Why I Hate Georgia and Why You Should too

The Georgia Bulldogs rush the field in 2007.

I am told there are people in this world – Gator fans mind you – who say they always cheer for Southeastern Conference teams when they’re playing outside the SEC. For the most part, I agree except for one slight deviation and that is to never, under any circumstance, pull for the University of Georgia unless it can help the University of Florida win a championship. For example, if Florida and Tennessee are tied for the SEC East lead in football and the Vols are playing Georgia. If a Georgia win is beneficial to the Gators, therefore, grudgingly, I will support Georgia.

But I feel dirty after I’ve done it.

To say I don’t like Georgia would be an understatement. To say I hate Georgia is closer to reality but there is far more intensity to my dislike than simple hate can even begin to approach. Imagine the heat of a thousand suns. You’re getting closer.

I find everything about the University of Georgia so reprehensibly disgusting that I wonder why it is General William Tecumseh Sherman didn’t detour from his march to Savannah to burn down Athens and the University of Georgia then salt the earth so nothing would grow there for a hundred years. I also wonder how it is that allegedly educated people would identify with the term “Dawgs.” My belief is let the big dog spell instead of acting like a bunch of functioning illiterate rednecks.

The reasons to despise Georgia go far beyond that, but I will offer a few reasons that should make you understand that if your dislike of Georgia doesn’t resonate to the very core of your being then you have somehow missed the Gator standard. By a wide margin.

Here are a few other reasons:

1. THE 1942 GAME:

I wasn’t even an idea in 1942 when my father was a 17-year-old freshman on the University of Florida campus. He was biding his time until he turned 18 when he could join the Navy. At UF as in most campuses across the nation, the physically able athletes signed up to fight the Germans and Japanese within weeks of Pearl Harbor. Without the war, the Gators were expected to have a very good football team in 1942, building off a 4-6 season in which five of the six losses were by six or fewer points. In the final three games, the Gators beat Miami and Georgia then lost by three to UCLA.

By the time the 1942 season arrived, almost all of head coach Thomas Lieb’s players had joined the military, leaving behind guys who were either too young to enlist or who couldn’t pass the military physical. Meanwhile up at Georgia, Wally Butts had the dream team assembled. Georgia had one of the best ROTC programs in the country and was chosen for a Navy Pre-Flight program. Butts already had a stacked roster, but players poured in from around the country. The roster included “Flatfoot” Frankie Sinkwich, who would win the Heisman Trophy; Charlie Trippi, who would win MVP of the 1943 Rose Bowl and probably should have won the Heisman in 1946 when he came back from military service; George Poschner, an All-American end who became a war hero at the Battle of the Bulge; and Gene Ellenson, a great defensive lineman who would win a pair of Silver Stars for heroism at the Battle of the Bulge and would later become the defensive coordinator at the University of Florida.

By the time the annual Florida-Georgia game rolled around (played at Fairfield Stadium in Jacksonville), the Gators had lost three straight games and all hope for a decent season had long since evaporated. Georgia, meanwhile, had won seven in a row and arrived in Jacksonville fresh off a 21-10 win over 3rd-ranked Alabama. No one in his right mind gave the Gators a chance and for good reason.

The game was never in doubt but Butts saw no reason to put his second and third teamers in the game. Sinkwich, Trippi, Poschner and Ellenson were still in the game late in the fourth quarter. The final score was 75-0. Florida finished the season 3-7 and wouldn’t have a break even season again until 1948. Georgia won the Rose Bowl and a piece of the national championship.

My dad and other Gators I talked to who were part of that greatest generation that went on to serve our nation and win a war in Europe and the Pacific, never forgot how Wally Butts chose to humiliate the Gators when it was obvious UF could offer little to no resistance. Every single one of them was bitter and the mention of Wally Butts made their blood boil.

2. THE 1968 GAME:

Florida was picked in the preseason to win the SEC for the first time and finish top five nationally. The season began well with four straight wins and a #7 ranking but on a rainy day in Chapel Hill the Gators lost seven fumbles and lost to North Carolina. The bottom fell out of the season that day. The Gators tied Vanderbilt in Nashville, then lost to Auburn on Homecoming. By the time the Georgia game arrived, UF was 4-2-1 and in a downward trajectory while Georgia was 5-0-2 and heading for its second SEC championship under Vince Dooley.

Florida’s issues had much to do with a quarterback controversy that divided the team almost straight down the middle. Half the team wanted Larry Rentz while the other half wanted Jackie Eckdahl. Defensive players were angry because they thought the offensive players were selfish to allow such a controversy to split loyalties.

Adding to the problems, play caller and offensive backfield coach Fred Pancoast was hospitalized for an appendectomy a few days before the game. Feeling the need to shake up the team head coach Ray Graves decided to swap coordinators. Ed Kensler went over to the defense and Gene Ellenson became the offensive coordinator. About the only thing that was shaken up was the team’s confidence.

Game day was cold, rainy and downright miserable. I was working for the Gainesville Sun at that time but press box space at the old Gator Bowl was limited. My boss, Joe Halberstein, got me a ticket to watch but I wasn’t there to write. By the second quarter, my rain gear was completely inadequate, I was soaked to the core and freezing.

On the field, 9th-ranked Georgia, quarterbacked by Mike Cavan and led by defensive studs Bill Stanfill, Jake Scott and Happy Dicks (that’s not a misprint), was in a seek and destroy mode. It was 41-0 at the half. The Florida offense didn’t cross the 50 until the third quarter.

In the last minute of the game, already ahead 48-0 and facing a fourth down, one of the centers on the Georgia team approached Dooley and told him he hadn’t kicked a field goal since high school. Dooley called time out, sent his center in to kick the field goal that nailed down the final humiliation points in a 51-0 beatdown that will go down as one of the worst in Florida football history.

As was his habit on Saturdays upon seeing the Florida football score, San Francisco 49ers backup QB Steve Spurrier called Ellenson to talk about the game. If you’ve ever wondered why Spurrier was obsessed with running up the score on Georgia whenever he had the chance, the conversation he had with Coach Ellenson is the reason.

Remember when Spurrier ran it up in Athens in 1995? Do you remember Eric Kresser throwing two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, the last one with 1:21 remaining that put the Gators ahead 52-17? Remember Spurrier saying he wanted to be the first coach to hang “half a hundred” on Georgia in Sanford Stadium? Think back to 1968 and you’ve got the reason. Coach Ellenson wasn’t alive for Spurrier to call with congratulations but a call was made to Coach Graves to say this one’s for you.

3. THE PROBATION YEARS:

Okay, we’ll start with the obvious. Florida got nailed by the NCAA not just once, but twice. The first time, the Gators were hit with 109 violations, some of them as heinous as Dale Dorminey getting an extra T-shirt, a pack of Juicy Fruit and a Sprite. Hanging offenses! Now there were some violations that were pretty bad, but the majority were of the nickel and dime variety. For that Charley Pell was fired and the SEC championship the 1984 Gators won on the field was forfeited (more on that later). The second probation was for Galen Hall allegedly paying a month or so of child support for Jarvis Williams.

At the same time the NCAA dropped the hammer on Florida (two years of probation without TV; maximum 12 in recruiting classes for consecutive years), Florida State, Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia all got slaps on the wrist. You see, the NCAA is quite selective about who it chooses to punish. For landing Herschel Walker, allegedly sold to the highest bidder, Georgia lost two scholarships, a small price to pay for perhaps the greatest college football player of all time who led Georgia to one national and three SEC championships. It turns out that at the time the Georgia was being investigated, Vince Dooley was chairman of the NCAA television committee. Just a coincidence that Georgia was basically given a pass, right? There are rumors that persist that Dooley lobbied long and hard to ensure Georgia’s transgressions were light.

Georgia fans will tell you Vince Dooley is a man of the highest possible integrity, so explain why Georgia went on football probation three times (1965, 1978, 1982) while he was the coach and again in 1997 while he was the AD. He’s the guy who hired Hugh Durham and Jim Harrick, who both put Georgia basketball in the NCAA jailhouse.

Dooley is also the same guy who allowed a serious academic fraud scandal to go on right under his nose. Google Jan Kemp sometime and read the details about how she got fired because she wouldn’t give athletes passing grades. She was fired but she sued and won a $1.08 million settlement.

All this is relevant for Gators because Vince Dooley was among the leaders of the vote to strip Florida of the 1984 SEC title won on the field.

Years ago, I did a magazine article with College Football Hall of Famer and Gator great Wilber Marshall. When we got around to the subject of recruiting Wilber said, “I went to Florida because it was close to home and I’m a mama’s boy. I didn’t go there because they paid me to go but other schools made offers – some big offers – some of the same teams that voted to strip the SEC championship from us in 1984. You would go on recruiting trips and some fat cat booster would let you know what you could expect. That was pretty common then.”

I mentioned Georgia. Wilber just laughed rather sarcastically.

The second probation was meted out on the 1990 team even though no one on that first Steve Spurrier-coached team was even on the UF roster when Galen allegedly paid the child support for Jarvis Williams. Galen has always denied he did it. There were stories that he did pay the cash but the next morning Jarvis’ mom drove over from Palatka to pay him back. None of that was ever substantiated. What’s interesting is the NCAA never offered any real proof that Galen had done it.

For that alleged crime, Galen was fired during the 1989 season. The Florida AD at the time (Bill Arnsparger) was unwilling to fight the allegations and was all too quick to fire Galen. He saw this as an opportunity to hire Mike Archer and would have if powerful people like Ben Hill Griffin hadn’t put him in his place.

Florida was banned from a bowl game in 1990 and was not allowed to claim the SEC title even though the Gators won it on the field. The SEC title ban was decided by a vote of SEC athletic directors and you’ll never guess in a million years who led the charge to make certain UF didn’t get that championship.

If you answered Vince Dooley, then you win the kewpie doll.

Punishment should always fit the crime. It could be argued that what Florida did in 1984 deserved time in the NCAA jailhouse, but if that’s the case, why was Florida’s punishment so tough and the punishment to FSU (a couple of scholarships lost), Tennessee (something similar) and Georgia nothing more than a pop on the fanny and the NCAA saying “be good boys and don’t do this again”?

And why was it so important for Vince Dooley, whose cheating that was exposed in 1965 helped Georgia win SEC titles in 1966 and 1968, to make every effort to strip Florida of the 1984 title and prevent the Gators from winning it in 1990? Dooley wanted to keep Florida down as long as he could and might have succeeded except that he hired Ray Goff to succeed him and Spurrier was hired over Arnsparger’s objections.

Hiring Spurrier changed everything and tilted the rivalry advantages strongly in Florida’s favor. The Head Ball Coach understood the hypocrisy and he knew the history. That has everything to do with why he took such delight in sticking it to Georgia (11 wins in 12 years; average margin of victory 23.36 points) every chance he got. Ron Zook beat Georgia two out of three and might have made it 3-3 if he hadn’t been fired the Monday prior to the 2004 Georgia game. He still almost won that one. As a Spurrier assistant for five years (1991-95) Zook was well versed in what beating Georgia meant and why it was so important. Urban Meyer wasn’t around for the Spurrier years but he understood it too. He beat Georgia five times in six seasons. He knew all about the recruiting advantages for beating Georgia and he had been well versed in the history of the rivalry.

It’s been quite a dry spell since Urban left in 2010. The Gators have won only three times since and the rivalry has tilted back in Georgia’s favor. Too many Florida fans have lost the necessary zeal to put Georgia back in its place. Too many Florida fans have forgotten why it’s so important to not only beat Georgia but dominate this series.

My dad died in 1986 having never seen the Gators win a single SEC championship in either football or basketball. Until the day he died he took particular delight in the Gators whacking Georgia no matter the sport, but he took real delight whenever the Gators beat Georgia in football. I share in that delight mostly because I was there at the 1968 game. I sat there

freezing in the rain, wondering why Vince Dooley would go out of his way to humiliate a team that was already so soundly beaten. I remain friends with Charley Pell’s widow, Ward Pell, who was, is and will always be a Gator at heart. Ward despises Georgia with all her being. She remembers what Vince Dooley did. You should, too. I remember what happened to Spurrier in 1990. It still grates at me.

It all adds up to one thing. I despise Georgia with my every breath I take. I think you should too.