It was September 1998. I was a young reporter on my way to cover my first game for the AJC, a Friday night high-school football game between Sequoyah and Berkmar in Canton. I must have been eager for this next step in my sportswriting career, my first taste of the cultural phenomenon that is high school football in the South.
I say “must have” because I have zero recollection of this game. I found it only with the aid of the newspaper’s electronic archive and, even after reading my spellbinding account, no bells rang. (Coach Sid Maxwell’s Chiefs – that’s Sequoyah – won 10-6 with a late defensive stand.)
With apologies to the young men in that Sequoyah-Berkmar game, now not quite so young, I can report that I have better recollection of many (though not all) of the games and events that I’ve covered since that Friday night 22 years ago. My rough estimate is that I’ve been on hand for about 600 games or events, and the actual number probably is higher.
It’s a long list to cull, but here are the ones I’d put at the top.
No. 5: Nov. 29, 2014: Georgia Tech 30, Georgia 24 (OT). One of the many privileges of writing for the AJC and covering Georgia Tech in particular is that I've been able to regularly cover the annual Tech-Georgia game on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I'm not sure the adage that "you can throw out the record book" entirely applies, but it's fun to be a part of an event that captures the entire state's attention.
I’ve been at the past 11. Most of them have been competitive, and nearly all have been memorable for some reason or another. But Tech’s win in 2014 at Sanford Stadium stands out for the series of big plays and the dramatic conclusion.
Down 24-21 with 18 seconds left, Tech took advantage of a squibbed kickoff and then Justin Thomas’ 21-yard scramble to set up Harrison Butker’s field-goal try from 53 yards. Butker made it – barely – to send the game to overtime, where Zach Laskey ran the ball in from the 2-yard line behind Shaquille Mason for a 30-24 lead.
After Butker’s PAT was blocked – one of only two such misses in his career – the Bulldogs were in position to win and continue the Yellow Jackets’ agony. In 2013, Tech took a 20-0 lead over Georgia before falling 41-34 in double overtime at Bobby Dodd Stadium. On this Saturday, the Bulldogs could hand the Jackets their sixth consecutive loss in the series with a touchdown and PAT.
But, on a second-and-goal from the 9, cornerback D.J. White jumped a route and intercepted Hutson Mason to save the day, continuing a thrill ride of a season.
No. 4: Nov. 20, 2008: Tech 41, Miami 23. This was a Thursday-night ESPN game before a white-out crowd at Bobby Dodd Stadium in coach Paul Johnson's first season. The Hurricanes were ranked in the Top 25, and the Jackets were a surprising 7-3 in Johnson's inaugural season, having already knocked off then-No. 16 Florida State (another memorable game) at Bobby Dodd Stadium five weeks earlier.
What sticks out to me was the energy crackling throughout Grant Field as the game progressed and the score grew more decisive. Defensive end Michael Johnson started it with a 26-yard interception return for a touchdown, and then Johnson’s spread-option offense shredded the vaunted Hurricanes with option runs and misdirection plays. Reeling off big gains seemingly at will, Tech amassed 472 rushing yards, setting the stage for Tech’s seismic defeat of Georgia nine days later.
More than the last-second win over FSU, the defeat of Miami gave a clear picture of how explosive Johnson’s offense could – and would – be.
No. 3: Jan. 4, 2003: Falcons 27, Packers 7. It was Michael Vick's first season as the Falcons' starting quarterback. As the backup beat writer to Matt Winkeljohn, I witnessed Vick pull off breathtaking stunts of speed and elusiveness on a weekly basis, drawing comparisons to Michael Jordan in the process.
It peaked on a chilly – though not frigid, as was feared – Saturday night in Green Bay, where the Packers had never lost a postseason game in franchise history. Vick was on fire, connecting with his wide receivers and scrambling for first downs. Green Bay had no answers for Vick, falling behind 21-0 at the half in a shocking turn of events.
On the play I remember most, Packers defensive end Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila had Vick trapped on the sideline for an apparent sack. But Vick slipped out of the tackle and juked his way for a first down, one of many times that the Packers were left grasping at air. On a national stage, Vick announced himself as a quarterback unlike any other.
Of course, Vick did not make good on the Jordan comparisons. For many reasons, not least of which was his imprisonment in 2007 on federal dogfighting charges, his career failed to lift off. It is a story of what might have been.
But on one snowy night in an NFL cathedral, it felt like the first big moment in a career that would be full of them.
2: Nov. 7, 2017: Tech's China trip. Going outside the lines a little bit, but this was probably the strangest day of my career. I was in Hangzhou, China, with the Tech basketball team, which was in China to play UCLA in the season opener in Shanghai. The Hyatt Regency Hangzhou, the stage for the day's first scene, was a fine hotel. Tech coach Josh Pastner told me how his hotel room was too hot, so he called for a hotel employee to come to the room. Unfortunately, the maintenance man's English was the equivalent of Pastner's Mandarin, so Pastner pantomimed being cold. Quite understandably, the employee turned the heat up.
Anyway, you may recall that in Pastner’s second season, things already were not going well, even before the opener. Josh Okogie dislocated in his finger in an exhibition-game loss to Georgia State, literal injury on top of insult. Then, the night before the trip, it was announced that Okogie and Tadric Jackson were being withheld from competition for receiving impermissible benefits.
On the morning of the third full day of the trip, local police stormed the team’s hotel floor and began interrogating players. Down at the hotel entrance, police were inspecting the cargo compartment of the UCLA team bus, with players still aboard and expecting to go to practice. It turned out that three Bruins players, including LiAngelo Ball (son of basketball impresario LaVar Ball), had shoplifted items from three nearby stores the previous night. Unsure of their identities, police detained three Tech players (including guard Jose Alvarado) before clearing them.
That was only the beginning. The team eventually was able to leave Hangzhou for a train ride to Shanghai. But in the evening, the other shoe dropped regarding Okogie and Jackson’s NCAA misdeeds. Pastner’s former friend Ron Bell came forward with proof that he had provided the two players with plane tickets, meals and clothing and further alleged that he did so with Pastner’s encouragement and that Pastner had supplied him with cash-stuffed envelopes to give to players.
It was the start of a bizarre saga in which Pastner ultimately was cleared, but not before his reputation was muddied for the better part of two years.
Potential international scandal in the morning followed at night by allegations that, if true, would have meant Pastner’s job. Also, the bus taking the team to the Hangzhou train station nearly was in an accident. The day’s MVP? The team’s tour guide in Shanghai, who serenaded the team with Rihanna’s “Umbrella” after boarding the bus, providing a surreal lift on an otherwise dreadful day.
No. 1: Oct. 24, 2015: Tech 22, Florida State 16. I've covered many more important games and events than this one. But I don't think any of them were more memorable.
One play I think I may always remember in my mind’s eye – as I saw it from the Bobby Dodd Stadium press box, not as it was captured by TV cameras – is Lance Austin speeding down the home sideline as Tech fans lost their collective mind.
It’s funny. The play happened in Paul Johnson’s worst season, but Austin’s 78-yard return of a blocked field-goal attempt on the final play of regulation to give the Jackets a jaw-dropping upset over No. 9 Florida State may stand as the most iconic play of Johnson’s 11 seasons at the Tech helm.
A year after the magical Orange Bowl championship season of 2014, the Jackets were nosediving, as injuries and close losses piled up and drained the excitement out of a season that began with a preseason Top 25 ranking. Going into that homecoming night game, Tech had lost five in a row while the Seminoles had won 28 consecutive ACC games.
Still, Tech fans were charged up, garbed in white for a white-out night game – interestingly, the same circumstances as the 2008 Miami game – and the Jackets played the game of the season. Kicker Harrison Butker was clutch on makes from 53, 40 and 35 yards, the Tech defense induced the first turnover of the season out of the Seminoles offense and quarterback Justin Thomas bolted away from the FSU defense on a 60-yard touchdown run, all leading up to an electric conclusion.
Florida State lined up for a game-winning 56-yard field goal off the foot of All-American Roberto Aguayo for the game-winner and yet another punch-in-the-gut loss for the Jackets. But Patrick Gamble got his hand on the kick, which was picked up by Austin at the Tech 22-yard line. Austin reversed field to the Tech sideline and raced to the north end zone, his all-white uniform contrasting with the emerald turf. Fans poured onto the field, releasing pent-up frustration, celebrating a hefty upset achieved in unthinkable fashion.
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