Penn State hosts Oregon at Beaver Stadium with -3.5 odds and 52.5-53.5 totals. Gain insights and betting tips from previous matchups as Donnie and Joe preview!
As Georgia hosts Alabama on Saturday night in the SEC headliner, it jars my memory of my first experience covering a college football game for the Dothan Eagle. And it wasn’t from a press box view at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga.
, but instead from the upper deck. The date was Sept. 3, 1985, which was a Labor Day night – the season opener for both the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs.I was hired in May of that year by the sports editor at the time, Phil Paramore. During the summer, Phil, who later returned as a longtime columnist for the paper and a host of a popular sports talk radio show for many years, left for a job outside of the newspaper business. Ken Rogers, a true friend and one of the most talented writers to ever pen stories for our newspaper, was promoted to sports editor in what I believe was just his second year in the business. At some point in August, we realized credentials hadn’t been submitted by us to cover the big game. We were both new to all of this stuff. People are also reading… I called Georgia sports information director Claude Felton and asked – well begged – about obtaining some media passes. Felton informed me there was no more room in the press box – every seat was filled far in advance – but he did grant us a favor. Out of the goodness of his heart, the legendary Georgia SID said he could give us a couple of tickets to get in the game and then have us a pass to where we could go onto the sidelines with five minutes remaining, have access to the locker room and be able to get into press box afterwards to work.So, on that Monday morning, we buckled into the company car – yes, we actually had a company car at the time – and headed up 431 in hopes it would get us to Athens and back. Mind you, it wasn’t much of a car. We got to the Georgia campus mid-afternoon, parked somewhere downtown – we didn’t have a parking pass – and made our way to the stadium to pick up our tickets at the media will call window. Once in the upper deck on the press box side of the stadium, Ken pulled out his notebook and started keeping play-by-play among the Georgia fans all around us. He would handle the game story and I would do a sidebar with player reactions, thus my work wouldn’t really begin until the game completed. As the game was nearing the end, with Georgia looking in good shape to win, we made our way down to the sidelines, proudly showing our sideline passes to watch the final five minutes. What we witnessed was Mike Shula throwing a 17-yard touchdown pass to Al Bell with 15 seconds left in the game as Alabama rallied to beat Georgia 20-16 in one of the most memorable games in Crimson Tide football history.After making our way to the locker room – yes, media folks could actually go into the locker rooms back then – we got our interviews completed and then made a beeline to the press box to work. In 1985, we didn’t have any portable computers at the Dothan Eagle, thus we had to phone in our stories … dictate to someone back at the office. After completing the task, we found Felton and thanked him for graciously providing the tickets and access to the field, locker room and press box. He went far and beyond the call of duty so a couple of newbies could do their job. We drove back to Atlanta and stayed at what I seem to recall was a Ramada hotel near Fulton County Stadium, arriving in the wee hours of the morning to get a little rest before heading back to Dothan for work the next day. It was the first of many trips Ken and I made together covering Alabama football … thankfully from a press box the rest of the time. Jon Johnson is sports editor of the Dothan Eagle and can be reached at jjohnson@dothaneagle.com or 334.712.7965. Support his work and that of other Eagle journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at dothaneagle.com. Follow Jon Johnson on Twitter @eaglesportsed Follow Jon Johnson Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
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