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 > 2009 > January > 23
Friday, January 23, 2009
Felton: Attending Inaugural ‘priceless’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A lot of people — and many in this forum — were critical of Dennis Felton for taking leave of his duties Monday and Tuesday to attend the Presidential Inaugural in Washington D.C.
The argument, as bandied about here and elsewhere, was that Georgia’s basketball coach shouldn’t be leaving town “on vacation” in the middle of a season in which his team had just lost five games in a row. Never mind that the Bulldogs didn’t have a mid-week game and were off anyway. Surely he should be making them run gassers or shoot 1,000 free throws or something.
Well, talking to Felton on Thursday, it was clear he does not regret the trip. Two days after the fact he was still beaming about it.
“I was able to go with my family and felt real blessed to be able to go,” he said. “I can’t believe how fortunate we were with our schedule having a bye this week to permit that.”
Felton, his wife Melanie and sons Jazz (14) and Nile (12), were able to score tickets and sat in Section 15 on the lawn just below the staging area where President Obama was sworn in.
“It was really, really cold but really, really special,” he said. “I’ve never seen so many people in my life. I guess there were upwards of 2 million people out there and the feeling of brotherhood and optimism and commitment, you could just feel it everywhere in the crowd as people patiently worked with each other to deal with the gridlock and the freezing cold temperature. We were up front but occasionally on the jumbo screens they showed shots of the entire scene, the millions of people packed in on the lawn all the way down past the Washington Monument. “It was a pretty powerful feeling and just exciting to be a part of.”
Felton, as I’ve pointed out before, feels a special kinship with Obama since both had non-traditional upbringings, were born to absentee Kenyan fathers and white mothers, traveled the world extensively as youths and excelled as students. Felton is a cum laude graduate of Howard University with a keen interest in politics and history. So there wasn’t much that could keep him away.
“Really priceless and irreplaceable to be able to take part in with my two young sons,” Felton said. “I’ve got a 14-year-old and an 12-year-old. To be able to be there at the moment with them, I struggle to find words to describe it.”
Here’s one word he won’t need to use — regret… .
— On another note, I’m going to use this space to publicly apologize to John Stafford, father of the Bulldogs’ well-known and soon-to-be, well-off former quarterback, Matthew. I can promise you I meant nothing derogatory whatsoever when I rather recklessly referred to him as “Matthew’s father and chief string-puller” in a brief story I wrote Wednesday. I was thinking (then again, maybe I wasn’t) that it was a light-hearted way to illustrate that Mr. Stafford was also very much an adviser — like any father would be — to his son during this interim as they assemble Matthew’s management team. Anyway, Mr. Stafford didn’t care for the characterization and told me as much in an e-mail I received from him Thursday. In the interest of disclosure I’ll share the crux of it here:
“I did not like being represented in your article as ‘chief string-puller,’” Mr. Stafford wrote. “The implication is that I’m running things exclusively and that is not the case at all. Margaret (Matthew’s mother), Matthew and I are in constant communication about any and all decisions Matthew is making. We are a team. All final decisions are being made by Matthew.”
So there you go. I honestly have always felt the Staffords were nothing but first-class people to work with and regret the misunderstanding.
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