#34 - Go to a UGA Women's Basketball Game.....

I'm not a HUGE basketball fan, but because it has a ball in it, I can enjoy watching a game. I loved watching my nephews play in high school, and I try to catch UGA games on television every chance I get. The nail-biter yesterday to a team they were expected to dominate wasn't good for my blood pressure (they won in overtime). Even when I was in college, though, when I'm pretty sure it was either free or at least cheap, I never went to a UGA women's game. Until today.

When I bought the tickets, I had to schedule around the men's games and gymnastics, because I didn't want to drive to campus too many times in one week. I knew Hubby wouldn't want to go watch women play, but I figured I could bribe him if necessary. I can usually persuade him with the promise of eating at the Varsity. You'd have to be from Georgia to understand the attraction. It's greasy, you have to stand at a counter and order your food, and then you have to squeeze through the multitudes to find a seat in one of the rooms (rarely the one with the television on the channel I would like to see). Because it's always, always packed.

Hubby was out of town this weekend, though, so Katydid went to the game with me. I felt bad asking her to drive an hour to go to a basketball game on one of her few days off, but we met at the Varsity, and she's just as easily bribed as Hubby.

The UGA women's team has enjoyed greater success on a more consistent basis than the men's team. I promise I'm not going to give you a play-by-play of the entire game. UGA won over 'Bama by a comfortable 27 points. They led 10-0 at one point and never looked back. Sorry.....I neglected to take my camera.

I was reading about our coach, Andy Landers, before the game (because we were there an hour and a half early, literally the third and fourth people in the entire Coliseum), and I was in awe of what he has done with that program.

He came to UGA the same year I did, 1978, when he was only 26 years old. He's the only full-time women's basketball coach UGA has EVER had. EVER.

He has NEVER had a losing season. NEVER.

It was worth going to the game just to see him in action. He's very ... intense. He would get in the faces of his players, gesturing wildly and yelling. Not screaming, just making his point(s) very ... emphatically. He was doing that one time to one of his players seated on the bench, and I looked at the scoreboard. We were leading by 20 points. "Dude," I thought, "don't have a coronary when you're leading by 20." But I guess that's why he's never had a losing season.

Today was the game to raise money for breast cancer research, so our team was wearing pink. That looked strange, with Bama in their crimson and us in pink. Yet the refs still referred to the home team as "white" when calling ball possession. I guess it's too hard to retrain yourself for one game.

I wouldn't mind going to another Lady Dawgs game, but I wouldn't want to have season tickets. One sports obsession is all I can handle at a time.