Five years after Dennis Felton left Western Kentucky to take over the Georgia program, his successor Darrin Horn will reportedly leave the Hilltoppers for South Carolina.

Horn was 111-48 in those five seasons, and his team reached the Sweet 16 this year before falling to UCLA.

Bye, now.

Our old friend Dink NeSmith has just been named to the Georgia Board of Regents as the 10th Congressional District’s representative.

You probably remember that Georgia conceded the removal of the Sanford Stadium hedges in order to host soccer events for the 1996 Olympics. The field had to be widened at the corners to meet specifications, and the hedges were in the way.

That decision produced a minor outcry, but officials reassured the public that replacement hedges would be grown offsite and ready. In fact, they claimed, the existing hedges were facing trouble from parasites and would need to be replaced anyway. With those assurances, Georgia fans were placated, and the new hedges did indeed grow back in thick and full…until the 2000 Tennessee game.

It looks as if they pulled one over on us.

At a recent roast for former Athens mayor Gwen O’Looney, the conspiracy that reached all the way to the top of the Athletic Department and University was revealed:

While supporters said (O’Looney) brought a new openness to government, she was a party to at least one white lie. Former University of Georgia President Chuck Knapp recalled bringing an Olympics official, "a Middle Eastern potentate," to Sanford Stadium to convince him to play soccer there at the 1996 Atlanta games.

The official loved the stadium, but there was a catch.

"There is one minor problem," Knapp quoted the official as saying. "You’ll have to remove those bushes."

O’Looney, Knapp and former football coach Vince Dooley, after consulting UGA horticulturalists, made up a fib that nematodes, a parasitic roundworm, had struck the famous hedges, and they had to be cut down.

Apparently Dooley was still living the lie two years later at a University Round Table in 1998:

The athletic director recounted the uproar among alumni over the advent of women’s Olympic soccer in the stadium and the quest to cure the hedges of killer nematodes infesting the famous privet.
”We sent a couple of nematode experts over there,” he said. The hedges were removed and regrown with cuttings. ”We replaced them with Hedges II,” he said.

Though the playoff proposal got tabled, another issue raised by UGA President Michael Adams will get a closer look from the NCAA.

The Division I Board of Directors at its January 14 meeting approved the formation of a presidential task force to examine issues of commercialism and student-athlete well-being associated with athletics, including postseason football.

The Board issued a statement which said in part that, “the NCAA Board agreed the issues of presidential leadership and commercialism, identified in President Adams’ communication, especially deserve further discussion.”

One wonders what the outcome of this task force will be. When most of us complain about the crass commercialism surrounding bowl games, we’re talking about television broadcasts that last until the rooster crows three times the following morning. But “commercialism” can mean many things from corporate sponsorships to the gifts given to participating players.

On the other hand, TV deals fuel the bowls which fuel the BCS conferences, and, as we’ve seen every time this subject comes up, the conferences aren’t in a hurry to get off the gravy train. A conclusion that “less commercialism” means “give us just as much money but be less visible” will probably get the same response from the networks and sponsors as the playoff proposal got from the conferences.

They have a ways to go to catch up with East Cobb schools, but with over 100 applicants to the University of Georgia this year, Highland Park High School is turning Red and Black. Over 20% of the senior class has applied to follow Matthew Stafford 850 miles east to Athens. That puts UGA third in number of applications behind Texas and TCU and ahead of such in-state options as Texas A&M.

In a statement probably not quite endorsed by UGA admissions, Stafford explains, “I think people realize Georgia is a good school to watch football and have a good time, just like in Highland Park.”

Photo: Athens Banner-Herald

The celebration back on campus was a bit too much for the Chapel bell to take:

The yoke that holds the 172-year-old bell in place broke Saturday night as fans clanged to celebrate the Bulldogs’ 42-30 win over the University of Florida.

The bell fell to a wooden platform inside its tower and no one was injured, but the break ended the ringing to celebrate a rare win over the Gators, only the third Georgia win in the last 18 games between the two teams.

The bell should be repaired and back in place in time for this weekend’s game, but go easy on it – more permanent repairs are going to be required after the football season.

Kudos to Doug Roberts and the UGA welding shop for the quick fix. Kinda sucks when tech support from the original manufacturer hasn’t been available for over 50 years.

Photo: Athens Banner-Herald

Most any UGA alum with a bit of age on them has an Allen’s story. Whether we were a regular for Wednesday night with the Normaltown Flyers or just stopped in for a burger after a football game, many of us enjoyed that unique experience. It was right down the street for much of my college career. The notorious Prince Avenue dive closed at the end of 2003 and was demolished.

UGA alum Mark Hammond is among those trying to bring Allen’s back now at a location near Oglethorpe and Hawthorne (near the Athens "Y"). Their story is covered today in the Banner-Herald.

The new location seems to be a bit questionable. Though the original wasn’t downtown, it was still very much a neighborhood kind of place there in Normaltown – an area of Athens with a very distinct identity and sense of community. I have no doubt that they’ll do what they can to make it seem familiar, but a new location in an out-of-the-way strip mall is a bit of a stretch. It sounds as if they’re banking on nostalgia to draw people back, and that’s a tough thing to recapture.

The relationship Allen’s had with Foxz reminds me of another away-from-downtown pair of Athens restaurants that have fallen on hard times. Steverino’s and Sons of Italy on Lumpkin used to pack them in during the 1990s. Impossible parking and all, everyone spent time there. Now Son’s has moved to the Spot of Death near Milledge and the Athens Perimeter where seemingly dozens of restaurants have failed. Are they even open yet? Then Steverino’s closed and eventually re-opened with new owners. But the two individually are much less than the whole, and seeing that one-time hotspot wither has been as bad as seeing Allen’s go.

I hope the new Allen’s succeeds and is true to the concept. After all, Allen’s is the place where I met my fiancée during its last month, and I hated to see it close. We’ll at least stop by and give the new location a try.

Remember Tony Cole? Sure you do. You thought we were rid of him. But in a case going back five years, former UGA student Tiffany Williams has only just now settled a $25 million lawsuit against the University related to a 2002 assault claim against Cole, basketball player Steve Thomas, and football player Brandon Williams. According to the Red and Black, “Williams argued school officials endangered her by recruiting Cole, despite knowledge of his history of sexual misconduct.”

The settlement is reported to be six-figures.

Unless I’m mistaken, this settlement is the last bit of unfinished business involving the stain of Cole upon the University. Good riddance. Thanks Jim & Jim.

It’s been about a year and a half since University of Georgia students approved a fee to construct "Tate 2 ", an expansion of the Tate Student Center at the heart of campus. (Students of my era can relate to a fee for a building – the SPACENTER, now the Ramsey Center – which wouldn’t be finished until we were long gone.) After a delay, groundbreaking finally took place on the project on Thursday.

Though the plans have been scaled back a bit, the concept is still the same. The first phase will be to build a 500-space parking deck in the lot (N11) below the bookstore and adjacent to the Tate Center. Once that parking deck is completed, it will become operational as the Tate Expansion is constructed on top of it. If you think about the landscape in that area, it makes sense…there’s a big slope from the new Student Learning Center down to Tanyard Creek (the location of the Dawg Walk), so the top of this "underground" parking deck will be at ground level for the bookstore and Student Learning Center.

The project will transform the area that has become, thanks to the Dawg Walk, the "front door" to Sanford Stadium. Once the parking deck is completed, the remainder of the parking spaces in Dawg Walk Land will be converted into green space as part of a rehabilitation of the Tanyard Creek area. Original plans even included a "Dawg Walk Overlook" on top of the new parking deck next to the Tate Expansion. You have to see the conceptual drawings to really understand the project.

For those of us used to a sea of asphalt from the bookstore down to Gate 10, it will be a big chance to the central part of campus. The hulking Student Learning Center has already changed the look of the area, and this new development will take the next step. The original plans also call for a future "Alumni Development Center" along Lumpkin Street which will join with the Tate Expansion to mirror the SLC and create a plaza from the Baxter/Lumpkin intersection through to Sanford Drive.

If you’re reading this site, you’re probably more concerned with the impact on football than you are with the aesthetics of the campus master plan. The first obvious impact is parking. Once the project is completed, there will be a shiny new 500-space parking deck to replace the spaces lost to the new Tate Expansion and the green space along Tanyard Creek. In the meantime, those spaces at the site of the former UGA police headquarters and Stegeman Hall (lot N11) will be unavailable. While most of us don’t dream of parking that close to Sanford Stadium, the temporary loss of those spaces will probably push some of those with prime reserved spots further out into campus. The lot leading up to the stadium where the Dawg Walk takes place will remain until the deck is ready.

The broader impact to football fans will be to the gameday experience. If this is done right, I think the changes will eventually be very positive. The green space planned for the area could become a popular gathering area, assuming of course that UGA doesn’t claim it first as a "family-free-friendly" zone or allow the corporate tailgates to take over that prime space in close proximity to the stadium. Currently that entrance to the stadium is a massive parking lot in a bowl bordered by a creek that more closely resembles a drainage ditch. The Dawg Walk should be enhanced as fans can enjoy the plaza and not have to navigate parked cars in order to join in the experience.

The first letter here.

What’s really shameful is that the R&B decided to publish this letter. They allowed their editorial space to be used for a hit piece. Free speech my ass…the kiddies playing journalists at the R&B need a lesson in discretion.

In what’s seen as a compromise move, a University Council subcommittee has recommended that Georgia’s Fall Break be reduced to a single day, the Friday before Georgia-Florida. The extra day will allow Georgia students to break for the entire Thanksgiving week.

We’ll see how many professors give pop quizzes on that Thursday. Malcolm Adams (no relation) still isn’t happy. “I think it’s ludicrous to have a holiday associated with a football game,” he huffed. The World’s Largest Outdoor Soda and Chips Bash will still go on, we hear.

No word yet on how far Georgia has risen in the U.S. News and World Report rankings after this bold move.

Since Adam and Eve, the appeal of the forbidden fruit hasn’t changed. The best thing that can happen to an entertainer now is to have some authoritative stuffed shirt try to silence them, and acts from Elvis to Marilyn Manson have made successful careers out of cashing in on controversy.

So when UGA President Michael Adams put out a weak request that CBS drop references to the “World’s Greatest Outdoor Cocktail Party”, it was predictable that the outcome would be to give fresh legs to the previously-stale nickname for the Georgia-Florida game. I can’t recall seeing very much merchandise or many promotional items in Jacksonville in recent years using the name, but that’s all going to change thanks to Dr. Adams. Watch the explosion of t-shirts and banners and anything a merchant can slap the “WLOCP” name on this season.

The ABH wonders correctly just what would change if everyone did agree to drop the nickname. Nothing, of course. Fans would still enjoy a beach weekend. Students (shhhh…don’t tell) would still leave during the week to head down. And, yes, even a spirited foot-ball contest with patrons picnicking behind their automobiles would still take place. Call it what you’d like; I’ll still be on Amelia Island for a week with some fishing, beach time, and the Dawgs.

Why go after the Cocktail Party? After all, it’s just an unofficial nickname used by fans and media. Unlike the Oklahoma-Texas Red River Shootout (which recently decided to drop the “Shootout” part), there is no sponsorship, trademark, or involvement from either school, and we know there would never be official sanction for the Cocktail Party.

The answer is perception. UGA is fighting an overzealous war of perception right now, and athletics is an easy target and foil. The war of perception begins with phrasing the issue as a question of athletics versus academic priorities (stop me if you’ve heard this before). Why…you wouldn’t want to be the yokel who would take the side of athletics over academics, would you? This is such a successful tactic that even Florida AD Jeremy Foley has to bluster about Florida’s stance on the issue. Hrm, um, well…we too would never want our proud University to be associated with something so base as a cocktail party (aside from the stadium suites, of course).

The climate on the UGA campus now is reactionary when it comes to academic reputation. A critical observation last year that UGA students might not spend as much time at study as their peers added to the disgrace of the Cole/Harrick scandal has the academic leadership hypersensitive to any perception that classes are too easy or that academic excellence is not the highest priority for the University. It’s silly to have to make this clarification, but the presence of other priorities outside of the serious pursuit of education – even if indulgent and fun – does not make the University into a diploma mill, and the recognition and enjoyment of those other priorities are not contrary to high academic standards.

But UGA must keep up appearances, and that’s exactly what’s going on. Window-dressing. UGA has seen lots of this lately as folks fall over each other showing how serious they are about academics. There’s the Key – a publication showing the grade distribution for professors used by some to find easier classes and professors. Instead of asking the professor to stop handing out As like candy, UGA will just stop publication of the Key and obscure the information. Perception. Window-dressing. Then there’s Fall Break. Students for decades have headed south for the Georgia-Florida weekend, and the semester system made it possible in the late 1990s to time a short midterm break to coincide with the Florida game. But that too has been attacked because of the perception that the game is more important than attending classes. You’re going to have a Fall Break regardless, and you’d think that timing that break around an event that’s important to much of the University community would be a wise application of common sense, but to the academic leadership it’s just another endorsement of the party school image. More window-dressing.

Kept within the small scope of University minutiae like Fall Break, this perception battle might be successful. We all want UGA to have a shining reputation in everything it does. This Cocktail Party story has become a national joke though, and it illustrates perfectly how ridiculous this climate has become. Georgia’s academic leadership now has a perception problem of their own as they become the butt of this joke – not the guardians of academic integrity but rather a bunch of stuck-up sourpusses who make Doug Neidermeyer seem like a fun guy.

Last weekend, the University of Georgia had a record number of First Honor Graduates – those who completed their degrees with a perfect 4.0 GPA. Over 40 graduates earned this honor. Given the tougher and tougher requirements for admission to the University, we might expect and celebrate this outcome. The quality of student is just better now, but I’m waiting for someone to use the record number of perfect GPAs as another example of how loose academic standards are at UGA. That’s just how things are now on campus, and the insecure pursuit of approval from God-knows-whom is getting pathetic.

If you hadn’t heard, the Redcoat Band leaves this weekend on a once-in-a-lifetime two-week tour of China.

The Redcoat Band China Tour Send-Off Concert
Friday, May 12, 2006
7:00 p.m.
Woodruff Field, (adjacent to Spec Towns Track)
No Admission Charge

Sponsored by the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, the Georgia Redcoat Marching Band will be the first collegiate marching band to perform in China. On Sunday, May 14, the Redcoats will depart on a historic 14-day performance tour. The entire University and Athens community is encouraged to join the Redcoat family, friends, and staff to give our band a rousing send-off.

Bring a folding chair or a blanket and gather on the hillside above the Woodruff practice field (adjacent to Spec Towns Track) for their final practice run-through. This will be your only chance to see the show that will be performed in six Chinese provincial capitols.

One of the major financial partners in this effort, Chick-Fil-A, will be there in case you get hungry during the concert. They will also bring the Chick-Fil-A cow.

Uga VI (known to be a huge fan of the Redcoats) will be in attendance to bark his approval.