A.J. Green tipped the scales and made me a Dawg for life

A.J. Green’s three years in Athens coincided with my time at the University of Georgia. His excellence as a receiver turned me into a Dawg fan for life.

No, I did not grow up a fan of the Georgia Bulldogs.

For many people who know me, this sounds crazy. You could say a third of my wardrobe supports the Red and Black in some way, shape or form. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but there’s no doubt where my college football allegiances lie. Every day, I sip coffee out of a UGA mug and water out of a Georgia G Tervis Tumbler, patiently waiting for the first national championship of my lifetime.

Do I talk about them Dawgs all the time? Yes, but that wasn’t always the case. Like many of my millennial suburban Atlanta contemporaries, I’m the son of transplants. Better weather and economic opportunities brought people like my parents from the Midwest and Northeast to an exploding market like Atlanta in the early 1980s. I emerged in the final months of that decade.

With the Braves being the “Team of the ’90s”, baseball was my first love. I was a tad too young to remember Deion Sanders and Dominique Wilkins in Atlanta uniform, but their legacies were so impactful I quickly adopted their former teams as my own. The Dirty Birds and Michael Vick on the football field, as well as Steve Smith and Dikembe Mutombo on the hardwood, were my rewards.

And for a hot minute there, Ilya Kovalchuk made ice hockey a thing in the Dirty South. One time, he flipped a puck at me shortly before the first-period faceoff. I’m sure Blueland got drilled by the Carolina Hurricanes or somebody, but that puck was forever mine. I grinned from ear to ear for the rest of the night.

Foolishly, I thought I had all the teams I needed. I was content in having rooting interests in all four major professional sports leagues, and that’s it. My parents didn’t grow up in SEC territory, nor did they attend a major university with big-time college athletics. So I had no idea what I was in for when I got sunburnt at my first UGA football game as a student in 2008 vs. Georgia Southern.

Apparently, I took care of business enough in high school to get into the University of Georgia. With nearly a 4.0 GPA and the HOPE Scholarship on my side, Georgia was the place to be. Athens was home to a vibrant music scene and the best downtown bars any college town could ever hope to offer.

So I went to school in August 2008 with my sunburst Telecaster, clearly ripping off Jonny Greenwood, thinking I could front the next R.E.M., arriving in a town Herschel Walker made famous. I understood he was an Athenian Greek god. Too bad I was a dumb-ass 18-year-old rocking some cringe-worthy blonde wings over my ears who just didn’t get Georgia football.

But once I saw A.J. Green play, that changed everything for me.

Green and I were both members of the Class of 2012 at the University of Georgia. He was a top recruit for Mark Richt in 2008, hoping to become the next Terrence Edwards Between the Hedges.

Sure, there were other players of note in this recruiting class. Tavarres King went to high school with two of my fraternity brothers. Future NFL center Ben Jones was at UGA the same time as me. I was even in the same English class as Christian Robinson, the Florida Gators’ linebackers coach and Todd Grantham disciple.

Though there were many players I admired from the Sanford Stadium stands during my five seasons as an undergrad (you’re damn right I fought like hell to get that victory lap in 2012), no Dawg resonated with me the way Green did from 2008 to 2010.

What you have to remember is when I arrived on campus, UGA was coming off a Sugar Bowl trouncing of former Falcons coach June Jones‘ Hawaii Rainbow Warriors and a No. 2 final AP ranking. Mark Richt‘s team had stars all over the gridiron like Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and Rennie Curran. No wonder they were ranked No. 1 in the land to start 2008.

Though all three players were damn good Dawgs, I didn’t get to enjoy the magical 2007 season with them because I wasn’t yet a fan. While I did my best to buy in as a freshman, the humiliating Alabama Blackout game loss, the Tim Tebow shellacking down in Jacksonville and the death by triple-option in a rainy edition of Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate ultimately left me skeptical.

I was a Dawg, but only because I went to school there.

Stafford and Moreno went pro in 2009. Curran joined the NFL ranks a year later. Richt decided Joe Cox bided his time long enough to be 2009’s starter, so that was neat. I got through that year by pre-gaming the pre-game with my friends, but it was never enough to forget the Kentucky game…

Fate would have it the next time the Dawgs played the ‘Cats, everything would flip for me. Georgia games were no longer only a weekly social event for me to party with my friends. They eventually evolved into something deeper and much more meaningful. I will never forget that late October night in Lexington at Commonwealth Stadium, sitting in the Kentucky student section of all places.

2010 was the fall of my junior year. I didn’t care about grades, only about having a good time all the time. During Kentucky weekend from the year prior, brothers from my fraternity’s UK chapter came down to enjoy some…fine southern hospitality. We hosted a band party on Friday I barely remember and the UK guys went back home Sunday with a rare football victory over the Dawgs.

Flash forward to the 2010 Kentucky game. Many of us planned to make the trek up to Lexington and return the favor. Too bad it was the fall semester pledge class’ initiation the night before the SEC road game. People were bailing on the Kentucky trip left and right, but one of my best friends and I weren’t going to let our chapter down, no matter how little shuteye we got.

On a combined five hours of sleep, we hopped in his hand-me-down Cadillac and drove north up I-75, only stopping for gas and Chick-fil-A. We arrive mid-afternoon ready to see what Kentucky tailgates were all about. Let’s just say they were awesome, so awesome in fact that my fraternity brother and I got separated. My phone died and it was into the Kentucky student section I went.

I tried to play it off like I was a Kentucky bro’s cousin. Dressed in a black polo and red seersucker pants, I was fooling only myself. Instead of sitting in a tiny corner of the upper deck with the rest of Dawg Nation, I found myself in the lower bowl at the 20-yard-line with all of my new Kentucky friends. This was the game where Green outplayed Kentucky All-American Randall Cobb.

Georgia won 44-31 on that late October night, mostly because running back Washaun Ealey scored five touchdowns, but I could not take my eyes off Green. I knew he was going pro after his junior year, but this was the game I knew he’d be a top-five pick. I would have bet my life savings on that after the game, but I was still really into overdrafting my checking account back then.

Green was outperforming Cobb in a game where Aaron Murray only completed 9-of-12 passes for 113 yards, nearly all of them to Green. Though he didn’t find pay dirt that night, Green’s six catches for 86 yards was the underrated performance I needed to be forever convinced Georgia football was now the most important thing in my life, no matter what the Dawgs’ record was.

2010 was the year Georgia went 6-7 and lost to UCF in the Liberty Bowl. It was Richt’s only losing season in Athens, mostly because Green was suspended for the first four games for selling his autographed Independence Bowl jersey. It was stupid then and it’s even stupider now, considering all the changes on the horizon over players’ image and likeness. I want those four games back.

Because Green was suspended for the first third of the season and Murray was only a redshirt freshman, Georgia went 1-4 out of the gate with losses to unranked teams at Mississippi State and at Colorado. After the Mississippi State loss, Green returned and you know what? The Dawgs played better, even going on a three-game winning streak at one point.

Georgia would lose a heartbreaker in Jacksonville right after the Kentucky game. Still, it felt like the Dawgs were taking back control of their season almost entirely because of Green’s return. Had he have been able to play all 13 games in 2010, he would have certainly gone over 1,000 yards in his final year in Athens. He might have even ended up with the Biletnikoff Award for all we know.

Though the team got worse every season Green was at Georgia, my affinity for him as a No. 1 receiving option only grew. Georgia has had many great quarterbacks, running backs and tight ends over the years, but outstanding receivers have been hard to come by. Not since George Pickens arrived in Athens last year have I seen a UGA receiver who reminds me of Green.

I can still remember waking up on a couch in the Kentucky fraternity house with my brother ready to drive this hangover off back to Athens. Even though Chick-fil-A was closed and could not give us the sustenance we needed as drunken collegiate degenerates, we didn’t care. We saw Green put on a clinic for Kentucky football on what a first-round wide receiver actually looks like.

It was a crazy weekend, the type only a 21-year-old could survive. We were feeling optimistic. The Dawgs were back at .500. Florida didn’t have Tebow anymore. Most importantly, we had Green.

While anyone can be a fair-weather fan, I am forever grateful I got to see Green be a star on the football field that Saturday night in Kentucky. Even with 61,000 people in the stands, it felt like Green was playing for me, hoping I’d finally figure it out: That Georgia football was awesome, even when the team is having a rough go of it.

I came to Lexington on a Saturday afternoon as a drunk, obnoxious Georgia fan and left on Sunday morning with a greater appreciation for SEC football than I could have ever imagined.

Green made a Dawg fan for life out of me.

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