I’m not a particularly superstitious person, but with all the talk this week about curses involving Georgia sports teams, maybe I should be.
It’s not that I’ve never been superstitious. Twenty or so years ago, I was in Athens for a Georgia-Clemson game. We went to the bookstore, and I bought a new golf shirt and changed into it in the restroom.
Georgia got blown out in that game. I never wore that shirt again. It stayed in the back of my closet for years until I donated it to a clothing drive.
Even in 2017 — when Georgia made its improbable run to the national championship game — I wore a new shirt to Notre Dame game, which Georgia won. I wore that shirt to every game for the rest of the season.
On the other hand, I wore that same shirt to Athens last Saturday and, well, you know what happened then.
It was an awful week for Georgia sports teams, and it has renewed talk that there’s a curse keeping the Braves, the Falcons, the Dawgs and the Yellow Jackets from winning it all. I don’t know that I really believe in the curse. But there’s evidence it exists.
In 1966, the Falcons played their first game in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, an exhibition against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Falcons were to kick off. The referee blew the whistle. The kicker, a fellow named Wade Thompson, approached the ball.
He whiffed it.
This year’s edition of the Falcons is 1-5 and they’ve lost in successive weeks to two of the worst teams in the NFL. I’m not sure if that’s the curse or the fact that the Falcons defense could stop the local peewee team.
In 1982, when the Braves were in first place with a seemingly insurmountable lead, Chief Noc-A-Homa’s teepee was removed from outfield bleachers so the team could sell more tickets. The Braves then lost 19 of their next 21 games and dropped to second place.
When Ted Turner, the owner of the team, ordered that the teepee be put back in place, the Braves went back to first place and won the Western division.
Fast forward to last week. The Braves, bending to pressure from a St. Louis Cardinals player, decided not to hand out foam tomahawks or do the Tomahawk Chop during the deciding Game 5 of the National League Divisional Series. The Cardinals went on to score a record 10 runs in the first inning, handing the Braves an embarrassing loss.
I’ve never bought into Georgia football being part of the curse. I thought it was more our inability to hire great coaches. Did anyone ever really think Ray Goff or Jim Donnan was going to bring a championship to Athens?
But then, just plays away from winning a national title in 2017, we gave up a second and 26 against Alabama. The next year, the best kicker in college football missed an easy field goal which might have iced the SEC Championship against Bama.
And then last week, with the mojo of the curse hanging heavy over the state, we had that embarrassment against South Carolina.
This week we have Kentucky. I’m still not sure about the curse. But just to be sure, along with the tables and food and cups and bourbon I’m taking, I’m also packing a horseshoe, a rabbit’s foot and a four-leaf clover.
I’d rather be safe than sorry.
