UGA blog finds new home
Morning all. As I’ve said a couple of times this week, we’re converting this blog over to a WordPress platform and it will be a permanent move the first of next week.
Those of you who are regulars probably know that I’m not what you’d call techno-wizard when it comes to these things. But from what I understand the technology offered in this new format should make the blogging and commenting experience better for all. Of course, I’ll be learning as we go along, too. But I’m hoping to provide more pictures and video and things like that which should bring the blog more to life.
Of course, this blog is nothing without all you guys so I want to heartily invite (read: beg) you to come over to the new site by CLICKING HERE ON THE NEW ADDRESS and save it in your browsers. As of Monday, Feb. 23rd, this will be the permanent home of the UGA blog you so love or, in the case of some of you, love to loathe. If you’d prefer to copy and paste or just memorize, the new address is: http://blogs.ajc.com/uga-sports-blog/.
See at the new place!
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > June > 28
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Workouts going well for Dogs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I decided to get up early this morning and go over to the Butts-Mehre Building to catch the football team’s 6:30 a.m. workouts. My main observation: I can’t tell you what the Bulldogs are going to do this coming season but, whatever happens, it won’t be because they’ve been out-worked!
Players have an opportunity to participate in either the morning workout or the afternoon workout, which begins at 1:30 p.m. Though they covet their sleep — like all young people of that age — the morning workout tends to be the best attended because of the slightly cooler temperatures and because they can get it over with, get to morning classes, then sleep in the afternoon. On Wednesdays, the whole team works out together. It’s completely voluntary. No attendance is taken and the strength and conditioning coaches are forbidden by NCAA rule to make reports for the assistant or head coaches.
“Peer pressure is the biggest motivator,” said associate head strength coach Keith Gray, who oversees the workouts [Dave VanHalanger is on vacation this week]. “That and competition. If you know everybody else is working hard you’re more inclined to want to yourself.”
I witnessed the hard work part myself. For nearly two hours, they never stop. Split up into groups of “skill,” “big skill” and “line,” they rotate from work station to work station. Hip-hop music blasts from a surround-sound system but there’s a lot of noise besides. Mostly it’s players yelling encouragement — or challenges — to and at each other.
I wasn’t calculating weights and such so it’s hard to tell which of the young pups were the weightroom standouts, though I did notice tight end Bruce Figgins of Columbus drawing some “oohs” and “ahs” on the bench. The highlight came from punter/place-kicker Drew Butler, believe it or not, at the clean and jerk station. Butler has dedicated himself to enduring everything the regular players do and he apparently was handling a good bit of weight on the clean bar, enough to attract the whole group to stop what they were doing and gather around Butler and clap and cheer as he successfully jerked the bar up around his shoulders several times before throwing it down triumphantly. High fives and chest bumps ensued.
Gray told me that, as a group, this is the best group of freshmen in the weightroom he’s seen since he came to Georgia in 1999.
After an hour and 20 minutes of this, I thought it was over but Gray summoned the players outside the double glass doors to the bottom-most field at Woodruff Practice Fields. There, again divided by groups, they proceeded to run 110-yard, timed wind sprints. First they did four “strides,” in which they didn’t run full speed. Then they went close to full out six times in a row, with the bigs having to cross the goal line in 19 seconds, big skills in 17 and the skills in 15. Everybody made it
For the last four sprints, they separated into their groups by 10-yard intervals, with the skills still at 110 yards, the big skills on the goal line and the bigs on the 10-yard line, and had them race. On the last one, they really got after it and went full out. I didn’t recognize the big guy that crossed first (we’re not allowed to interview them out there) but I think it might have been Geno Atkins (apologies to whomever it was if it wasn’t). He barely edged Knowshon Moreno, who looked like he was gliding. But let’s be clear: this was not about speed; this was about survival.
I also noticed that wide receiver Kenneth Harris and linebacker Brandon Miller were kind of leading the way — yelling encouragement, shooting down complaining and sort of leading by example. But nobody was slacking off.
The players do this four days a week, Monday through Thursday, then go to class. So I thought they deserved a tip of the cap. I hadn’t planned to blog today but, after seeing it, I thought the least I could do was bring a little attention to their hard work. I’ll try to answer any questions you might have. Keep in mind, this was just the morning group, so I didn’t see everybody.
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