Damn good Dawg
For 67 football seasons, Sonny Seiler provided an unbroken line of mascots for the Georgia Bulldogs
My enduring memory of Frank “Sonny” Seiler came in a hotel room at the University of Georgia’s Center for Continuing Education in September 1985.
It was a game day Saturday morning, a few hours before kickoff. Sonny looked down at his watch, clapped his hands and screamed “mmweeewanammmphugwee” – or something phonetically close to that.
It was not a language humans could understand.
Sonny Seiler spoke fluent bulldog.
I had been invited to witness the “dressing of the dog.’’ I watched as Sonny pulled and tugged Uga IV’s fashionable red jersey over his head, then placed the famous spike collar around his neck.
For 67 football seasons, he provided an unbroken bloodline of 11 English bulldog mascots – enough players to put a team on the field – for the Georgia Bulldogs.
Sonny was superstitious about the pregame routine. The ritual had to be performed a certain way. Three years earlier, Uga IV made history as the first mascot to attend the Heisman Trophy banquet in New York City, when Hershel Walker won the award.
Monday brought with it the sad news that Sonny Seiler, a Savannah attorney, had passed away at the age of 90. It was somehow fitting it was two days after National Dog Day.
Georgia has now lost three football legends in the past 11 months. Former athletic director and head football coach Vince Dooley and All-America running back Charley Trippi died last fall.
I probably never would have been invited to the sacred “dressing of the dog” ceremony had it not been for my longtime friendship with Seiler’s daughter, Swann.
Swann, the oldest of the four Seiler children, grew up with every bulldog mascot as the family pet. She was born in 1956. That was the same year Uga I, a wedding gift to her parents, made his debut on the sidelines. (Her mother, Cecelia, died in 2014.)
Swann and I were classmates at Georgia’s Henry W. Grady journalism school. Our senior year, we lived in the same apartment complex – River Mill – which was across the railroad tracks from the J-school and Sanford Stadium. She was in the building across from mine, and she would often keep Uga III at her apartment on game weekends and chauffeur him around in her red AMC Pacer.
I remember looking out my window one Friday afternoon and seeing Uga hanging out on her balcony. His fur was as white as a South Georgia cotton field. He retired in 1980 after leading the Dogs to the national championship. Damn good dog.
