I owe so much to our collective “home town.”
My fellow Bulldogs, there’s no easy way to start what will assuredly be a stream of conscious of many memories that occurred in Athens, Georgia.
First, I turned 30 on Saturday and the first thing I did was move to Durham, North Carolina. Aside from brief stints in Atlanta and Denver, I spent 10 of my 12 adult years in Clarke County.
I got very emotional over a span of several weeks after the decision was made. I have been heavily involved in the sports scene and the music scene since I got to Athens in August of 2013.
As I write this, I sit a four-minute walk from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park where the ACC baseball tourney is happening. When Georgia Tech plays tomorrow afternoon, I plan on walking around in Dawg gear head-to-toe just to be a jerk.
Before you ask: yes I’m going to go to so many Durham Bulls games.
My new home office is already plastered in Georgia memories and I still have to go get 75% of it from Athens this weekend, including:
- My football signed “To Garrett From Vince Dooley.”
- My entire freakin’ framed diploma with the corners of the frames stuffed with mementos.
- Some of those mementos include a ticket stub from Kirby’s First game at the helm against North Carolina in the Georgia Dome (RIP). Now I’m an Eason’s throw from Chapel Hill.
I made so many friends. I made so much music. I was a student assistant for the women’s basketball team and to this day I have never missed a shot in Stegeman. And that’s not because I’m 0-0, big flex I know.
I remember the first shot I took on the floor and, reader, let me tell you: there is no greater sound than swishing a three pointer in an empty arena that seats thousands.
I chose to stay after college, where I worked for several publications while bartending at the downtown Taco Stand (also RIP). What better place to focus on writing about sports and playing music than Athens, Georgia? That doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Lookin’ at you, Nashville and Austin…
Let’s start from the beginning.
When I was a wee lad (for those of you who know me, I know it’s hard to imagine me ever being anything other than 6’7” with a thick mustache), my family moved to Kennesaw from San Antonio. The local church dads were all Dawg fans so that was my first taste at four years old.
My older sisters all ended up attending UGA, so when I was in high school, I applied to one school and one school only: The Gosh Darn University Of Georgia. But let’s backtrack again.
I grew up watching the Dawgs but I did not attend a game until the 2007 season opener against Oklahoma State. I wore a black UGA hat, a plain red shirt, and tied a UGA logo flag around my neck like a cape. I was 12 and weird, okay? I was also already 5’10” so I looked more like I was 16 and weird. I digress.
To this day, it’s why I love Thomas Brown so much no matter where he goes. T-Brown scored the first touchdown I ever got to witness in Sanford Stadium, a place that would eventually become my football Valhalla.
The craziest part of that DAWGS WIN! day, however: I was 12 and didn’t have a cell phone yet. I was with one of my (to this day!) best buddies JP and his dad. Somehow, in a stadium of 93,000 people, I ran into my oldest sister and her now-husband, both DGD’s. Like, physically ran into them while turning a corner from the stairs.
Then I got to see my now brother-in-law rip a cigarette and drink a beer and cuss in front of his mom. I though he was the coolest dude ever…immediately. Anyway he’s a neurosurgeon now.
So now let’s jump up to high school. And I’ll be petty here.
Monday after the ill-fated 2012 SECCG, I’m rocking a Dawgs track jacket (one I still have and is in great shape!) to take a verbal beating with pride from the kids too dumb to even sniff Tuscaloosa’s campus.
I wear every loss as a Lucille Bluth saying “I’d rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona.”
Now it’s August 2013. I’m walking around Athens explaining to my new friends where things are because I already knew the town like the back of my hand.
It’s August 31st, 2013. I wake my skinny pale ass up at 5:00 to get to Clemson, eat, be merry. First game was a road game. And sure, a close-ish road game, but I’d have never forgiven myself had I not gone. And even with the loss, I’m so glad I did.
Next week: hosting Clowney’s Sakerlina Germcocks. I won’t recount the exciting win. I will sum it up in once sentence I have said since that very day in the west end zone:
I entered those gates a Georgia Bulldogs fan, I left the game an official damn Georgia Bulldog.
A few weeks later, I attended my first proper Athens concert. Georgia grad Washed Out (Earnest Greene, and not the offensive lineman) at the recently resurrected Georgia Theatre. I ran into two of my friends from high school while fully prepared to attend alone. It was magical.
The LSU game. Also west end zone. It was the first time I had the courage to call the Dawgs right before LSU’s final drive that ended in an incomplete LSU pass on 4th and a mile. I think 18 yard targeted toward OBJ. When the ball hit the ground, it may still be the loudest I’ve ever heard Sanford Stadium.
I bought my dad tickets for the App State game. On my fridge here in Durham is a picture of the last one I got to see with Papa Sherm: Georgia Tech in 2022. Shoutout to my parents who went to tiny schools and raised a litter of Bulldogs.
End of an injury-plagued season, yes I did the Trifecta. If you know, you know. I even pretended to flip the imaginary bat before I jogged the bases.
Next season: 2014 revenge Clemson game. I remember a guy in Clemson everything walking under the Arch and I sarcastically said “hey man now you can’t graduate!” His drunk ass said “I went to Clemson.” Gee, I couldn’t tell.
Todd Gurley punking them after Grady Jarrett said they’d keep our rushing game under 100 yards. Hahahahahahahahahaha nope.
2015: The worst 10-win football team of all time, but you could catch me outside Butts-Mehre with a sign that read “Thank You Coach Richt.”
2016: Sneaking into multiple VIP areas for free beers at the Georgia Dome because if you follow a group of tall guys who also are wearing UGA coach polos and act like you belong, you get free beer.
Sad part of 2016 but illustrates my mentality: losing the last regular season game as my last game as a student. I was the last person in the student section until security told me to leave.
The night I graduated, I did pull-ups on the Arch and belly flopped into the Herty Field fountain.
The day after I graduated, I got my second of now seven tattoos: The Arch is on my left wrist forever.
Now for the extraneous memories and post-college memories and words of thanks:
- The only fight I’ve gotten into at a football game involved an Auburn fan hitting my sister in the hip with his truck after we beat their Tiger tail in 2014 and getting out of his F-350 to reveal he was about 5’3” against my giant ass. Guess how that ended for him.
- Bartending and catching friendly fire from UGA fans because they didn’t have their ID’s and a Tennessee fan stepped in for me saying “He’s just doing his job!” I thanked him and his response was “I know we suck, I’m here to drink Coors and have a good time!”
- Special shouts out to every band I joined. Gin Runner, Odd Street, The Fine Hunnies, Ihlyatt, standing in for other guitarists/bassists, Persona Machine, and many that only lasted a few weeks.
- The first time I played the Georgia Theatre and the 40 Watt Club, it was not lost on me that I was standing where legends had stood.
- To all the employees at the 40 Watt and The Morton Theatre, thank you for letting me work with you. Working at The Fabulous 40 Watt Club for almost two years was among the greatest privileges of my 30 years and five days on this planet.
- To everyone who gave me a shot in the sports sphere…thank you.
- Mike Mills once slapped me on the knee and said “Good to see you again, Garrett” and all that was going through my head was “YOU ARE IN THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME” and “I WROTE A PAPER ON YOUR BASS TECHNIQUE IN THE SEVENTH GRADE.”
- I saw the impromptu R.E.M. reunion when all four of them we on stage for the same time in 17 years. They played (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville and I almost cried.
- Working with Drive By Truckers and getting to see their HQ. A few nights later P-Hood put his arm around me and said “Ain’t this cool?”
- Everyone in the UGA Music Business program leadership roles. The two Davids were and have been very nice to me.
- I once had a Mizzou fan say our journalism program is inferior because we don’t spell “dogs” correctly. I got a big grin on my face and just yelled M-I-Z-Z-O-U? Is that y’all?” Owned.
- I climbed almost every water tower in Athens, very clandestine.
- I’m very much a medium-to-big sized dog person. For example, my dog is a German Shorthaired Pointer. But I had one tiny dog named Dewey the Shih-Tzu who was the world’s most go-with-the-flow dog. I’d take him to Ben Burton park to hang out with his big dog friends and he loved every dog and every person, so watching lil Dewey Cox run and play with the big dogs was so fun. Dewey was also a DGD.
Ending on lucky number 13 because I, like Stet The Jet, feel so lucky to be placed in a situation such as mine and want to run with it. I’m one of the luckiest idiots on Earth.
I will leave you with this:
I got to ring the chapel bell after a banner. Not just one, but two in a row. I never thought I’d get to see one natty. I rang it once for myself and once for each of the fallen Dawgs in my life, one for my sister, one for my brother-in-law, one for each of my nieces.
My last act before I got another “life goes on” type of tattoo last weekend before I moved to Durham, North Carolina:
I rang the bell. A new type of graduation, so to speak.
Athens will always be the place that made me really understand what my real goals and real hobbies and real friends are.
This place needs me here to start.
This place is the beat of my heart.
Oh, my heart.
Oh, my heart.
See you soon. Go Dawgs.
Garrett “Gurt Sherm” Shearman
UGA c/o 2017