Georgia fans make most of trip out West

Tempe, Ariz. — Partying in the desert, like playing a football game in the desert, takes preparation. And Georgia fans Jason Coleman and Justin Sparano were nothing if not prepared.

Around lunchtime Friday, they were among hundreds of Bulldogs’ fans walking up and down the sidewalks of Tempe’s Mill Avenue district, the restaurant, shopping and entertainment area a few blocks from the Arizona State campus and Sun Devil Stadium. Coleman had a large bottle of Gatorade in his left hand, Sparano a big bottle of water in his right hand.

It’s important to hydrate here, where it reached 100 degrees Friday afternoon, especially if you’re planning to dive into some of the sixty-something bars that dot this area. Coleman and Sparano were planning to Friday, just as they did Thursday night.

“The night scene here is pretty awesome,” said Sparano, a 23-year-old, UGA graduate student from Atlanta. “We actually ran into a bunch of our friends last night at The Big Bang. There were tons of Georgia people there.”

The Big Bang is an “underground piano bar” located below street level at the corner of Mill Avenue and Fifth Street.

“They played ‘Glory, Glory’ several times and the place went wild,” said Coleman, 24, a UGA graduate who now lives in Washington, D.C. “The piano player played Rocky Top once and everybody booed. He definitely knew his audience.”

Sparano said he figures the whole trip will set him back about $800. But that’s OK. He decided at the beginning of the season to attend every game this year.

“This is the year they’re saying we should contend for the national championship,” he said. “So I’m going to all of them.”

Coleman and Sparano are among thousands of Georgia fans that made the trek to watch the Bulldogs play Arizona State in a rare regular-season intersectional matchup Saturday night. It is Georgia’s longest trip for a regular-season road game since playing USC in 1960.

People dressed in Georgia regalia were spotted all over the Greater Phoenix area Thursday and Friday. Officially, UGA received only 7,300 tickets from Arizona State to sell to its season-ticket holders and those went quickly to donors that had contributed $27,000 or more over the years.

But that didn’t stop the ever-industrious Dogs fans. Thousands were able to get tickets by purchasing season-ticket packages from Arizona State. Unaware of the Georgia onslaught it would initiate, the Sun Devils offered a $99 special in an effort to fill up their stadium.

That’s how Mitch Smith of Atlanta and 10 of his friends were able to get their tickets. They’ll use the one ticket each for tomorrow night’s game, then donate the remainder to Phoenix-area charities.

“We got them a couple of months ago,” Smith said. “We were even able to get 11 seats together. I think they’re up high in the end zone, certainly not great seats. But we didn’t care.”

No, for Smith and his buddies — all former classmates at Athens’ Clarke Central High and UGA — this was a boys-out excursion. They left Atlanta very early Thursday morning, flew to Las Vegas, spent all day and all night at the Venetian, then hopped a plane for Phoenix on Friday afternoon.

“There are bunch of us that go to Vegas together a lot, so we figured this was a way to kill two birds with one stone,” said Smith, a 31-year-old real-estate executive from Decatur. “You just don’t get a chance to see Georgia play a road game out west very often.”

Nobody could have made more of the opportunity than Tommy Stubbs and his family. By the time they return to Atlanta on Tuesday, they will have spent two weeks touring the Southwest.

Stubbs, his wife, Peggy, and his daughter and son-in-law, David and Susan Veal of Athens, arrived in Phoenix on Sept. 8. All retirees, they have been to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Durango, Sedona and the Grand Canyon, just to name a few.

But make no mistake about it, Tommy Stubbs said, they’re here to see the Bulldogs play.

“University of Georgia football, nothing else,” said Stubbs, as they prepared to enter Gordon Biersch Brewery on Fifth Street. “I’ve only missed one home game in 46 years. I don’t usually have the opportunity to travel this time of year, so we decided to see some of the sights while we were out here.”

Having spent as much time here as he has, Stubbs said he is concerned about Saturday’s game.

“I think we’ve got a great football team but I’m worried about them getting acclimated to this weather,” he said.

No problem, says Sparano. Just hydrate.