While I searched for a job after graduating from the University of Georgia in 1995, I noticed that the Dawgs didn’t have much of a presence – official or unofficial – on the relatively new World Wide Web. There were several discussion groups on services like Prodigy, UseNet lists, and scattered e-mail distribution lists. But there wasn’t much on the Web, so I started a Dawg site for the hell of it on my personal account. I don’t remember the specific date I started, but I remember working on the site while the news of Jerry Garcia’s death came across the TV. I’m not an especially big Deadhead or anything, but the date stuck with me. It seems as good a date as any for the anniversary of this site.

August 9th, 1995. 11 years ago. We’ve been there for three Georgia football coaches, four basketball coaches, dozens of conference and national titles, and two URLs.

The site grew quickly. We got good behind-the-scenes reports from Jim Donnan’s first spring practices in 1996. We eventually had contributors writing on everything from football to hoops to baseball. We had the Daily Dawg which became the directory of Dawg news sources. It was very crude and very grassroots, but that was the nature of the medium. We were all learning. Several other Dawg sites sprang up, each with their own kind of speciality. The Anti-Orange Page captured perfectly what it meant to be a Georgia fan in a world of rivalries. The DawgVent quickly established itself as the place for discussion. The Grapevine became a must-visit site for Georgia recruitniks.

In 1998, the specialized news services started up. AllianceSports and Rivals (later to morph and twist and reincarnate into Rivals and Scout) started a healthy competition and arms race for the very focused target market of the passionate college sports fan. The role of disorganized grassroots coverage was fading, and I was glad to see this cottage industry established. I dove in myself, contributing frequently to UGASports.com over the years. Those sites take a lot of heat for being "amateurs" among journalists and letting fans run wild on message boards, but other media and even official team sites have been completely transformed in response to the innovations pioneered by companies like Rivals and Scout.

With the online news services establishing themselves, the mission of this site had to change. I bought the dawgsonline.com domain in 2000, and I abandoned the "breaking news" style while keeping the site as a place to write and reprint things I had written elsewhere. A blog, in other words. I had become familiar with the blog concept by reading some of the early pioneers like Dave Winer, but content management tools were so clumsy when I dove in. I tried writing my own system, and then I settled on a system called GrayMatter. It worked well but wasn’t maintained at all. I tried Blogger for a short time, used Moveable Type for a while, and now I’m happy using WordPress. A few things have been lost in the transitions, but some posts as far back as 2001 have been salvaged. I’ve recently found some content that’s older still and may post that again just so it’s not lost.

While I can’t help but be slightly amused by all of the sites congratulating themselves recently over a year or two online, I’m really happy that so many fan sites have been created. Some have become wildly successful in just a year – deservedly so. I’ve read so much good analysis, thought-provoking writing, and humor online over the past couple of years, and several of the writers are as good (if not better) than some who get paid to write about sports.

The one thing that most of us eventually realize is that it’s hard and sometimes even expensive to keep a personal site going over a long time. Motivation can come and go. Priorities and life circumstances change. But if the bug to write is there, you can work through that.

I agree with Stewart Mandel’s opinion here in an interview with HeismanPundit.

It’s another outlet for fans to express themselves, which is always good. I think it’s the next generation of the Rivals/Scout message boards, only now, instead of having to share space with 900 other posters, you can be your own columnist. And just like anything else, the best will rise to the top and gain more credibility.

Without sounding all populist and idealistic, that’s what this is all about – fans love to talk sports, and now they can connect. Someone with something to say now has very few obstacles to getting his thoughts out there. True, there’s a lot of crap out there now as a result, but Mandel’s point is right: the best will separate themselves.

I can’t begin to count the opportunities and personal rewards that have come from starting this site 11 years ago. I’ve been published on the Rivals.com national home page. I used my experience building the site to change careers – one of the best moves I’ve ever made. I’ve met some amazing people and made some great friends. I guess it comes down to one moment – circumstances put me on the sideline at the goalline ten feet away from where Michael Johnson caught the gamewinner against Auburn in 2002. It’s the moment I’ll probably remember most as a Dawg fan, and it probably wouldn’t have been possible had this site never existed.

RIP Jerry Garcia, and here’s to another 11 years.

Maurice Clarett…traffic stop…weapons…police chase…mace…stun gun…hatchet. bulletproof vest.

In other words, Wednesday.

Welcome to August.

No news is usually good news in the month before the season.

Suspensions, injuries, and generally bad news dominates the preseason coverage. Fans are just dreading each additional update, peeking with one eye to see if we survived this afternoon without losing another lineman. We’re so accustomed to the bad news that even good news can get turned around. Are the wide receivers looking good? Oh no! The secondary is toast!!! Is the offensive line playing like a brick wall? Noooooo!!! We have no pass rush!!!

The life of a football fan is a roller coaster of emotions, and there aren’t many ups in the preseason. We crest the hill during the first week of August and enter a freefall as the updates and bad news and potentially bad news and the good news that we’re sure is somehow bad comes flying past faster and faster until the season begins and we get that rush that makes us come back for the ride every year.

Injuries are an inevitable part of this time of year and the news we dread the most, especially when the injury is serious. The Dawgs seem to have recorded their first serious injury of preseason camp – UGASports.com reported today that redshirt freshman safety Antavious Coates is out for the year with an ACL injury. Coates also missed last season with an injury to his other knee. It’s really tough to see a promising career derailed like this two years running. Just one knee injury is enough to alter some careers, and he’s now dealing with two. We hope he can recover from this setback, because you can almost hear in his voice how much this hurts.

“I worked my butt off this summer and came here ready to play,” Coates said. “It’s hard.”

Even they know…

You’ve probably already heard that Picture Day is Saturday August 19th at Sanford Stadium. UGA has released some additional details. Some highlights:

• Picture Day will take place between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. The football team will be there between 3:00 and 5:00.
• You may only bring in one item to sign.
• Team locations: The Georgia offensive unit and Coach Mark Richt will be located throughout the North side concourse of Sanford Stadium between Sections 109-101 while the defense will be located on the Gate 6 Plaza between Sections 125-121. Other Georgia sports teams will be located between Sections 119-113 and the interactive games, concessions and merchandise will be located throughout the event. All activities associated with Picture Day will take place only on the 100 Level between Sections 125-101. Everyone must enter through Gate 6 on the southeast corner of the stadium.
• (Free) tickets are required for a photo with Coach Richt and UGA, and those will be available beginning at 9:00 a.m. at the East End Ticket Windows located off East Campus Road.

In the Palm Beach Post. Not so sure about the addictive bit, but there are a lot of regulars on the boards I’ve seen. In 10+ years of the DawgVent, you get a pretty tight-knit group of folks talking about the hobby they love above all, so I can see why people keep coming back. Now that the sites associated with the message boards update so frequently with team and recruiting news, there is an impulse to check it frequently just to keep up.

“Yet enough solid information has been offered that the boards can’t be ignored.”

Very true. There’s a lot of crap slung, but most developments in the Georgia program that I can remember have been mentioned on the boards first. The problem is knowing not to jump and overreact at every rumor and see how the facts play out. But I’ve seen enough to know that we just can’t be outright dismissive of them.

All I can say is that you’d be surprised who reads (and posts) on these things. The experiences mentioned on the FSU and UF boards have played out on ours several times over.

Just in time for the season, ToonDawg (or more appropriately TuneDawg!) has put Anti-Orange Radio back on the air. If heaven had a radio station, this is what they’d play. Just a few minutes of listening should have you ready to pack up the truck for gameday.

Last year, Andy Landers took his undermanned team up against defending champion Baylor in the season opener at the State Farm Tip-Off Classic. The Lady Dogs played well until the final minutes when their lack of post depth was painfully exposed.

This year, Georgia will once again participate in the State Farm Tip-Off Classic, hosted by Oklahoma, and will face Rutgers on November 12. Rutgers isn’t the defending champ, but they always have a good team and are coached by C. Vivian Stringer, one of the best there is. Rutgers lost superstar guard Cappie Pondexter to the WNBA, but they bring in a top-rated recruiting class headlined by high-scoring Epiphanny Prince.

This opener is just part of a typically-challenging Lady Dogs non-conference schedule which will also feature Stanford, Georgia Tech, and FSU.

The first coach’s poll has been released, and the Dawgs start off at #14. That projects to a nine or ten win season. As expected, Auburn, Florida, and LSU all start off ranked higher, and Ohio State is the preseason #1.

Perhaps my favorite Jamie Henderson play was at Arkansas in 2000 when he jumped an Arkansas pass early in the game and took it all the way back to start one of the more impressive routs in the Jim Donnan era. Love me some Pick Six.

Anyway, Henderson went on to the NFL and the New York Jets, and you might remember that his career was cut short by a motorcycle accident. Unlike Big Ben up in Pittsburgh, Henderson was wearing a helmet, and it probably saved his life. His injuries were severe thought and ended his NFL career. He was in a coma.

The happy ending is that Henderson has come back from that devastating accident to earn his degree from the University of Georgia this summer.

The NY Daily News has the story of his road to recovery. Well worth a read.

The Gainesville Sun reports that Georgia’s Sept. 2nd season opener against Western Kentucky will kick off at 12:30 and will be televised by the Lincoln Financial network (formerly JP Sports). The Dawgs move into that time slot because other schools, including Florida, didn’t want to change their kickoff times from the much later (and cooler) 6:00.

Damn, that’s gonna be early and hot, even for a season opener.

A lot of people are already all over the news that Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar has been dismissed from the team, allegedly for receiving "payment over an extended period of time in excess of time actually worked".

Certainly this story has implications everywhere from the national title hunt to the Heisman to at the very least the struggle for control of the Big 12 South.

The story demonstrates that discussions of amateurism and eligibility aren’t necessarily black-and-white. Of course we want student-athletes to work in order to earn spending money just like any other student. On the other hand, we don’t want rogue boosters paying them $10k+ for work they didn’t do. So we have oversight and rules. But it can (and should) be argued that this is much more a question of competitive fairness than it is about amatuerism.

Side note…it’s good to see Mark Schlabach in the middle of the story. He’s one of the better college football journalists (vs. columnists) out there.

HeismanPundit lists some early Heisman odds. Among them…Reggie Ball at 75-1. I’ll let HP’s comment stand alone:

Good Lord, he should not be anywhere near this list.

If you were among the Dawg fans at yesterday’s Atlanta Bulldog Club meeting at Colony Square, you probably noticed a lot of empty chairs. Many people chose to stand, but the room wasn’t packed by any stretch. For the first time in a while, attendence at the Road Tour was off quite a bit this year. I’m getting much the same story from other locations, including Macon, Roswell, and Jacksonville.

I’ll admit that for the first time in several years I decided to skip the Atlanta meeting. Why? To be honest, I kind of knew what to expect and didn’t see much point in fighting Atlanta traffic. I was pretty happy with what I heard at the Roswell meeting last month. As it turns out, I was able to see the meeting thanks to the free online broadcast via the athletic association’s gXtra service. As I watched the broadcast, I felt pretty justified in my decision to stay home. I think I can put my finger on a few reasons why the annual "rubber chicken circuit" is becoming less and less important to fans.

• Less-than-impressive organization and marketing. The athletic association just doesn’t seem interested in promoting the Bulldog Club events. Either they expect fans to find out the information on their own, or they expect the local clubs to handle their own promotion. If it weren’t for word-of-mouth on message boards and blogs, I don’t think many people would have known about the events at all. I’m hardly out of touch with Georgia athletics, and I had to dig to find information about a meeting in my area that featured Coach Richt but which wasn’t on the official Road Tour schedule. It’s a shame, because the technical aspects of the events are well-done. The videos are always entertaining. Last night’s meeting was broadcast online via gXtra. That takes some technical chops to pull off. Georgiadogs.com did promote the Atlanta meeting – on the day of the event.
  
• Fewer questions about the program. Let’s face it, the interest in the football program drives these events. The program is riding high with few core changes. Oh, of course there are some positional questions and the usual "how good will we be" or "what the heck happened against West Virginia" stuff, but fans are more or less confident that things will work out reasonably well. If there is a common question in this offseason, it’s "who’s going to be the quarterback?". Anyone with a shred of sense knows that question won’t be answered before preseason practices, so it’s not something on which we expect to gain much insight from the Road Tour. How many times can you hear Coach Richt say, "I don’t know who the quarterback will be."?
  
• Diluted and recycled information. Last night in Atlanta, Mark Richt was one of six speakers including three other coaches, Damon Evans, and an emcee. The format had him address some canned questions and then open the floor to some (mostly awful) fan questions, and his portion of the meeting took less than half an hour. You learned more about the program reading a transcript from SEC Media Days. I’m not criticizing Coach Richt for what he does or does not reveal at these events. It’s the nature of the event. He’s not going to reveal his super-secret depth chart that he’s been saving for this meeting, and he doesn’t want to be the next coach to put a foot in his mouth with a "55 years" comment. Many of the fans are tuned into the program year-round now thanks to the Internet, and a lot of the usual questions we have before a season have been dealt with over and over online. Since most of the Bulldog Club meetings follow more or less the same format, a good recap posted online from one event can be enough for most.

I understand that the Road Tour is an inconvenience for all. Richt starts fall camp in less than a week. Basketball coaches are in the middle of recruiting. The full fleet of interns there during the academic year probably isn’t around to help. But what it all adds up to is that the athletic association and the Bulldog Club system are just going through the motions now, and the empty seats show that fans are beginning to notice.

Am I missing something? What is the future of Bulldog Club meetings? Maybe it’s a good thing – these events have more or less turned into pep rallies, and the Bulldog Nation doesn’t need much of a pick-me-up these days. Despite the questions and uncertainties of a new season, Dawg fans have faith in their coach and have just maybe taken on a little bit of his relaxed confidence.

Dawg fan Al Daniels put together a great video montage to get you ready for the season. If you’re not jumping around by the end, check your pulse. No promises about this causing epileptic seizures. Kudos to Steve Patterson of UGASports.com for providing the bandwidth for this video.