ALRIGHT DAWGS, TIME TO GET FIRED UP!!!!!!!!

First and foremost, Steve, great job on the forum...it will take a bit for this old dawg to get around the learning curve, but I'll have it mastered soon.

Anyone that has been around this forum for more than a year or two, should know that I like to start each season with some sage wisdom, a post or two from authors, some long gone, others found posting elsewhere. Nonetheless, their words reflect the very best in each of us and what it means to be a loyal member of the Dawg Nation.

That being said, I'm DAMN glad to be back! DAMN happy that we are some 25 days from the opening game!

So, without any further fanfare I give you the words of Native Dawg and his tribute entitled:

Bulldawg by the Grace of God

by Native Dawg

The dawg days of summer have dragged on for an eternity with their oppressive heat. Days have felt like weeks. The weeks seemed like years, and the months were never ending. The misery of the heat and humidity has been topped only by the painful non-existence of local media coverage for your beloved team. Will the football season ever arrive? Will this misery ever end?

Finally, mercifully, September arrives in all its beautiful splendor. The newest additions to the Bulldawg Nation arrived on campus three weeks earlier and were joined by the teams veterans shortly thereafter. Side by side the Dawgs suffered through grueling two-a-day practices. They sacrificed blood, sweat and tears and left everything they had on the practice field each day.

As the team toiled in the August heat, a bond began to form. Team chemistry occured as teammates began to become familiar with one another. Soon the team begins to enjoy the fruits of their labor as a well oiled machine begins to emerge from a collection of rusty parts! Beaming with collective confidence, the team faces a new season with unbounded optimism.

Game week arrives. The opener is just days away. It seems almost unreal. A new season of experiences awaits the Bulldawg Nation. Will we taste the joys and adulation of victory, or the pain and agony of defeat?

Dutifully, you read about the practices in the newspaper. You scan your favorite websites frantically in search of that invaluable nugget of "inside information." You begin to form opinions about how well the team will stack up against the competition. You analyze the potential matchups over and over until you become dizzy. You spend most of your days fretting about some perceived team weakness. A nervous ball of energy spins in your stomach as you ask repeatedly ask yourself, "how are we going to run the ball with such an inexperienced offensive line?"

You bounce crazy ideas off the Bulldawg Bretheren in the internet forums. You poll all of your friends so much that you begin to annoy them. "What kind of quarterback play do you think we'll have this year?" "How effective will we be at stopping the run?"

Somehow you manage to make it through the week without being fired. Your work product is laughable, but your boss is a Dawg, so you doubt she even notices. She's got a tougher strain of Bulldawg fever than you do.

You spend Friday night meticulously planning and preparing the Ultimate Tailgate Party. It has been nine months since you have had reason to throw a tailgate fiesta, and the first one of the year is going to be Dawg-gone legendary.

You slave away preparing a culinary feast fit for royalty. When everything has been perfectly prepared, you lay your weary head down for the night. You say your prayers wishing for a well played game the next day and asking that both teams avoid injury. After all the preparation, you are dead tired, but sleep does not come easy. Game scenarios reel through your mind as you toss and turn. Finally, you find a happy place and drift off to sleep with visions of the Goal Line Stalker dancing in your head.

Hours later, the morning sunshine bursts through your window and you spring to your feet excitedly. No need for an alarm clock,it's GAMEDAY! You feel like a kid on Christmas morning for the first time since last year's bowl game. You peek out the window and marvel at the flawless blue September sky. The weather is going to be warm, but God has given the Dawg Nation a perfectly sunny day.

Breakfast is eaten at a break-neck pace. You hit the shower running, and singing "The Bulldawg Bite" so loud you won't be surprised if you wake the neighbors. Next, you don your luckiest GameDay outfit, and it's time to go!

You pack the truck with the grill, tents, tables, chairs, umbrella, coolers packed with your favorite adult beverages, the picnic basket containing all the eats prepared the night before, the UGA Flags, and the radio. Inside the truck you try not to get nailed with a speeding ticket as you drive as fast as your truck will take you to the stadium. Meanwhile, your truck is beaming with pride with its UGA car flags flying at full mast and its Dawg magnets on the doors, hood and tailgate.

James Brown's "Dooley's Junkyard Dawgs" blares from the trucks speakers as you wheel it into the same tailgate spot that you and your friends have been using since you-can't-remember-when. Giddy with anticipation, you hop out of the truck and greet all of your best friends in the world with high fives and hugs!

The tailgate party begins and the adult beverages flow. The grill emits heavenly aromas as everyone enjoys the foodstuffs. Embellished tales of seasons past are told while total strangers approach you barking at the top of their lungs. You quickly bark a reply and toss the youngsters a cold frosty one. Nostalgia crashes over you like a wave as you remember just how wonderful it was to be a UGA student.

Bulldawg tunes play on the radio as everyone dances and tosses the pigskin. You feel young and lucky to be alive. All of your troubles are light years away.

Gametime draws near, and you attempt to pack up the tailgating supplies in an orderly fashion. You meticulously fill your flask and place it in a discreet location so that it will not be discovered by the security guards at the stadium gate. Everything is secured, the flask is full, the tickets are in hand, and it's time to go!

You begin the pilgrammage across the most beautiful campus on God's green earth. Your nostrils are filled with the myriad scents of early autumn mixed with tailgate parties. You look around at the breath-taking display of the greenery of the campus landscape contrasted by the sea of red and black rolling toward the stadium.

Luckily, you make it to the stadium just in time to see the redcoats serenade the crowd before they enter the hallowed halls of Sanford. Their harmonic symphony sounds like gospel to your long awaiting ears. Again, a wave of nostalgia crashes down upon you as you remember the many games of years gone by in which you have witnessed this tradition.

After the redcoats enter, you and your friends shuffle into the Holiest Mecca of them all: Sanford Stadium on Game Day. Inside the hallowed halls, a current of energy is palpable. A river of Red & Black runs through the concourses. Total strangers are barking at one another, high fiving, and screaming, "How 'Bout Them Dawgs?!"

You stop by the concession stand to purchase a soda, and then you wisk away to your Section. As you walk through the portal you majestically ascend into Heaven On Earth. It never fails. Your first sight of the field with the Hedges standing sentry and the "G" logo etched at midfield, makes your heart skip a beat. Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking.

Somehow you make your way to your seat, walking on legs made of rubber. You stand reverently and salute the flag proudly during our National Anthem. You shiver with anticipation because you know what's coming next.

Suddenly a chorus of boos emerges. The opposing team takes the field defiantly as the chants of "Dawg Food, Dawg Food!" cascade down upon them. You chant along with 92,000 of your closest friends, and the intensity begins to increase. Just then, the Nation's #1 mascot leads your beloved Dawgs onto the field of play! The crowd woofs, and woofs, and woofs some more, working itself into a frenzy!

Months of endless waiting are finally coming to an end! The Dawgs are about to run again! Right now, at this moment, you are completely satisfied with life. Utopia has arrived. Somehow, amazingly, in the midst of all of this madness you are able to organize your thoughts long enough to reflect on this pristine moment.

The Bulldawg Nation is gathered all around you. Your best friends in the world are at your side. After nine months of dormancy, the Dawgs are about to unleash this year's version of the Bulldawg Bite on an unsuspecting opponent. Your eyes well up with tears as you begin to realize, "this is what it's all about; it just doesn't get any better than this." Silently, you close your eyes and you give thanks that you are an American by birth, and a Bulldawg by the Grace of God.

GO DAWGS! SIC 'EM! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

Being a Bull Dawg is special, there is no other way to describe it!

Welcome back NC Dawg. I love the new site Steve has got going for all the Dawg fans. Now all we have to do is get all of the old group posting again. The Dawgs look tough and so does the schedule. I just hope "DJ" comes through for us at QB. He has the talent, if he'll just not give into those "happy feet" or throw the ball up for grabs. Yes, I am excited about this season even though I won't be there in person. Please let's not have any more injuries in pre-season practice or high jinks (inappropriate behavior) on the part of our athletes. Enough is enough!
As always, GO DAWGS!!!!!!!!!

Dawg Doc, here's a little humor,...tongue-n-cheek style, regarding the "off-field" antics.............


27 Georgia Athletes Caught in Etiquette Scandal !!!!!!!!!!!

By SaxonDawg

ATHENS--(AP) It's been one of those forgettable summers for the Georgia Bulldog football team. Head Coach Mark Richt can only sigh in disbelief and tack on more than two dozen new first-game suspensions. Twenty-seven athletes from three different sports have now confessed to their failure to use the Magic Words, "please" and "thank you," when asking for second helpings at team meals.

"That Shockley boy was the ring leader," said Mrs. Eunice Grubb, deputy salad scooper in the food line. "He came back for more pineapple jello--I had spotted him entertaining his table-mates by slurping it up with only his lips, without using his hands--and he just grabbed his serving from me without saying a word. Not saying please or thank you, that's the kind of thuggery we don't need around here. I hope they kick off that little equestrian floozy as well."


This event comes only a week after pre-season All-American lineman Max Jean-Gilles was caught leaving his gum stuck under a local restaurant table. "He tried to run away," said proprietor Antoine Twitty. "But we recognized him, and a mob of busboys and patrons cornered him outside the bar. We’re simply not going to take any more. These coaches are letting the athletes run wild, leaving their Wrigley's and Dentyne all over Athens, wherever they feel like. We have to scrape, scrape, scrape for five, ten minutes to get the gum off. Juicy Fruit is the worst."

[Photo Above: Big Max categorically denies gumming the restaurant table, but refuses to answer questions about the bottom of this microphone.]

Rumor of the gum-affixing spread quickly across the Internet. CBS Sportsline led with the story at the top of their homepage. Finally Richt was forced to acknowledge the incident in a press conference. In a prepared statement, he said, "There seems to be evidence that Big Max not only deposited the chewable snack food, but possibly masticated his tortellini with his mouth open. This caused understandable outrage and disgust at some of the other tables, and that's not the image we want our players to project. We are starting a mandatory course for the players on such issues as which fork to use first, how to pat one's mouth discretely with a napkin, and of course keeping little hunks of food off earrings and nose-rings. That last one grosses me out."

The football program took a black eye when two players said the "h" word and the "d" word while rescuing a family from a burning car. Viola Bumpus, one of the rescued passengers, said, "We're minding our own business when suddenly this giant is pushing through the flames, snatching me out of my car like a china doll, before the car can explode. A piece of flaming debris blew into this brute's face and he clearly said 'OH, H-E-double toothpicks!' I was aghast, and I have demanded that this young hoodlum be dismissed from the university." Coach Richt has ordered the player, identified as Russ Tanner, to go apologize to the elderly woman and place her back into the burning car.

Now, with 27 potential suspensions after the etiquette fiasco, the Georgia Bulldogs may find themselves facing Boise State with a lineup of walkons and women's gymnasts. "We may lose, but etiquette comes first at this university," says Richt. "I think of these players like my own children, and when my own children fail to say please or thank you, I make them sleep in alleys and dumpsters in downtown Atlanta for a week."


Can September get here ANY quicker!!!!!!!!!

GO DAWGS!!!!!!!!!![/b]

I`m ready to get up at 4:30 too, to leave at 5:00 so that we can continue the time honored tradition of TAILGAITING that we have enjoyed for the last 15 years! Being from Augusta we leave in the dark to park behind Baldwin hall as we have the past 15 years for FREE! This is not just parking, this is a reunion, Superdawg and Mrs. Jean from Perry, Thad and Mike from Augusta, Andrew Green and Billy Thigpen from the Procter & Gamble crowd from Aug. to all of our High school buddies (more like family) From Augusta. But our beloved UGAA is more concerned with $$$$ than these traditions. So we will scout out another tailgaiting spot on picture day and have been forced to purchase a camper to stay from friday until time to go home, or be forced to park in a deck or (too late!) pay an outragious fourtune on top of donations and ticket prices, just to enjoy a GREAT SATURDAY IN ATHENS! Other than that, I think we will be better than people think. Just like Awburn last year, WE have just as much talent coming back as last year, with an easier schedule. We play a
hungry but outmanned Boise St. team, a POOR Carolina team, a cupcake, an Overrated UT team, little Vandy, a down Clinton team, an always scarry UF, a down Awburn team, the same ol` UK and the Idiots from the institute, whoops forgot that power house Miss St. I dont know how we rank versus the rest of the nation, but We`ll be OK in the ALWAYS TOUGH SEC!!!! Look to hear from you NC Dawg, And the rest of you DAWGS!! Good night. Ashdawg