Georgia National Championship rewind: 'Chaos in its totality' in Athens
Georgia’s National Championship celebration still lingers in and around Downtown Athens.
A month later, the eyes of anyone on the Classic City’s streets that night still gleam at the thought.
Even if (especially if?) they witnessed and dodged an airborne traffic barrel.
Most of the constituents on College Ave weren’t yet gleams in eyes themselves the last time Georgia won a National Championship.
(Neither was the author of these words. My gleaming eyes were in Indianapolis. You can read my account here, when you’re done with this one.)
But it didn’t matter.
These undergrads saw enough defeat in their own time to know what a Georgia National Championship meant
They heard enough about Georgia’s 41-year drought. And they knew how to celebrate the downpour that washed it away.
“I was at the last National Championship when we played Alabama, physically,” said senior communications major Lindsey Tate.
“I saw them lose with my own eyes, and I was so heartbroken. This was redemption.”
The payback party started in places you’d expect: a bar or a friend’s downtown apartment.
Pauley’s bartender and fifth-year environmental science major Patrick Walker described the scene in a way only Georgia fans can appreciate.
“It sounded like a kennel to be honest,” Walker said behind the same bar that rocked with rabid Dawgs a month earlier.
“Everybody was screaming their heads off… people jumping up and down.”
Not unlike Kirby Smart’s reaction to Kelee Ringo’s pick-six that sealed Georgia’s National Championship.
Smart himself compared videos of the celebration to a Widespread Panic concert.
“First thing I thought of was Widespread Panic in 1994 or whatever it was,” Smart said.
“I was like, ‘there’s people on signs. There’s people on poles. You can’t see the street.’ I didn’t even know where it was. But was pretty blown away. Hopefully everybody was safe.”
Narrator: Everybody was not safe
“Chaos. Chaos in its totality,” Walker recalls.
A month after Georgia’s National Championship, those in attendance can laugh about the chaos.
The wildest Dawgs turned the intersection of College Ave. and Clayton St. into an exhibition of unhinged mania that would bring Johnny Knoxville out of retirement.
“Climbing on the tables, on the light posts, on the port-a-potties, it was hilarious,” Tate said.
When Larry Munson said, “Man, is there gonna be some property destroyed tonight!” after the 1980 Georgia-Florida game, do you think he had port-a-potties in mind?
“Oh my gosh, they climbed on the Arches too. All the cars just stopped. I thought they were honking at us because they were mad, but they all just got out and got on their own roofs.”
Undergrads aren’t allowed to walk under the Arch on Broad Street before they graduate. Tradition maintains it’s bad luck.
Tradition doesn’t say a thing about climbing over the top.
The city removed several old Darlington Oaks, Ginkgos and Red Maples from Downtown Athens to make way for something called a ‘streetscape project.’
I miss the hell out of them.
But if they weren’t gone already, I’m not sure they would have survived the night of January 10, into the morning of January 11, 2022.
The traffic barrels surrounding the trees’ former street corners didn’t stand a chance, either
Third-year finance major JP Fernandez got out while the gettin’ was good.
“I just came out of Moonshine (you’ll be flummoxed to learn that this is the name of a bar downtown),” Fernandez said.
“Right when we won, everybody was spraying drinks at the bar and everything. Everybody was running out… People were throwing all these traffic cones and everything. I decided not to get into all that.”
JP didn’t have to be a numbers whiz kid to calculate the right call there.
Sources tell me a mix of sociology and civil engineering majors started Downtown Athens’ infamous barrel battle.
I am working to confirm this information.
Even in the chaos, there’s nothing like Downtown Athens on a Georgia National Championship night to unite the masses
The barrels are restored to their posts.
The crushed port-a-potty went away. There’s a new one there now.
Athens still stands, as does the Arch.
The Classic City took a lickin’ when Georgia’s Alabama nightmare ended.
Its current inhabitants couldn’t be prouder that it’s still tickin’ after a night that brought them all together.
“It was really just everybody coming together,” said third-year political science major Wilson Johnson.
“Everybody was having a good time. It didn’t matter if you knew who you were partying with or whatnot. It was really cool to experience it with a big group of people.”
“People you know from class, people you know from work, it was so fun. Everyone was celebrating the same thing,” said Tate.
“It felt very unified. Dawgs.”
Dawgs, indeed.
Not every reveler can recount everything they did or saw that night.
But the walls and streets of Athens will always remember 33-18.
