If you’re wondering what Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson does for Thanksgiving, it’s fairly simple.
In short, dinner at home.
Tech’s routine for Thanksgiving Day is a morning practice to prepare for Georgia followed by lunch with the team. Players are then released, and most will either go home or relatives or share Thanksgiving with teammates or assistant coaches. They are to return to campus by about noon Friday. The team will bus up to Gwinnett County and then drive up Ga. 316 on Saturday morning.
“Once in awhile, we have a few players come over if they don’t have anywhere to go,” Johnson said. “But once you become the head coach, less and less come over.”
Johnson has two brothers in North Carolina, but one was going to be with their mother and the other was to be with his wife's family. Johnson anticipated a dinner at home with wife Susan and daughter Kaitlyn, back from Arizona, where she is in a young-artist program with the Arizona Opera.
As he has been preoccupied with upcoming games through his career, there isn’t much in the way of Johnson family Thanksgiving traditions.
“When Kaitlyn was small, I think she and I used to go to a movie or something, but we haven’t done that (recently),” Johnson said. “She’s kind of got her own thing now.”
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