I’m Fixing To Attend an Inaugural Football Game

I’m fixing to attend an inaugural football game.

It hadn’t happened since 1892 when the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech launched their first football teams, but last Thursday evening it happened again when Georgia State University (GSU) played its first game as a Division I team and defeated Shorter University 41-7.

GSU, with more than 31,000 students, is the state’s second largest university. The school began in 1913 with one room in one building and has expanded to more than 40 buildings in downtown Atlanta now.
I remember parking in a dirt parking lot in the late 1960s when I attended the school. To say they have come a long way would be putting it way too mildly.

GSU’s Head Football Coach, Bill Curry, is a hometown boy, played high school football at College Park, went on to play at Georgia Tech and with the Green Bay Packers and the Baltimore Colts. After his professional career he went on to be the head coach at Georgia Tech, Alabama and Kentucky.

After 14 years he has returned to the side line and has established Magnanimities for his GSU team: “We produce men of outstanding character, integrity and leadership who excel academically while winning football games and while striving always to exemplify greatness of heart and soul.”

I was fortunate enough to receive a media pass from GSU, and there I was at the Georgia Dome sitting on the 50-yard line in the press box, the best seat in the house when 99 Panthers came roaring onto the field as the crowd went bonkers.

Oh, yes, the crowd. There were 30,207 of them, even with the Braves playing at home that night and the Falcons on TV. After all, they had been waiting since 1913.

I forgot to mention there was a complimentary pasta and burger bar behind the press box, which I took advantage of prior to the kickoff, and they broke out buckets of popcorn at halftime.

After the national anthem was sung by GSU junior student Maria Valdez from Kennesaw Mountain High School, the game was under way and I got busy taking notes so I could accumulate some stats.

But at the end of the first quarter someone came by and passed out a printed play-by-play summary and a list of every statistic imaginable. That was when I realized that up here all I had to do was watch the game, eat, and maybe add a little color to the story.

Of the 99 players on the GSU team, 64 were from Georgia high schools. Of the four quarterbacks on the depth chart, two of them were from Georgia and two were from Florida, and there was no indication of who the starter would be until the offensive team took the field.

But when they did it was Drew Little from Henry County who ran the offense, and he went 13-17-0 in passing for 135 yards and two touchdowns.

Kelton Hill from Lithia Springs did see some action, and so did Bo Schlechter of Wellington, Fla., but that was as the punter.
Star Jackson, a transfer from Alabama was suspended for the first half for team punctuality violation (he was late), and saw no action in the game.

In a post game interview Coach Curry said he had seen enough to determine that Drew Little was his quarterback. He said he was pleased the team had no turnovers in the game, but that they had been practicing for two years.

He also told a story of how his team rises at 5 a.m. every morning and by 6:30 a.m. have eaten breakfast and are in pads and boarding the bus for practice. At this point he quoted Coach Vince Lombardi by saying, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Great physical conditioning is vital to victory.”

Even though the Panthers began their program with NAIA opponent Shorter University, their opponents escalate as the season progresses and their final opponent of the season will be Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The team will play as an Independent until 2012 when they will enter the Colonial Athletic Association.

It could be that something special is fixing to be in the works at GSU.