The gift
The games can be so cruel. Five years ago, I was with a bunch of friends in my living room and the Georgia Bulldogs had the national championship all but won. We were up three on Alabama in overtime, and Alabama was facing second-and-26. It had been 37 years since the team I have always loved had won the title. I scooched to the edge of my chair. Three more plays and we could celebrate.
On the very next play, Alabama threw a 41-yard bomb to win the game.
I got up without saying a word and went to wash the dishes. That was as crushed as I’ve ever been as a sports fan.
Last night, Georgia beat TCU 65-7 to win its second national title in a row. It was such an unstoppable rout that many of you who watched turned off the TV halfway through. We did not. We savored every second until they started cleaning the confetti off the field.
By “we” I mean my old college crew. I was watching with Zane, one of my old college roommates, and his wife, Michelle. We were on a text thread with another roommate, David, and our UGA friends Kim and Ellen. We’ve been going to Georgia games, and watching them, and talking about them, for 40 years. These last two seasons have felt like … well, it’s like we socked money away for years and years, and looked up one day to find out we’re millionaires.
Many fans never get this kind of return on their investment. I am lucky to have grown up rooting for a team that has been very good over the years. But for so long we were the team that wilted in big games, the team that couldn’t beat our rivals when it counted, the team that had so much success but still somehow underachieved. The team that had Alabama second-and-26 and couldn’t close the deal.
Every team has an identity and every fan of that team takes it on as a part of themselves. We all know frontrunners who only cheer for teams that win all the time. We all know fans who gravitate to lovable losers. Being a Georgia fan, for so long, meant being good but not quite good enough. The eternal silver medal. There is a special heartbreak in that.
Last year was the healing moment for me. We lost to Alabama (again) in the SEC championship game, were losing to them (again) in the national championship game, but came back in the fourth quarter to win. That game buried all the almosts. I promised myself I wouldn’t be sad this season, no matter what happened.
Ohio State had a chance to beat us in the national semifinal. Their kicker missed a long field goal in a surreal moment as 2022 became 2023:
I was thrilled we won, of course, but I’ve felt what those Ohio State fans are still feeling. The games can be so cruel.
That game turned out to be the real hurdle. TCU had upset Michigan in the other semifinal, and that game used up whatever they had.
Early in the fourth quarter last night, with Georgia up by 45 points, coach Kirby Smart called a time out and pulled his quarterback, Stetson Bennett. (That’s him kissing the trophy in the photo above.) Stetson Bennett is a Lifetime movie. He’s from a little South Georgia town called Blackshear, about an hour from where I grew up. He joined the Georgia team without a football scholarship because he wanted to play there so bad. But he couldn’t get on the field and transferred to a Mississippi junior college. He made plans to move on to a different four-year school but Georgia offered him a scholarship to come back. He didn’t fully take over as the starter until another quarterback got hurt. As late as last year’s playoff, fans (including me) wondered if he should be benched. He ended up leading one of the great two-year runs in college football history.
He was never quite good enough, until all of a sudden he was.
There are arrogant fans—they’re not hard to find online—who never seem to be happy even when their team wins. They act like it was inevitable, or they’re still mad at being disrespected somehow, or they immediately start talking about winning again next year. Lord help you if you are one of those fans. It can be hard to tell in life if you are ever really winning, but in sports you get the clarity of knowing, without a doubt, when you have won. It is supposed to bring you joy. And after 40-some years of following the same team, you learn how long it can take for that joy to come. It is the best kind of gift: the one you had to wait for.
Man, you nailed it. Thanks, Tommy, for giving expression to a feeling so many of us share today. HBTD.
You couldn’t have said it better for Dawg fans.