Today

I remember the Sportscenter highlight. It was an Alabama defensive touchdown. I remember daddy was pissed. And I remember thinking that I would like things to be different but I really didn’t understand. The date was September 30, 1995. And it was my first real, vivid memory of Georgia football fandom. I was 7 years old and our family had just that spring upgraded our 3 channel antenna TV to the cutting edge RCA, aka Directv, satellite service. I loved ESPN and Sportscenter. But all that I recall from this day were the highlights of a Georgia football game that I wasn’t old enough to even pay attention to. And an Alabama defender running into the end zone for a score. And a 31-0 graphic appearing that defined the stats in an Alabama victory over Georgia in Sanford Stadium. That was my first experience in this relationship with a team of “I don’t like that and please don’t make me feel that again.” In the coming years, despite the event, I embraced my Georgia fandom. Pining for a win over Tennessee that would finally come in October 2000. Celebrating the Robert Edwards game in a thumping of Florida in 1997, largely over a ride back to our deer camp clubhouse in Taliafero County from the tree stand in a Suzuki Samari while listening to Munson. In 8th grade, I chose to miss a fall break camping trip to watch the Tennessee game by myself mostly, only to shout obscenities when Travis Stephens took a screen pass to the house to put the Vols ahead with a minute left. A little something called the Hobnail boot play happened and erased all of that. That same season, I attended my first Georgia game in October against Kentucky. Jared Lorenzen had about 1200 yards of offense and we somehow won, 43-29. The Mark Richt years brought glory that I had never known. An SEC title in 2002. Another one in 2005 and I knew the glory days of Georgia fandom. The tables turn quick though. In 2006, I watched the Dawgs lose to both lowly Vandy and Kentucky. I did not know how to handle such pain as an 18 year old. As I started adulthood, my dad and I went to our first Cocktail Party in 2007. What a game to attend. Our entire team rushed the field, Stafford and Moreno played out of their minds and we won a shootout. I was in that same stadium a year later when we trailed Florida 49-3 at one point and Urban Meyer called all 3 timeouts with time running down in the 4th quarter just to rub it in. That same season, my brother and I sat dumbfounded as our team jogged to the locker room trailing Alabama 31-0 in Athens at halftime. That game was supposed to be the biggest in Athens history. We wore black to our own funeral, as we watched a new program take the torch in the SEC. Dog days lay ahead: a cold, rain-drenched defeat to Georgia Tech later in 2008; 2010 brought an actual losing season, which I personally saw come to an end in a half full Liberty Bowl on New Years Eve in Memphis as the Dawgs failed to score a touchdown against UCF. I was there for the Power Ranger opener in the Dome vs Boise. 2012 brought the potential for something I had never been close to witnessing. Jarvis Jones played out of his mind and almost single-handedly beat the undefeated Gators in Jacksonville. And in the Georgia dome on the first Saturday in December, Alec Ogletree scooped and blocked field goal off the Georgia Dome turf and returned it for a touchdown to put the Dawgs ahead  of Alabama 21-10, prompting everyone at the watch party I was at to run through the house and yard, losing our minds because we had just punched our ticket to a National title game. However, the Tide came back, and Chris Conley fell 5 yards short. 2013, 14, and 15 brought more ups and downs, and more close but no cigar moments. I’ll never forget sitting in my parents’ living room and reading Twitter that Mark Richt had been fired. It didn’t make sense. Yet it made all the sense in the world. The Kirby era started rocky for me. I went to the Nicholls State game. IYKYK. However, 2017 was that dream season that I had been waiting to see. I made the run with Deandre and Kirby against Auburn. And a few hours later, my good friend and I split our duties and did what we had to do: he bought game tickets and I booked airfare. We were going to the Rose Bowl. Much finer writers than I have documented January 1st, 2018 for Dawg fans. The pictures and videos that people will have saved on their devices for life are testament to that. I’ll just say, outside of my wedding day and the birthdays of my two kids, that is the most cherished day I think I’ve ever lived. What happened 6 days later can’t erase that. 2nd and 26 broke our hearts. It revealed our resolve too. I’m 34 years old. I’ve attended 65 Georgia football games. I can tell you the score to seemingly meaningless 2000s era games that gave me the greatest joys and some, the most terrible agonies. Say Mikey Henderson to a Georgia fan and watch him smile, or Rudi Johnson or Ben Cobb and watch him frown. It’s midnight. I’m over 400 miles from home in a strange, midwestern city where the wind chill is in the single digits. On this day, my team will play for a National Championship. I will be in attendance. Many Dawg fans share my experiences. Good or bad, they’re part of us. Some will shy away from giving in, noting the heartbreak of previous attempts. Some will put on a strong appearance in hopes of a good outcome. I choose to believe. These Dawgs have played with the state on their chest as good as any before them. They have our backs. If you are feeling that hesitation, let it go. If the outcome doesn’t go our way today, we have a team that will always be proudly remembered. If triple zeroes hit, and we are on the good side of things, they will never buy another meal in the state of Georgia. Believe. Coming from experience, it’s okay.

The risks for today's youth are many.  As I am entering the profession that I am, I feel like these risks are something that I should be fully aware of, and have a understanding in how to handle them.  As our population grows, and becomes larger, children are at risk of being "left behind" compared to others of their same age if they do not catch on quickly, and become acclimated to their environment, educationally and socially.  From an earlier age than ever, schools are starting to become more specialized in categorizing students in categories comparable to above average, average, and below average.  These students have their path in school chosen for them before they even have a chance to show any kind of improvement, or regression.  Kids who catch on quicker are streamlined into programs and classes that will hopefully advance them towards a college prep path.  Meanwhile, kids who start slower are put into a path that will hopefully lead them to finish high school, maybe with a few skills they can use in the real world.  As the population of America grows larger, schools are becoming filled over with students, and the pressure to do something different is being put to education officials.  They cannot turn students away.  They cannot just build newer schools overnight.  So the only logical thing is to determine from an early age who is who among students, separate them into streamlined paths based on their learning capability, and let the chips fall where they may.  There becomes a system where individual students are forgotten, as they are placed into the system and forgotten about.  The only way they are seen is by a test score on a piece of paper from a standardized test that everyone has taken.  This is a great risk to our students of present, and the future.  As educators, we must strive to be better than this.  Every child deserves a chance at a very good education and the situation that I have described here is not it.

The area where I grew up is much like Dahlonega and Lumpkin County. In Northwest Georgia in Chattooga County, the places and the people are very similar to here. Its a rural place and I lived in a rural area out in the country that provided a great place to grow up. My brother, my sister, and I, other than our mother, are actually the first members of our family to go to college. My family, for generations before me, all stayed close to home and usually worked some kind of labor job. The small, rural town I grew up only offers so many work options. Unless you worked a farm or on one, the only real work in Chattooga County is in either the rug mill or cotton mill. These jobs, while providing some income, did not lead to riches to say the least. This way of life, and places like Chattooga county, are a dying breed it seems. With manufacturing being outsourced, and agriculture on the brink of being completely taken over by corporations, these rural towns are drying up. Most people in Chattooga county have to either work out of town, in bigger cities, or work minimum wage jobs around home. In saying all this, growing up where I did shaped who I am. Growing up in the country, the pace of life has always seemed to suit me. My personality has always been laid back. I do love to travel and see different places, but I know where home is. My values were shaped by this place too. Right from wrong has always been instilled in me, and treating people right goes right with that. I was always taught to treat all others as my equal and help whoever I can. To me, this is the biggest reason for me to become a teacher and coach. I feel like I can take what I have, and where I come from, and by using the two, help others thrive and succeed.

People with disabilities often find it hard to navigate activities that we take for granted. Things as simple as driving a vehicle, walking the stairs to class, or finding a seat when you get there can be an everyday obstacle. Taking time to notice these things in our everyday routine gives us just an inkling of insight into what some have to go through. Just yesterday, I made a point to observe during my daily routine the everyday obstacles that someone with a disability would encounter. It started with my drive to school. My grandmother is bound to scooter to get around and I know from helping her the difficulty she has in getting in and out of a vehicle. Then once one is out of the car, the obstacles begin on campus. The amount of steps and elevation changes on this campus are plenty without having a disability. Just getting to a building where your class is held would take detours and planning ahead. All of the buildings on campus were originally built without anyone handicapped in mind, so needless to say, they have many steps and staircases. Once one finds their way into class, finding a seat can be difficult. Most of my classes either have tables with many chairs, or have many rows of tables separated slanted at an elevation. Just looking at them, it looks like it would be hard for a person with a disability to find a place to sit, especially in ones with the floor being slanted uphill. All this made me think about something I read in the book about normalization. "Normalization means making available to all persons with disabilities or other handicaps, patterns of life and conditions of everyday living which are as close as possible to or indeed the same as the regular circumstances and ways of life of society" (Gollnick, p. 189). I feel like the school has done a great deal in adapting for those with disabilities to have as "normal" a school experience as possible. However, this experience can still be difficult and in the future, more must be done to accommodate those with disabilities.

To be honest, I have never really thought too much about my own gender identity.  I am from a very small town, and was raised in a family with conservative family values, therefore I have always accepted the fact that my gender identity is normal.  This is not to say that I have been sheltered my whole life and have never saw or experienced people who think and identify differently than I do.  I have always tried to inform myself about other people's views and accept everyone for who they are.  I have just always saw myself as being rather "normal", especially when it comes to gender identity.  My father has probably had the most influence on my own gender identity.  I am the youngest of four brothers, and my father has always been a blue-collar, working class guy.  He has instilled in all of us the value of hard work, and doing things the right way, as well as a love for the outdoors and athletics.  From the time I was four years old, I was playing organized sports, usually coached by my father, and from the time I could walk, I have been on a creek bank fishing, or in a hunting blind in the woods.  To me, this has been all that I have ever known, and to me, "normal".  I never even realized that these aspects of my life, identified my gender role.  Obviously, these aspects and activities of influence have always matched my gender identity, as I have never felt an inkling of want or need to go against them.  The identity that was placed on me has always been the one that just happened to perfectly match my personality and therefore I have never even realized the influence this had on my gender identity. However, I definitely realize the negative impact that having gender forced on someone could have.  For people that take on the gender identity of the opposite sex, I respect their life and who they are. While my identity of gender was formed by what activities I was placed in by my parents, they have always taught  me to respect others and accept people for whomever they are. I have never had a problem with someone for just being who they are. I do feel that boys who take on the gender identity of females suffer more than girls do when the situation is reversed. I feel like that girls are more accepted by society, because girls are stereotyped as emotional, whereas boys are "supposed" to take on a hard, rough identity, and reinforce the stereotype of masculinity.

The idea of raising a baby in a genderless environment is a very groundbreaking idea. Just seeing how relatives and friends react to not knowing if the baby is male or female would be an revealing experiment. The whole process would of course have to start with the ultrasound during pregnancy that allows parents to see what sex their baby will be. I myself have always thought that whenever I get ready to have children, I would not like to know boy or girl before they are born. But the possibility of carrying this secret over into the child's life after birth creates an environment that I could have never imagined without seeing these stories involved with this assignment. I tried to put myself in those parents' situation and seeing how my child's life might be if I chose that life for them from birth. My family is very conservative in background, and not too keen on the idea of new elements that affect lifestyles of today. If I approached them and told them that my wife and I had chosen to do this for our child, I am almost certain it would be met with backlash. I don't think that backlash would come out anger, or hate of a different background than the ones they know, but more out of ignorance and lack of introduction to the situation. Now, when the baby arrived, I am also certain that the backlash would be completely forgotten, replaced with the love for the child that was now apart of the family, just as every child born into our family before has been, as we are a very tight-knit family. Over time, there would no doubt be moments when frustration and awkwardness would show their presence, just from the idea of not knowing, GI Joe or Barbie, football or cheerleading. However, I feel for the child, this could be a very productive environment. They could choose their own path, regardless of social taboo and decide when and where they wanted to reveal themselves, and choose the life for which they wanted to live, not the one that their determined sex would choose for them.

Privilege is a status or ranking in which someone gains, not through personal achievement or sacrifice, but through an unearned clause, like race, money, family name, etc. I feel like growing up where I did, in a rural area, where things tend to slow themselves to almost a reverse in terms of change, I had opportunities that my black peers did not. Certain businesses were basically "segregated" for lack of a better term. These establishments, mostly restaurants, had been open for almost fifty years and it some ways were the same socially as they were the day they opened. There were no actual policies or rules that said so, but blacks never frequented these places. This fact never even crossed my mind until I was in tenth grade. I played football and on gameday we would always have a pregame meal, either at school or at a restaurant. One Friday we found out that pregame meal would be at one of these restaurants that I've described. The reactions of my black teammates opened my eyes. None of them had ever set foot in this place and they were very uneasy in doing so. Most were noticeably nervous. The employees seemed to have a feeling of confusion in just seeing black people in the restaurant. The whole situation really floored me because I was unconscious of the situation before. This unconsciousness to the situation bothered me and I've taken with me since. I don't feel the restaurant was specifically prejudice or racist, but a lack of change on their part had built this social segregation. I feel like there are social privileges that some of us enjoy that we never realized and this can definitely create social gaps in our society.