Author: Lauren

When they define a perfect setting to a football game, exhibit number one from here on out will be Sept. 28, 2013 in Athens, Ga. Athens as a football destination is second to none. For myself it is my own miniature version of heaven. Between the beautiful city, vibrant downtown scene, and on-campus stadium Athens presents itself as a football fan’s dream. Combined with the ideal fall weather the setting for yesterday’s game was nothing short of ideal.

With my bride-to-be at my side, we made the short pilgrimage to Athens from Atlanta on Friday to see our first live game of the season: UGA vs. LSU. From the very beginning anyone could tell this weekend was going to be special regardless of rooting interest. LSU fans travel as well as any team, and it goes without question the fanaticism they have for all things purple and gold is unmatched. If you want to bet on either of these teams, you can easily do so online thanks to sites like rolet.

LSU’s fan base is perfectly represented by their coach, Les Miles. Immensely misunderstood, extremely passionate, and maybe not quite all there mentally are just a few ways of describing both coach and fans. LSU is one of the true blue bloods of the SEC. With their winning pedigree, they are a team that is always talked about as championship contenders. We’d need to help from everywhere in order for my beloved Red and Black to win.

Let this be said about UGA fans, most do not see this team through rose colored glasses. If it can go wrong, we expect it to happen. We are led by two men who receive more criticism than is probably warranted. Our head coach, Mark Richt, is often criticized for his strong and unwavering faith. Yes, in the South a man is criticized for his faith because many feel it gets in the way of what ‘truly’ matters in most families, football. With him is the starting QB for the Dawgs, Aaron Murray. Murray will likely break every performance record in the SEC this year yet his backup (he of no starts and very limited playing time) in the eyes of many fans, should be playing instead of Murray.

The game itself was full of implications. For UGA to remain in the National Championship conversation they must win out, plain and simple. LSU is trying to show they too should not be counted out just because they share a division with Alabama and TAMU. But the story goes so much deeper than that. As you’re probably well aware (I think CBS’s famed duo of Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson maybe have mentioned it a time or two) LSU’s starting QB was a former Dawg himself. Having grown up in the Athens area and with his mom working for Athletic Department, Zach Mettenberger always saw himself throwing touchdowns in Sanford Stadium. He just didn’t realize it’d be for a visiting team.

As with most SEC games (and seemingly every UGA game this season) this one was full of up and downs. At no time was either team up by more than one possession and that feeling of doubt was starting to creep into my mind. You see, I’ve been here before, along with thousands of other UGA fans. We’re always the bridesmaid and never the bride. So close, but not quite there. It is games like these that we’ve fell short on in the past. It is those games that have given rise to the issues I spoke about above. At some point in the last few years my mind, as some sort of a cruel defensive mechanism against getting too hopeful, I’ve started doubting everything that occurs on the football field.

Last year it was a tipped pass that left us just short of a National Championship birth. Earlier this year it was a dropped snapped for a game tying field goal. In this game it was Todd Gurley (the best player on the field no matter who UGA is playing) not returning to the game after an injury in the first half. These are but a few of many examples that UGA fans have had to suffer through over the years. While I certainly wasn’t alone in my thinking I, along with the rest of the crowd, tried our mightiest to impact this game, doubt be damned. The ability of a crowd to effect a game may not exist in the NFL (minus Seattle and New Orleans occasionally) but it certainly does at the college levels. The passion and constant noise from the Sanford Stadium crowd was as great as I’ve ever personally experienced. Given that I was in the student section for the UGA vs. Auburn game in 2007 (the famous Blackout Game, just search YouTube for reference) those were words I’d never expected to write. Such was the constant noise that our own defense was negatively affected by it.

So the game is winding down, a game that is proving to be a microcosm of my UGA fandom, and nothing is settled. UGA has just scored; the crowd is in a frenzy. LSU does nothing but go backwards on 1st and 2nd down leaving them with a 3rd down and 22 yards — a distance that is generally insurmountable. UGA needs one more stop and the game is effectively over. Of course that didn’t happen, and the doubt creeps back in. LSU capitalizes and scores, because nothing is ever as easy as you’d like it.

In comes Aaron Murray and even with the previously mentioned accolades many had to be doubting he had the ability to lead the team to the win. And then the fun began. Murray and UGA (I’m remiss to have taken this long to mention just how awesome the rest of the offense has been all game) continue what they’ve been doing all game long, carving up the LSU defense en route to what would be the game winning touchdown, but still that doubt. Until the clock hit 0:00 (and there were still fireworks to be had) the doubt remained. A minute later it’s 4th and 10 and an incompletion by LSU seals it.

Oh if Larry Munson were to describe the scene (something I won’t even attempt to do). I personally hugged no less than a dozen grown men (much to the chagrin of my fiancée) and am pretty sure saw a few others crying. This wasn’t a game that guaranteed anything. It’s only September after all and there are still many more months of football to be played, yet the relief was evident in so many, fans and players. Fans weren’t running to the exits; instead, many were staying to continue the celebration with the team. Sure the game was won by the team, but they’d be the first to say the fans carried them as well.

As the fans finally started to dissipate the band kept playing, not wanting to lose the feeling. I don’t blame them. While this was just one game, and football is just a sport, it is truly a religion to many of the 92,000 who made their way inside Sanford Stadium that night. If security would have allowed, I might never have left. Fans would celebrate all over Athens until the sun came up (quite literally in some cases). The famous chapel bell would ring all night. As for myself, I was content to just sit, relax, and smile. My fiancée, while local to Atlanta has never taken to football the way many have. She often questions my ‘fall religion’ but even she in that moment had to understand my emotions.

The season is young but UGA has made it through the early gauntlet and remains in control of their own destiny. I can’t ask for much else. See you next time between the hedges.

Jarred Bussert graduated from the University of Georgia in 2007 with his Bachelor’s in Real Estate from the Terry College of Business. You can find him in a red polo most Saturdays in the fall.

Pretty Southern got a makeover this week, and with it will come a few changes. We’re thrilled to be a part of the Southern Blog Society! We also have integrated some stellar social media functionality so y’all can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram just by clicking in the sidebar below. On Friday afternoons, we’ll have a new series “This Week in the South” where we’ll bring y’all a few updates from happenings south of the Mason Dixon line. As always, if there’s any news you’d like to contribute, just holler at Pretty Southern on Twitter. Now let’s get to our week in review as we wrap up the last of September.

Stillhouse recently opened in the heart of Buckhead’s bar district and is a welcome addition to the neighborhood. We attended their media party with our pal Katy from Kitchen Casual, where we met two of our new favorite bartenders in the A-town: Nicholas Bustos and Alec Dunlop. Stillhouse is located on the first floor of East Andrews and walkable to dozens of bars in the neighborhood. Go get your shine on with some moonshine cocktails (featured is the blueberry thyme moonshine with ruby red grapefruit juice) then soak it up with a juicy burger.

Aaron Chewning’s “Base Lines” music video celebrating the Atlanta Braves clinching the NL East has reached 400,000+ views on YouTube. The local Atlanta photographer/videographer/media maven partnered with the ladies of the Braves’ Tomahawk Team, Javy Lopez, local rapper Austin Miles, and of course the Braves’ mascot Homer to parody Robin Thicke’s popular “Blurred Lines”. We wish the Braves luck heading into the playoffs.

Wednesday, Sept. 24, was a tragic day for the Bulldog nation. Paul Oliver — a former UGA cornerback — was found dead at his home in Marietta, Ga., after he took his own life. It’s an absolute tragedy. When he was a senior at Harrison High School in 2002, Oliver was a Parade All-American and one of the top-ranked defensive backs in the nation. He went pro in 2007 and played with the San Diego Chargers until 2011. We’re praying for the Oliver family and friends during this tough time.

“It’s heartbreaking for me personally, for our staff, for the Bulldog Nation I’m sure, and obviously for his family,” said Georgia head coach Mark Richt. “I was crushed (Wednesday) morning when I heard it…We’ve got to find a way to reach out and help in any way we can. If there’s some way that the Bulldog Nation can rally around that family I hope everybody would be encouraged to do so.”

Love the Dawgs, y’all. Every one of them. Whether they’re playing in the NFL, are out of the game, or donning their silver britches for tomorrow’s match up against LSU: it’s time to awaken the Bulldog Nation. Have an amazing weekend, and GO DAWGS!

Awaken The Nation from Georgia Football on Vimeo.

On Oct. 8, Margarett Mitchell will be inducted into the Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame. Obviously here at PrettySouthern.com we’re raving fan’s of Mitchell’s work and our first Southern media maven. For those folks who don’t know, the best storyline of Gone With the Wind is neither about Scarlett O’Hara nor Rhett Butler — it’s the author Margaret Mitchell’s very own life story.

Born in Atlanta on Nov. 8, 1900, Margaret Mitchell spent her childhood listening to the war stories of Confederate veterans. They told her everything about the Civil War except that the South had lost. She found that out when she was 10 years old.

Before leaving for Smith College in 1918, Mitchell fell in love With Lieutenant Clifford Henry, a Harvard undergraduate training for active duty in World War I at Camp Gordon in Atlanta. In 1919, shortly after she learned Henry had been killed in action in France, her mother became ill and Margaret rushed home. She did not make it back in time to see her mother, and she stayed on to take care of her father and brother.

Mitchell had many suitors, but Red Upshaw and John Marsh came to the fore as serious potential husbands. She got a job as the first woman to cover hard news for The Atlanta Journal, and married Upshaw. The marriage was short – Upshaw was a bootlegger and alcoholic. John Marsh, her other serious suitor, returned. They married and remained so until her death.

Mitchell was forced to quit her job at The Atlanta Journal because of problems With her ankles and feet. Bedridden, she read voraciously and began work on what her friends called ‘the great American novel.’

She showed the finished manuscript, all 1,037 pages of it, to a visiting New York publisher, and on June 10, 1936, Gone With the Wind was published.

By October of that year, Gone With the Wind had sold one million copies, and David O. Selznick bought the rights for $50,000. At the time, it was the highest price ever paid by Hollywood for the rights to a first novel.

Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. In 1939, Atlanta hosted the premier of one of the most popular movies of all time, Gone With the Wind, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

On Aug. 11, 1949, while crossing Peachtree and 13th streets close to her home, Margaret Mitchell was struck by an off-duty cab driver, and died five days later. She was buried in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery with the rest of her family.

Many years earlier, in an interview with her publisher, she was asked what  Gone With the Wind was about. She said ‘If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently, just as able, strong and brave go under?

“It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive – others don’t. What qualities are in those who fight their way thought triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under. I only know that survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption.’

“So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn’t.” (1936)

Gumption a.k.a. spirited initiative and resourcefulness. Much like her heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, Margaret Mitchell had gumption in spades.