The night I learned to bark like a Dawg

My manifest came when Georgia played Georgia Tech on Thanksgiving night 1971.

Georgia running back Jimmy Poulos dives over the top to score the winning touchdown against Georgia Tech at Grant Field in Atlanta on Thanksgiving night 1971. (Photo courtesy of UGA Athletic Association)

There was a time when I didn’t have a dog in this fight. 

Or a yellow jacket, for that matter.

There was not a clear pedigree or birthright. I did not take sides or lose sleep over point spreads or insulting jokes.

Until I was 15 years old, I had no real awareness of the Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry and how a 60-minute football game could sway the emotional equilibrium of an entire state for the next 364 days.

Although I was born at Georgia Baptist Hospital – a little over a mile from the edge of the Georgia Tech campus –  there was no family legacy of singing the  “Ramblin’ Wreck” fight song. 

My mother attended graduate school at the University of Georgia, but that bloodline didn’t automatically anoint me a DGD … Damn Good Dawg.