For the first time in 15 years, I stepped into Allen E. Paulson Stadium at Georgia Southern University last Saturday night...For some reason after I moved on to another tv job from Brunswick, I never did get back for a game...It was just too far of a drive from Alabama, Albany or Columbus, and other stuff came up...So when I returned to Savannah a couple of years ago, I planned to make the short drive for a game, but something else would always happen, and I never made it to Statesboro...It's a weak excuse, and you can just call me a bad alumnus...I vowed this season would be different...
I asked The Big Guy, a.k.a. our sports director Frank Sulkowski and GSU grad, if I could go to the game with him...I logged plays on the sideline as he shot, and what a fun night it was...
After getting there early enough to survey some of the tailgating, we then watched the convoy of yellow school buses carrying the Eagles arriving at the stadium...The first one driven by Coach Chris Hatcher...
Of course, that tradition started by the legendary coach Erk Russell...He still casts a mighty long shadow...It was three years ago today September 8, 2006, that Erk died at the age of 80...
I first saw Coach Russell during the summer of 1984 while attending Boys State at what was then Georgia Southern College...He gave a speech to the leadership/citizenship conference one afternoon on being dedicated and motivated to accomplish your goals in life...He summed it up nicely with four letters: GATA....Translation: Get After Their Asses....You can take that phrase and apply it to whatever you do in life...It's simple...Give it your all...Twenty five years later, those four letters are still visible all over campus...
I first stepped onto Glenn Bryant field about a year later while on the drumline for the Georgia Southern marching band...It was my freshman year at Georgia Southern, and it was an amazing experience...That season would end with the school's first national championship...The Thriller in Tacoma would be the first of three titles for Erk...
So on Saturday night, I turned back the clock a few years...As one side of the stadium chanted Georgia and other side replied Southern followed by Whose House? Our House!, all those good memories and great times raced through my mind...
It seems like only yesterday that I was in the stands as a young 18-year-old freshman with dreams of working in television...Funny how that worked out with me being a news anchor just a short drive down I-16 from the 'Boro...GSU and my professor, Mr. Kent Murray, prepared me well....I feel as if I have come full circle at Georgia Southern...From being a student to working at a television station in the Savannah market where we help teach interns from the Georgia Southern broadcasting department....
Back to the game between the Eagles and the Great Danes from Albany, New York...It alll came down to the final seconds...As the field goal put Georgia Southern ahead and the defense closed out the game, I can imagine somewhere above Erk smiled and lit a cigar to celebrate an Eagles victory...
What a return to Paulson Stadium...What a win for Georgia Southern...What a great night to be back in the cradle of Eagle nation...
Casey
cjones@wjcl.com
