Pressure now on UGA fans to pink out Sanford Stadium

Dwight Standridge of Athens and the Bulldogs Battling Breast Cancer organization shows off one of the pink t-shirts his group was selling Friday in support of UGA's fans #WearPinkForWendy initiative to honor of the late wife of Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson. The Georgia Bulldogs play Arkansas State at noon Saturday at Sanford Stadium. (By CHIP TOWERS/ctowers@ajc.com)

Dwight Standridge of Athens and the Bulldogs Battling Breast Cancer organization shows off one of the pink t-shirts his group was selling Friday in support of UGA's fans #WearPinkForWendy initiative to honor of the late wife of Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson. The Georgia Bulldogs play Arkansas State at noon Saturday at Sanford Stadium. (By CHIP TOWERS/ctowers@ajc.com)

It’s a good thing that Dwight Standridge maintains a little office space in the Pulaski Heights area of downtown Athens, because he found himself conducting a lot of business out of it on Friday.

Standridge rents the small studio suite for his personal use when he’s not traveling as national sales rep for USA Truck. But on this day, Standridge was there as a representative for Bulldogs Battling Breast Cancer.

Primarily, he was shilling their pink T-shirts.

More accurately, he was overseeing the organization’s extremely popular, very limited and rapidly-diminishing supply of “Protect the Puppies” pink T-shirts. They’re selling them for $20 each, with all proceeds going to Bulldogs Battling Breast Cancer, a 503(3)c charity. Unless you’re capable or wiling to wear a double- or triple-extra large size, Standridge is probably not going to be able to help you out before Georgia’s noon kickoff tomorrow against Arkansas State.

“I put that decal on the door today so people would know where we’re at,” said Standridge, referring to the pink-ribbon sticker on the clear, glass door. “Everybody’s wanting to come by and get T-shirts. We’re about out. We really couldn’t have planned for this. We’re just diminishing our inventory that we had left, which is a good thing.”

Yes, Standridge suddenly finds himself at the center of a pink storm.

What began as a little bit of social media chatter about Georgia fans needing to honor the Arkansas State coach in some way on the occasion of his wife’s recent death from breast cancer, has now blown up into a national media story. ESPN broadcaster Scott Van Pelt closed his show late Thursday night with an update on the kind-hearted people of UGA wanting to #WearPinkForWendy. That followed a segment by the SEC Network’s Paul Finebaaum, which came a day after a news story appeared in The Washington Post, which came a day after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s report on the grassroots initiative.

And now, suddenly the pressure’s starting to mount on UGA a little bit. Will there be a lot of pink in Sanford Stadium on Saturday? Is there enough pink in the wardrobes of the Bulldogs’ male-dominated demographic? Will enough people have heard about it by the noon kickoff to react?

Standridge thinks so.

“I think if we get 30,000 people in pink, a third of the stadium, that there will be enough pink in there for it to be noticeable,” he said. “But no matter what, it’s such a positive thing. Like Paul Finebaum said yesterday, it’s such a positive, genuine gesture by a group that really doesn’t have anything to gain from it. And our charity has gained a lot of publicity on a national stage. It’s not every day that the Washington Post calls wanting an interview.”

It hasn’t been a windfall, mind you. A little after lunchtime Saturday, Standridge said website at BulldogsBattlingBreastCancer.com had received “five or six” anonymous donations to the organization. He said they had sold about 100 T-shirts at that point, too. They had only a couple dozen odd sizes left over to take to tomorrow’s tailgate on Milledge Avenue.

That’s because none of what’s happening this week was planned. Bulldogs Battling Breast Cancer was planning to launch its annual “pink-out” initiative for the Kentucky game next month. October is actually considered Breast Cancer Awareness month, which the BBBC has been planning for that for months.

“We’re hoping this is a good warm-up for next month,” Standridge said. “We’re calling it ‘Paint Sanford Pink.’ I hope this will help us get things going for that. We’re a small charity and a lot of people had no idea we existed. But with this recognition and us promoting it in October, I think we’ll have a bigger turnout for that event.”

Georgia fans certainly have shown they can make big things happen when they pull in the same direction.