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Saturday, February 28, 2009

Saturday Quick Links (2/28)

This will be the only post for today, but here are a handful of links to tide you over for the weekend...

-- First off, in keeping with the tradition of the past two days, I've got to wish a happy birthday to my dad, who no doubt will celebrate by doing some maintenance on the house or possibly washing the cars. Although I'm sure there will be a dinner at a Mexican restaurant mixed in there somewhere.

-- Who wants to set the over/under on how many more times we'll see this story in the next 10 years: Quincy Carter was arrested Friday and charged with DUI and possession of marijuana.

-- Georgia's assistant coaches got a bump in pay. While Searels, Bobo and Garner got a measurable increase, none are making Monte Kiffin money, nor should they expect to in the near future. While a few other schools -- like UT -- have increased pay for assistants, Damon Evans doesn't seem too concerned with following the trend.

"We want to keep up with the marketplace. Three institutions don't setthe marketplace from my standpoint. They have to do what they feel isappropriate for them, but what I like to do is look at the big pictureand see where everyone is big picture and ask, where is Georgia in thatmarketplace: Lower, middle or upper? Wherever we are, do we feelcomfortable with where we are? That's the question I have to answerevery day. I tend to believe that we have kept our coaches in a goodposition in the marketplace." -- Damon Evans, from our interview earlier this month.

-- Georgia baseball got off to a strong start for their weekend series in Arizona.

-- According to the AJC, Georgia has made an offer to Joe Montana's son for 2010.

-- The Red & Black had a good story on Friday about a Georgia gymnast who might be the Gym Dogs' answer to Tim Tebow.

-- Malcolm David Kelly, who plays Walt on "Lost" says he'd like to return to the show full time. I hope he does because, given all the time they spent developing his character in Season 1, it would be a shame to leave that story as a dead end.

-- I linked yesterday to a story by Jim Sheeler from the Rocky Mountain News, which I'm hoping many of you took the time to read. Yesterday, he posted a column discussing the demise of his newspaper and the legacy it will leave behind. I'd suggest adding this to your weekend reading list, too.

I also had two items I meant to link to yesterday, but forgot...

-- Here's a run down, with full video, of the 20 strangest celebrity interviews of all time. If I worked in an office, this might be exactly the type of thing I'd waste my entire Monday morning looking at.

-- And finally, this story happened to catch my eye on Thursday: Texas retired the jersey of Kevin Durant, who played just one season in Austin and didn't even lead the Longhorns to the Final Four.

First off, I'll say that Texas supposedly has a tradition that if someone wins national player of the year honors, he automatically gets his jersey retired. OK, that's fine. But I have trouble getting behind the idea of hanging a jersey in the rafters of a player who didn't a.) win or b.) come close to graduating.

Of course, the obvious name that popped into my head after reading this was Matthew Stafford. Like Durant, he came to school with big expectations, managed to take Georgia to its highest end-of-season ranking in nearly 20 years and helped the Dawgs land a preseason No. 1 for the first time ever. He etched his name pretty high up on the Dawgs' career and single-season passing records and he won a bunch of games.

In the end, however, he never won the big one, and he didn't stick around for four years. So... would you ever consider retiring Stafford's jersey?

And continuing on that train of thought... only four Bulldogs have ever had their jersey retired, and none since Herschel Walker.

So, who else do you think should have their jersey number forever hanging above the field rather than being worn on it? David Greene? David Pollack? Hines Ward? Let's hear your thoughts.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

No chance of Stafford's jersey being retired. It is laughable to even mention that. He ranks behind David Greene, DJ Shockley, Fran Tarkenton and Johnny Rauch, AT LEAST, on the list of UGA QB's, and there could certainly be arguments made for Ray Goff and Eric Zeier, among others to be ahead of Stafford as well.

Staff had a decent career, but NFL potential has absolutely nothing to do with college legend status (see Tebow, Tim; Frazier, Tommie; Wuerfful, Danny). Stafford is not even close to being a UGA "legend." After three seasons here, you simply scratch your head and say "was that it?"

As far as jersey retirement, I thought that Pollack should have had his retired, but being a talk-radio host in Atlanta dimishes his status significantly. Three time All-American, though, is pretty heady, and most who saw him play would argue that he is the greatest college defensive player they have ever seen.

I think you could make a convincing argument for Greene, as well, because it is going to be tough for his all-time wins record to be broken until CFB goes to the 15 game schedule,which they inevitably will, to the detriment of the "student-athletes" who will probably be receiving payment by then.

Anonymous said...

DH - first off, love the blog. Second, they no longer retire jerseys at UGA, instead inducting players into a UGA "Ring of Honor". Third, no way does Stafford get inducted. If a player leaves early for the NFL, they have to have at least won something (team title or Heisman or some other big honor or notable achievement).

David Hale said...

Good thoughts, Anon. I guess I was really asking about Stafford more rhetorically as he relates to Durant. I mean, I wouldn't suggest retiring either jersey.

My guess is that if you polled 100 UGA fans and said only one more jersey would be retired, the overwhelming vote would be for Pollack.

Anonymous said...

As for the recent grads (Pollack, Greene, Ward, C. Bailey), not sure if any of them qualify for jersey retirement. It would have to be someone who was a good player who won the Heisman and/or lead us to the Nat. Championship.

What I would LOVE to see, however, is Pollack's #47 be rotated to a current player who epitimizes Pollack's work ethic, drive, character, and tenacity. Similar to what Syracuse does with #44 and from what I recall LSU now does with #18. Would be a nice unofficial honor that would indirectly keep Pollack's greatness front and center for the team and the fans year after year.

David Hale said...

Love that thought, Anon. I always liked that Syracuse did that with '44' and thought that became such a great honor both to guys like Jim Brown and Ernie Davis, but also the current player selected to wear it. Sadly, in another bit of ridiculous pandering, Syracuse officially retired the number a few years back. I blame Nike.

MikeInValdosta said...

At the time there was great debate on Walker's 34 because he left school early. Obviously, no one should ever be allowed to wear 34 for the Dawgs (in any sport) but I do think graduating, or completing your eligibility, should be a requirement for this type of honor.

As long as Pollack does not end in a police blotter, he gets my vote for ring of honor and any other type of honor we can dream up. That guy was what it is all about. He was worth the price of admission every Saturday. He impacted defensively in the same manner Herschel did offensively.

There are many more players deserving consideration (David Greene) but I would never want to diminish the honor by over populating it.

Anonymous said...

I'm all for doing something like what UNC basketball does with some of their "honored jerseys". Hang the number, but still allow it to be used. The numbers we've got retired are the only ones we should have retired (and really, I'm not sure Theron Sapp's should have been). Jersey retirement at UGA has to be a monumental achievement. But, Pollack's 47 and Greene's 14 should be honored in some way. I also liked the idea of using some of these numbers the way Syracuse used to use #44, back when they played college football.