SB Nation User Blog: fotodog

UGA VI Passes

fotodog — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:57:40 -0000

from Josh Kendall, Dawg Post

ATHENS – Uga VI, Georgia’s beloved English bulldog mascot, died Friday night in Savannah, Cecelia Seiler confirmed to Dawg Post Contributor Josh Kendall on Saturday morning.

“He didn’t suffer,” Seiler said of her 10-year-old dog. “He lived right here in my den with me for 10 years. He was a happy dog.”

Uga VII’s readiness to take the field for the 2008 football season is a topic for school officials, Cecilia Seiler said, and none could be reached immediately Saturday morning.

Sonny Seiler, whose family has owned all the dogs, was at his office Saturday morning, his wife said, and could not be reached for comment or to add details on the dog’s death.

Uga VI took the reins from Uga V early in the 1999 season. He turned 10 in July and would have been the only one of the dogs other than Uga I to serve past his 10th birthday.

The line of mascots has long garnered national attention, culminating with Uga V’s appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which named Uga as the nation’s best mascot.

UGA football great Rauch dead at 80

fotodog — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:23:06 -0000

From Athens Banner Herald:

By Lee Shearer

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
John Rauch, one of the University of Georgia's greatest football players, has died at the age of 80.

Rauch died unexpectedly in his sleep late Tuesday night at home in Oldsmar, Fla., said Jane Rauch, his wife of nearly 61 years.

When his four-year college football career was over in 1948, quarterback Rauch was the NCAA's career passing leader with 4,044 yards and had led UGA to two Southeastern Conference championships and four consecutive bowl games.

After a brief stint playing professional football, Rauch began a long career in college and professional coaching, including tenures as head coach of the Oakland Raiders and the Buffalo Bills.

In 1967, Rauch was named the American Football League's Coach of the Year after taking the team to the AFL championship and the second Super Bowl. The Raiders lost to Green Bay in Vince Lombardi's last game as the Packers' coach.

He is survived by his wife, a son, a daughter, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Published ion OnlineAthens.com on 061108

I want to have my say too

fotodog — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:55:22 -0000

As SG Standard noted the blogosphere can be likened to sports talk radio. While there is probably less screening of commenters on blogs, if you have listened to any talk radio for 15 minutes, you have definitely heard some lame callers. And with blogs, you don't have to deal with "Hey, Paul, love the show, how are you?", which begins EVERY freakin' call (if the last 5 callers asked, you don't have to ask also).

And as MaconDawg noted, the best bloggers usually rise to the top and get the most traffic. People who offer something more than just the ordinary opinion or schlock, get readers (just like newspapers or viewers for TV).

And as Joel noted, there is definitely a misconception that all journalist are qualified professionals. As a J-school grad, I can tell you that the only things a "professional journalist" learns that someone else might not learn is:

What makes something newsworthy?
Make sure you find a second or multiple sources.
Laws regarding slander and libel
Writing techniques, like using active voice

Frankly, the newsworthiness standard has been blurred when you consider all the "news" that gets espoused on various media outlets.
I think some of the blogosphere does come short on #2 at times, but there are some very responsible bloggers as well.
As Orson and the proprietor of this blog noted, just about all of you are lawyers, so hopefully you all understand libel and slander.
Finally, good writers will always attract readers.

But as SG Standard and DavetheDawg noted, probably the bigger issue is the massive change that is occurring in the media.

I agree with what most of Dave said. As someone who worked for 9 years in small and medium TV markets in the southeast, I can attest that ESPN has changed the face of local coverage of sports. I have argued with station management about this with little avail. Specifically, I remember when the station I was at decided to permanently drop the sports tease in the 6pm news. For those of you who don't know, that's when they are about to go to a commercial break after weather and say, "The Braves were in another game decided by 1-run, did it turn out like the other 1-run games this season? Fred will have the answer in sports." When I asked why the station had made this decision they said viewership in sports was down and so they weren't putting as much emphasis on it. My response was, "if you draw less attention to sports, it isn't going to gain any viewers. Why not try to improve the product?" There are 2 ways that most TV stations have addressed the sports issue caused by ESPN and the internet's emergence: 1) cut time allotted, cut staff and reduce coverage or 2) go more local in your coverage. Unfortunately, many stations chose the former. I prefer the latter. In big markets, this usually means a lot of stories about the local professional franchises, which ESPN may not have time for. In smaller markets, it means more coverage of local colleges and high school sports. If you haven't noticed, Friday nights in the fall are a big deal at some TV stations (thankfully).

But a more recent trend is the effect caused by the increase in the speed of information transmission. We can get info very fast these days and in news, being faster is important. Unfortunately, it is becoming more important that being right or being good. "Get it on now!" has replaced "Is this important?" or "Is this quality journalism?" And it is not just small market "bush league" stations that are guilty. If you watch the nightly news, you get coverage of a campaign chalked full of polls instead of coverage of issues (of course, you also get a hundred ads for pharmaceuticals, but that is another issues). I fear, and maybe Bob and Buzz do to, that journalism is in decline, as news operations have become assembly line purveyors of "fast food" information. Maybe the blogosphere does serve up its fair share of junk food, but it isn't any worse than what is becoming the norm in papers and on TV stations. I think rather than collectively bash the bloggers; maybe Bob and Buzz should talk a look at their brethren and focus on improving that group.

However, the blogoshere is subject to the pitfalls of the need for immediacy. Since many bloggers are not full-time journalist and writers, it is quite easy for someone to run with a story or photo without having good or complete info. While there is some need to prevent carelessness among bloggers, I think that in many cases, readers can discern what is true and what is not or what is farked.

As Kyle and others noted, there is room for the mainstream media and the blogosphere to work together or at least compliment each other. I think you only have to look at ESPN to see that is true. Like him or not, Simmons is a blogger working for "The Worldwide Leader...". And what is SportsNation, but a community much like that built up by Orson, Leitch, Bean, King, PWD and others.

Mac Users

fotodog — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:21:20 -0000

I use a Mac OS X and Safari to surf and lately I have been having problems, but I noticed most of them are related to this website. When ever I click on comments or try to link to another site from this page, my Safari inexplicably quits. Are there any other Mac users that experience this with Kyle's site.

(Obviously, if you can use links on Kyle's posts, they you lose the effect of reading Kyle's stuff).

Ole Miss Tradition

fotodog — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:36:48 -0000

I saw someone else comment on Ole Miss' tradition this week and basically they said, "I don't think there is another program out there with a more inflated sense of who they are in the world of college football." (I'm sure whoever said that had a momentary lapse of memory and forgot South Carolina, but I digress.)

Seriously though, what has Ole Miss done since JFK was in the White House?
Scanning the "History" page on their official website, I see 3 National Titles, which is great, but they were all between 1959-62.
The last of their 6 SEC titles was in 1963 (with a 7-1-2 record I might add).
The last bowl 2 of significance they went to were the Cotton Bowl in 2003 and the Gator Bowl in 1991. Since '91, it's mostly Independence, Liberty, Music/Motor City and such.
In the past 15 years, Ole Miss has posted a 98-89 (.524) record.
Overall, the have a record of 594-453-33 (.565) which ranks them 48th among Div 1-A schools (in there were San Diego St., Hawaii, Stanford and UNC).

So, I guess Ole Miss does have a tradition- a tradition of mediocrity. Sure, there was the OLD tradition of winning, one that doesn't count for much in today's college football landscape.

Why I am a Georgia fan

fotodog — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 14:59:49 -0000

After reading Kyle's piece on why he is a Georgia fan, I decided to write about my journey, which in a way is similar, but quite different.

Like Kyle and many others, family did play a part on my early fandom, but as I tell everyone, Bama was my first love, but I married Georgia.
My earliest memories come from living in Huntsville, Alabama, and that is when I first began following sports. My mother, father and uncle all went to Alabama, but probably more importantly, my great-uncle was a big Bama fan. Later, he would add a "Bama House" out behind his regular house that was filled with Daniel Moore's work and other memorabilia. This was the late 70s and the Bear was still alive and Bama was a powerhouse in football. So with that setting and the fact that Alabama is the most storied program in college football (don't let the Irish fans fool you), how could I not like the Crimson Tide.

We moved to (Kennesaw) Georgia, but I stayed a loyal Tide fan. Of course, it was at this time that UGA was peaking (early 80s) and so there was plenty of talk about the Dogs, Dooley and some guy named Herschel. My stepdad was also a Georgia grad, so our house was a blend of Georgia and Alabama stuff. Years went by and I stayed true to my school and it was pretty easy because if there is one thing a Dog and Tide fan can agree on, it's that Auburn sucks. And it seemed that more and more people in Atlanta were jumping on the Bo Jackson/War Eagle bandwagon, but not me.

Honestly, I didn't go to a college game until about 88, and it was a Georgia game; they played LSU. About a year later, I got my first taste of Alabama football, when the Crimson Tide took on the Hurricanes in the Sugar Bowl. The good guys lost.

Shortly after this it was time to figure out where I was going to go to school. I was going to major in International Business, so after weighing Tuscaloosa and Athens, I ended up in Georgia as an Alabama fan. But I wasn't the only one who spurned the Tide for the Dogs, Eric Zeier had also just become a Bulldog and so I figured that even if I wasn't at Alabama, a national title wouldn't be bad. I actually went to the Bama game in Tuscaloosa my freshman year with some family friends (Dog fans) and quietly rooted for the Tide as they beat the Dogs 10-0.

It was the end of my freshman year and I got a crazy idea that I wanted to work for the football team. It was a decision that changed my life. Thanks to the aforementioned Georiga family, I got a job as a Student Football Manager. So from the spring of my freshman year to the winter of my senior year, I was "part of the team." Georgia wooed my pretty hard that sophomore year- except for a 4th & 13 meltdown to Tennessee and a ill-timed Time Out in Jacksonville in a monsoon of a game, we would have been in the national title hunt. Still, it was a great season and I got to go to the Citrus Bowl for Geogia's win over Ohio State. After our game, I went to a bar at the Orange Blossom Station or something like that. I watched as the again underdog Crimson Tide took on the mighty Hurricanes. This one turned out a little different though. As I watched Alabama's defense smother Gino and his highly-touted WRs, I was amazed. As I watched Jay Barker only complete 2 passes, I was dumbfounded. After it was over, part of my wanted to cry (or at least transfer), but part of me was happy. I could still celebrate their victory- heck! we won too. That's when it happened. Like Caesar crossing the Rubicon, there was no turning back. Like when you find out that your first serious girlfriend gets married, you know it is over and if you truly loved her, you are happy for her. That's what happened to me. For better or worse, I was a Bulldog. We still had Zeier and some good players, next year would be our year (if only we knew how valuable Jack Swann and Mack Strong were to the team, if only Terrell would have stayed healthy, if only...).

If you are a believer in Christ, a true believer, which I wasn't at the time, you know that suffering is part of the Christian life. It is part of God's purpose. It is in the crucible that you can be made stronger. That was my next 2 years at Georgia, for every victory there was a either a heartbreaking loss (a la to Bama, in Jay Barker's best collegiate game ever) or butt-whoopin's from the Gators. Somehow through some of the darkest days in recent Georgia history, I became the fan I am today. Donnan offered a little more promise and a win over Florida and few over Tennessee. But then Richt took over the program and I knew it was 'til death do us part.

Honestly, most of the games are a blur. I was either following Dickey Clark or Ray Goff around with headsets or videoing the games for work after I graduated and worked for several TV stations, but I have seen some good ones- the first and longest OT game with Auburn and the can of whoop a$$ that we opened on LSU in '04.

Old flames warm our hearts with fleeting thoughts. Marriages take work and commitment, but the dividends are much greater. That's why as bad as losses to Vandy and Kentucky are, I wouldn't trade Georgia for all the Duboses, Prices, Frans and Shulas in the world.

Go Dogs!