Week Six: D.J. Shockley

Donald Shockley, Jr.

In my grandfather's house, you can't bring up D.J. Shockley without him wondering why the Falcons didn't start him Day One in the 2006 season and just ride him to three straight Super Bowl titles. \"He's got a better arm than Vick,\" my grandfather said when D.J. was relegated to the practice squad, \"and he's smarter. All Vick can do is run.\"

D.J. Shockley was and is and I think forever will be a shining icon of what a man can do if he sets his mind to it, is patient and is willing to wait his turn. The first recruit of Mark Richt's tenure at UGA, Shock was the center of maybe a thousand rumors (that's a conservative estimate) of places he'd rather play than behind David Greene. Most prevalent was the thought that he'd transfer to the school that Richt \"transferred\" from, Florida State. D.J. did no such thing. He sat on a bench for four years, coming in to play sporadically, getting injured in 2003 in a blowout against a Tennessee team that for four years couldn't solve him, knowing that he was a target because his entry into the game meant he'd have to run and be tackled, knowing that he wasn't the number one guy even though he'd been recruited as such.

All D.J. Shockley did was sit. And wait. And bide his time, and learn. And in 2005, against a heavily hyped Boise State team that was coming off of an undefeated regular season in 2004, D.J. Shockley set the Classic City ablaze. In his first game as a starter, he tied the school record for number of touchdowns thrown in a game with five, and set the school record for number of touchdowns scored by a single player by rushing for a sixth. His 48-point 374-yard effort made Steve Spurrier say of him, \"D.J. Shockley is a Heisman candidate. There is no question of that.\" In 2005, with a team that was supposed to be a letdown due to the loss of two superstars in David Greene and David Pollack (sound familiar?), with a team that was picked third in the Eastern Division, with a team that was supposed to have a lame-duck, Outback Bowl season in anticipation of the surefire tandem of Joe Cox and Mohammed Massaquoi waiting in the wings, D.J. Shockley led our Dawgs to their twelfth SEC championship, destroying the LSU Tigers in a 34-14 rout in the Georgia Dome.

In the interest of the man as a man, not just as a football player, I'll tell you that I was a graduate student at UGA from 2002-2005, in the Department of Drama & Theatre (now the Dept. of Theatre and Film Studies). D.J. Shockley was a student in a Drama 2000 class, Appreciation of Dramatic Arts. He made an 'A', rarely missed class in a 300-student lecture, and worked well with his classmates and breakout session partners from all accounts. I have taught athletes before; not all of them are good students. Not all of them are polite people. I could name the bad eggs here, but I won't. D.J. Shockley was a very good student. He's an all-around good person.

This is your place to share memories of D.J. Shockley. All of mine are good.

dapolla, great post. I have a glass enclosed picture of DJ (my daughter gave to me one Christmas, she knew how much I liked him) on my game room wall. DJ and Herschel were by far the most exciting and fun players to watch, for me at least, at UGA since I was a kid following the Dawgs. Watching DJ made the game SO much more fun to watch and what an unbelievable athlete and young man. To this day, I believe that if he had matured as quickly as Greene did as a freshman etc, that DJ would have set even more records as a starter and could have won us a NC and himself a Heisman. I know, that's a pretty bold statement but his skills were exceptional. I honestly believe it just took him a few more years to get to that maturity level that David had early on. David was exceptionally mature at 18-19 as a QB.....and a great one as well.

Yes....DJ is loved by ALL Dawg Fans!!! I named my Bulldawg after him!!