and Florida and
L.S.U. 'n them, too. We aren't playintj in a vacuum, you know."
"Do you go to all the
games?" I asked
"Have you heard a word I've
said?" he asked.
"Home and away?"
"I wouldn't take a Monday-
Friday course if it was taught by
Angelina Jolie. Some of those
away games are away-away."
"You don't fly?"
"The purpose of the away
game is the road trip. Four or
five road trips a year make the
best anti-depressant known to
man."
"I guess you have season
tickets?"
"Tickets? Only a fool would
pay those prices."
"Well, how do you get into
the games?"
"That's the most fun of all,"
Rip said, "but you'll understand
if I can't be too specific."
• "Of course.
"I've dressed up like a Boy
Scout and gone in with the ush
ers. I've bought a whole tray
of Cokes and and took them in.
Made my money back, too. One
time I turned my collar around
backward 1 and told 'em I was the
minister who was going to give
the invocation."
"Considering the direction
of your cap, too, they probably
couldn't tell if you were coming
or going."
"Of course, if all else fails,
you just have to make a dash for
it—get through the gate and
disappear into the crowd. But
that's a desperation measure."
"What was your finest hour
crashing the gate?
"I guess I'd have to say it
was that game when they laid
Uga, the former mascot to rest: you know, when they cemented his
coffin into the wall at Sanford Stadium with all the other deceased
bulldogs.
"A solemn occasion."
"That was me in the coffin."
"What?"
"I found out they were going to take him in the night before,
so he'd be ready for the half-time ceremony. In the dark and all,
I eased him out of the coffin and took his place. It was a tight
fit, but those dogs are big, man. The next morning they found
the empty coffin in the stadium and the dog in the hearse, but
by then I had enjoyed a lovely night in a skybox and was down
on the sidelines watching 'em warm up. That ceremony for Uga
brought tears to my eyes."
"Well, Rip," I said. "They say the secret of success is finding
something you really love. By that measure, you've already suc
ceeded. whether the Dogs wir. or lose. Like the guy said, "When
the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name..."
"...He marks not that you won or lost." Rip quoted, "but what
the point spread was."
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