The Junkyard Blawg has moved!
Along with the other ajc.com blogs, the Junkyard Blawg has moved over to WordPress, where the blogging and commenting experience promises to be better. Join us over at the new WordPress version of the Junkyard Blawg by clicking on the link below.
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > April
April 2007
All hail Suzanne Superior!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As much as UGA fans grew to hate arrogant, trash-talking, ultra-successful Steve Spurrier during his years with the Gators, we have our own version of him coaching right in Athens.
And Suzanne Yoculan just won her third consecutive national championship and eighth overall in her years at Georgia.
Don’t you love it?
Indeed, the Bulldog Nation has reason to be plenty proud of arrogant, trash-talking, ultra-successful Yoculan’s mighty Gym Dogs. The way Yoculan stomps on other gymnastics programs with her own version of the hobnail boots is reminiscent of Spurrier’s take-no-prisoners style. So we can well understand how the rest of the nation must feel about Yoculan. Heck, even a lot of Bulldogs fans aren’t particularly fond of her thanks at least in part to the in-your-face way she’s conducted her personal life.
But like Gator fans in Spurrier’s heyday, we live with the downside because the upside soars so high.
Yoculan, known for giving the opposition plenty of bulletin-board material, lived up to her brash reputation before Friday’s NCAA final and predicted flatly that if the Gym Dogs were victorious this year she expects to win a FOURTH consecutive national championship again next year. “If we win three, we win four,” she said. “That’s how I look at it, hosting nationals next year [in Athens].”
She’s indicated that she’s likely to retire after next season (though if she doesn’t get that fourth in a row, you’ve got to wonder if she might hang on another year or two so she can go out with yet another national title).
She’d be missed, no doubt. But the thing is, folks close to the UGA gymnastics program say it should survive losing Yoculan just fine. Associate Head Coach Jay Clark gets a lot of behind-the-scenes credit for UGA’s continued domination of women’s gymnastics and is the natural heir apparent.
But let’s give Yoculan the credit any head coach deserves for sustained success. On top of putting together a great staff and recruiting top talent, she seems to have a knack for getting her athletes mentally ready at the right time, with this year (when the Gym Dogs had to overcome injury problems) being a prime example.
Love her or hate her, you can’t ignore Suzanne Yoculan. She won’t allow it.
From Kelley’s Boys to Bulldogs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While driving by the YMCA playing fields on Hawthorne Avenue in Athens recently, I saw where the Athens Y, the nation’s third oldest, is celebrating its 150th anniversary on Saturday.
The Athens Y holds a special place in UGA athletics history for a number of reasons, including being the original home of the Georgia swimming teams (back when it was downtown at Broad and Lumpkin, before moving the current location in 1967). But mostly the Athens Y served as a developer of football talent for old Athens High School, with many of those players moving on to UGA.
Under the tutelage of the late Coburn F. Kelley (known to a couple of generations of Athens boys as just “Kelley”), such future college and NFL players as Fran Tarkenton, Billy Gambrell (an exception in that he went to South Carolina instead of UGA), Jake Scott and Andy Johnson started putting on the pads and scoring touchdowns at the Y when they were as young as 6.
Former AHS coach Weyman Sellers, whose program was a powerhouse in the 1950s and ’60s, once said that Kelley often tipped him off to promising young talent years ahead of time. The Athens Y program was quite successful on the field, with the 12-and-under team that featured Jake Scott at halfback winning the Pop Warner League national championship in the late 1950s, beating a team from York, Pa.
And for many years fans arriving early for Bulldog games at Sanford Stadium got to see Kelley’s Boys, as they were known, making great memories by getting to play before the big game on the UGA field.
Chatting with Loren Smith last year for the Athens Banner-Herald, Tarkenton said he was “grateful for my Y experience. No YMCA or high school team ever had a bigger stage than we did by playing our games in Sanford Stadium.”
Saturday’s anniversary festivities get under way at 11 a.m. at the Y on Hawthorne, with an open house featuring tours, live music and food from the Varsity.
BULLDOG PRIDE: It’s not often you can find a connection between the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and UGA athletics, but this year’s prize winner, announced this week, is UGA grad Natasha Trethewey, now a professor at Emory University. Not only did she get her undergraduate degree at UGA, but she served as head cheerleader during her senior year. Let’s send a couple of big woof-woofs her way!
COUNTDOWN TO KICKOFF: I got a note recently from former Bulldog Matt Stinchcomb: “Wanted to thank you again for helping us in promoting last year’s Countdown to Kickoff children’s charity event, and wanted to let you know it will be held on July 7 this year. I will have more specifics soon, but we are making it bigger and better, and have added another charity, Children’s Tumor Foundation. Thanks again Bill, we appreciate all that you did, and hope we can build on the effort again this year!” Last year’s event was a lot of fun (despite the brief thunderstorm in the middle of it), and was a great opportunity to chat with Bulldog players, past and present, and get autographs. Mark July 7 down on your calendar and plan a trip over to Athens to get yourself pumped for the coming season.
SIGNATURE EVENTS: A new outfit that two former UGA players are involved in, Sic ‘Um Dog Signatures, has held a couple of recent paid autograph signings and has plans to get into the sports memorabilia business. The company is co-owned by Dan Everett and former UGA running backs Des Williams and Danny Ware. I asked Everett, a Georgia Southwestern chemistry grad who now works as an engineer at Power Partners in Athens, how it came about. “Des, Danny, and I have been very good friends for about a year,” he said. About two months ago Des and I realized that we (especially himself and Danny) have so many connections that we could easily start a memorabilia business and could get really good deals since everyone who signed for us knows the two of them.” They began their online business (www.sicumdogsignatures.com) at the beginning of March and so far have had a couple of signings (including one with Kenny and David Irons of Auburn). The next one is Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Nordstrom wing at Mall of Georgia. Among those set to participate besides Williams and Ware, Everett said, are Quentin Moses, Tra Battle, Dan Inman, Ray Gant and Mario Raley. (Current players aren’t used because that’s against NCAA rules.) “We have approximately two to three signings per month scheduled,” Everett said, with former UGA QB (and current Falcon) D.J. Shockley set to sign at Georgia Square Mall in Athens on May 5 and again on May 26 at Mall of Georgia. Everett also plans to sell items signed by such Georgia greats as Herschel Walker, Fran Tarkenton and the two Davids (Pollack and Greene) on the Web site, and he hopes to open a retail location in Athens in August 2008.
Another Saturday in Athens!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re spending some time in the Classic City this week while on spring break to see my folks and my son the UGA senior, visit some of our favorite hangouts (like Hodgson’s), and, of course, attend G-Day.
G-Day isn’t quite the big thing it was when I was a kid and they played it more like a real game, with celebrity head coaches (winning team ate steaks for dinner, losers got hot dogs). Nowadays, it’s more like a semi-controlled scrimmage.
And it’s been a while since they tried something fun like playing against the alums. (Remember Kent Lawrence sneaking on the field from the sideline to catch a long pass?) I think that approach was pretty much doomed after the alums put a few extra men on the field and injured the QB in a sack.
But, hey, any day you get to sit in Sanford Stadium and watch guys wearing UGA uniforms playing football is a good day, even if they don’t return kicks and the refs whistle the play dead whenever a defender gets within 5 yards of a quarterback.
The best thing about G-Day is getting an early look at what kind of team the Dogs will field this season, and with that in mind these are some of the things I’ll be watching on Saturday:
THE PASSING GAME: Now that quarterback is settled, with established starter Matthew Stafford getting better and better and Joe Cox a more than able backup, the key question here will be protection. With the Dogs having to replace three starters on the offensive line as well as the tight end, Stafford might end up having to scramble a bit more than the coaches would like (though you get the feeling he’d LOVE to take off rambling with the ball). As for the receivers, we’ve had the talent all along, but over the past couple of seasons they’ve just dropped the ball too much. Getting Sean Bailey back will be a big help if he picks up where he left off at the end of the 2005 season. It took him a while to stop dropping the ball himself that season, though, so that’s something to watch. I think Mikey Henderson will show he’s more than just a kick returner, too.
THE RUNNING GAME: If everything we’ve heard about Knowshon Moreno’s potential pans out, Georgia should be even stronger at the tailback position, despite the loss of Danny Ware. Moreno apparently will give us the breakaway long-run threat we haven’t had in a while. Leading rusher Kregg Lumpkin is back at full-strength and a steady producer. (When they give him the ball, that is. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that new offensive coordinator Mike Bobo won’t be as quick to abandon the run as his boss was at times last season.) Hopefully, Thomas Brown will bounce back quickly from his injury this fall (I doubt we’ll see him Saturday), though I still don’t think it makes sense to run him up the middle. Better to use him on the outside or throw it to him out of the backfield. We have one of the conference’s best fullbacks in Brannan Southerland and should continue to make heavy use of him.
THE BLOCKING: The key question again in the effectiveness of our running tame is the offensive line. And despite our bringing in lots of beef to bolster it, there’s always the likelihood that between injuries and disciplinary problems, we’ll still be thin as tissue paper there. Hopefully, though, new OL coach Stacy Searels’ simplified schemes will speed up the maturing process for our young linemen.
THE DEFENSE: Again, we’re replacing a lot of experience up front and in the middle. Of course, that experience didn’t always pay off last year, as our D was maddeningly inconsistent, looking great at the beginning and end of the season but absolutely terrible during the mid-season collapse. It’ll help a lot if Brandon Miller can finally live up to his billing. Ditto all those redshirts. We should be in good shape in the secondary, but we’re green at defensive end and really need to develop an effective pass rush fast.
THE KICKING GAME: Let’s just pray that Brandon Coutu stays healthy. It’ll be interesting to see whether holdover Brian Mimbs (hero of the bowl-game onside kick) or incoming freshman (and Bulldog legacy) Drew Butler winds up as the starting punter. I just hope we don’t give them reason to flinch like Gordon Ely-Kelso did the latter half of last season after we gave up those blocked punts. As for returning punts, if they follow the usual practice of recent G-Days we won’t see that on Saturday, but I can’t wait to have Mikey Henderson back on the field waiting on a punt! Plus we’ll have Thomas Flowers back.
I’m hoping Saturday’s game shows progress in all those areas. We’ll see the No. 1 offense and No. 2 defense on one team and the No. 1 defense and No. 2 offense on the other. C’mon out and join us at the game!
Through Friday, tickets can be purchased in person at the Butts-Mehre ticket windows between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Tickets also can be purchased starting at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday at Sanford Stadium Gates 2, 4, 6 and the Main Gate located below the Sanford Drive Bridge. Proceeds from the game will benefit Hope Haven. If you can’t be there but have the CSS channel, you can catch it on TV.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
