I moved to Waycross, Georgia in winter of 1985.  In the 25 games played against the Georgia Bulldogs since that time, the Gators are 18-7 against our hated rivals.  I think I have done my job here and done it well so I now must move on.

In two weeks I will load the truck and head for the hills and become a resident of the state of Tennessee. I think the time is right because someone has to go there and watch out for the those toothless wonders and who better to do it than me.

Paris, Tennessee

Now, when I move into Paris on August 31, 2009 I will be greeted by another great Gator fan, my oldest son, Scott. It has been 14 years since I have been able to watch Gator games with him and now I can do that with him and my grandson, Jordan.

So sometimes when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade and I want to do that with my family in Tennessee.

I will miss south Georgia in some ways, it is a nice town and a great place to raise a family. My two sons enjoyed life here and stuck with being Gator fans even in the face of intense pressure from their peers. Of course, Steven Orr Spurrier helped us to endure Georgia with comfort and ease each November.

At our previous residence in Georgia every year our neighbor would hang his UGA banner from the front porch and just like clock work it would come down the day after the WLOCP. It was tradition.

I remember I was in a local store when a Dawg fan came up to me and told me that Spurrier had jus resigned. My computer was in the shop and I missed all the “done deals” that followed.  UGA fans were ecstatic, but soon found out that the house that Spurrier built had a foundation of granite.

I do not expect to be met with the same hostilities in Tennessee that I got in Georgia because Scott says the UT fans in that area are a little unsure of just what they have in the Kiffen guy. Of course, when they do eventually win the Vol fans will smile ear to ear and you will be able to see their tonsils.

I will arrive before the first games but then will travel to Missouri to see my other son get married. Thank goodness he scheduled the wedding on the date of Troy and not Tennessee.

With so much swirling around in my life these days it has been hard to sit and write a blog, then that is made even harder when I read the blogs of the other folks who write here. I am sort of the poor man’s blogger, but I do like to write.

My son Scott as he leads the music FBC, Paris.

So, when you hit your knees tonight say a little prayer for the Growl as I have a plate full of lemons right now and when I see my son in two weeks, the pitcher will be filled with fresh lemonade.

One of the first things I noticed when coming to the internet was the disdain that sports fans felt for the media in general.

Now, I heard over the years that folks did not like Howard Cosell or Curt Gowdy and then of course Brent Musberger became someone that folks went after on sports talk radio, but when I came to the internet it was like an angry mob going after the very folks who bought them the news, videos and pictures that they used to follow their teams.

I sort of equated it to a church member hating all preachers.

I guess I am just the opposite in this arena of media hate. From my earliest days of being able to read I always enjoyed the sports stories and the writings of any one who covered sports. I remember the first sports writer that I read on a regular basis was Bill Kastelz of the Florida Times Union.

In those days of course it was not the sports writer’s duty to bring much locker room or off the field stuff. A story about an athlete or coach was usually brought to the reader in a favorable light. The athletes and coaches were our heroes and it was the media’s job to report what fans wanted to hear.

I can remember a few things changing that along the way.

Roger Maris will pretty much trashed for not only breaking Babe Ruth’s single season home run record, but he had the nerve to also beat out everyone’s favorite Mickey Mantle. I can remember reading some stories back then on how the press was treating him and how it was even causing his hair to fall out.

Now I do not know if all this was more because he was going to beat the Babe or he was beating Mantle, but the sports writers used the excuse he was not colorful and that a player of his stature had no right to have the record.

I sided with Maris on this one and he is to this day, my favorite non-Gator athlete of all time.

That did not cause me to blame each and every writer and refuse to read their stories or listen to them on TV.

I think Jim Bouton’s book had as much to do with the undressing of stars that anything else. Some equate it to the Watergate era and such, but I believe the Watergate press was able to do what they did, because writers were already doing it with sports stars. If America was able to deal with falling stars in the sport’s world then what was a crooked politician or two.

Talk radio and the internet took the locker room out of the belly of the stadium and put it on the front page of the news. I mean with talk radio taking off and operating 24/7 there was only so many words about the games that could be spoken.  Reporters had to start digging and looking for news, often finding it, sometimes creating it.

Still though that is what sports reporters are paid to do, report on sports or (and this is the one that fans of teams really hate) write opinion pieces of their thinking.

While that might not be popular it sure did work for a long time.

So this is one of the areas that I really differ with my fellow Gator fans. I do not care that there is not a sports writer, commentator, analyst or studio host that is not crucified on a keyboard daily, I enjoy sports media.

Maybe it is because I have a life long wish that I would have pursued a skill of writing.  A good friend of mine, Gary Griffin who is editor of the local paper, is more like me that anyone I know of, as it relates to sports and media. The thing is though, he pursued his dream and I did not.

I love baseball, that does not mean I do not like football, but baseball takes me back to my youth and the love of all sports. So that phrase is one that I have heard for my entire sports life of 50 years (I am 56 for a few more weeks).

However that title is more appropriate for my stage in life. If I live to be 76 years old, which could happen, but might not, then I am indeed rounding the third quarter of my life and headed for home.

I am not a writer and do not claim to be, I do like to tell stories and remember what used to be and dream of what might be. The Lord has blessed me with a good memory and there are a lot of stories in me that I would love to talk about.

Most of those stories are as an observer and not a participant. Not only was I short coming up, but I was slow. When it was time to pick teams I was picked ahead of very few. However, I played hard and tried to win at everything…. even to a fault.

My little blog will not be all Gators, but I have a ton of Gator memories.  The first Gator game I saw on TV was against Penn State in December of 1962 with the Gators winning in an upset. I was hooked forever.

So, if you like poor writing, but good stories stay with me as I pass this time in my life as I am rounding third and headed for home.