Good grief. I’m glad I don’t pay to read and comment on drivel like this.
I want to take this in so many directions. These people live among us. If you lurk here, feel free to defend your position.
The real question for the Refugees is where do you fall on this. I’ll tell you where I am.
- Every player who stays 4 or 5 years walks out with a degree.
- Every player who leaves for the NFL early has a plan to get that degree even if you end up on the Herschel plan.
You don’t need to be Terry Hoage to be a successful student-athlete. For those of you who may not know the full story on Hoage, he graduated with a degree in genetics (maybe as a first honor graduate), was an All-American (not just academic), finished 5th in the Heisman voting as a senior, had a 12 year NFL career and was one of the best safeties the school has ever put out. He now owns a vineyard in the California wine country. Said differently, he was a smarter Kirby.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
In the current NIL landscape, I’m surprised that “student” is even a necessity at this point. If I had the talent, I’d do five seasons in Athens, make the millions, then buy a house in the Five Points neighborhood and work on my PhD in sports management and work in Butte Mehre for the rest of my life. Or, I’d go AgScience, buy some farm land in Oglethorpe county, grow hops, and do my own microbrew company…FTMFs Brewery, featuring a DGD IPA.
To your point, though, if NILs evolve to contract level where you’re guaranteed a four year deal, getting a degree should be an organic part of the process. Since you’re there on campus all year, you could do it in three years and get your masters to boot. Yes, that would mean you’d have a degree by your draft year.
I would buy that IPA from a brewery with that name. You may even knock off CC as the official craft beer of the Georgia Bulldogs!
50 cents from the sale of every six pack or case of the DGD IPA would go into a NIL fund. Each set would come with a QR code where consumers could then vote for a Bulldawg football player that doesn’t have an NIL supplement that the voters deem worthy of DGD status. Yearly contest with the recipient being named at the G Day game. Maybe it’s time I seek a new vocation…
I’ll be your CFO.
I’ll volunteer to be SVP of Sales
Or of taste testing 😉
Ooh. I can’t wait to see your can designs. Sign me up for a subscription plan for the IPA.
Those of us with more crude, rough tastes would like something like a lager. Basically a slightly more expensive Coors Light.
Classic City is pretty darn good.
I’ll front a couple of acres.
I would love to see every one of our players get recruited out of HS, stay all 4 years, and graduate with a degree. Obviously some will go pro early, and I’d hope they come back for their degree eventually.
But that’s not the reality of the new professional amateur athlete. Regardless, that poster is an idiot. There is a very large and acceptable middle ground between what I wrote above and his moronic 0% graduation rate.
I agree.
One of my favorite things Kirby posts on his social accounts every year is the picture he takes with the football players past and present in their graduation regalia including that student-athlete medal before the spring and fall ceremonies. Every one of the guys that gets in one of those pictures is a DGD in my mind.
This is the true meaning of DGD in my book. Well said, ee.
Mr. Hoage graduated with a 3.9 gpa in genetics. Then he spent 13 seasons in the NFL. He sold the winery in 2023 and has retired after nearly 50 years of service as the ultimate bad ass.
Anyone remember 14 firing up the crowd before kick offs?
As for people who daf about the academic mission of the University?
That game is played on Sundays. Check it out and don’t look back.
Thanks for clarifying that Terry sold the winery. I found this out last summer when my wife and I were going to wine country and wanted to visit. Oh well.
I know we call Bowers a unicorn, but Hoage was the original. I think it’s safe to say that most football players aren’t getting a 3.9 in genetics. Hell, most players are majoring in genetics because they’re advised not to, due to the time demands.
I have a friend who is a chiropractor and was on offensive lineman at at a MAC school back in the early 2000s. He told me he wanted to major in engineering, but they wouldn’t allow it because he wouldn’t have enough time for his football activities. And this is a mid-major school saying that back when these guys were still true amateurs. I can only imagine what they’re being told now that they’re making the big bucks. It won’t be long before “football” will be an acceptable major for some of these guys.
Nakobe majored in mechanical engineering. He’s one of those unicorns.
We have a few. Nakobe majored in engineering. I asked a few professors about it and they said he took the classes though they did arrange things for his schedule on occasion. Nolan Smith started in Engineering i believe but moved to math.
I have no idea how these athletes study these areas with all the time constraints they have. It was all I could do to get my dumb ass through it 40 years ago.
Students who work 20-40 hour a week jobs while in school and without all of the assistance athletes get do it all the time. The athletes get classes at their preferred times (they register first).
I know student-athletes put a lot of time into their craft, but there’s really no excuse that an athlete who is on a college campus for 4-5 years can’t walk out with a degree.
For sure they can and have done it. I worked through school as well, but I never felt like my 20 hours a week even approached the level of effort/commitment from top athletes that are also academic successes.
And while we’re listing names, how can we forget Happy Dicks? Wasn’t he a surgeon?
My point is that it’s really hard to be a student who works to put himself through school and be an academic success, but people find a way to do it. You did it.
Athletes have every advantage. They don’t even have to cook now if they don’t want to. I’m guessing they don’t even have to go to the bookstore to pick up supplies for classes. If a college athlete wants to get a degree in a rigorous academic discipline where they have passion, there’s no reason not to. An athlete may be getting up at 5:00 am to work out and may be in the building watching film at 7:00 pm. That kid who puts himself through school may have a campus job during the day and then go deliver pizzas or drive for DoorDash at night.
It’s all relative.
I had forgotten that about Nolan. Good on him. A math major is not for fools or people who want to dabble in the subject.
You could argue finance & accounting majors (of which I are one) are students who couldn’t or didn’t want to cut it as a math major.
Somehow they manage to study, succeed academically and still play football to a high degree. We’ve had a lot, really. Mixon Robinson from before my time as a student is an orthopedic surgeon and still practicing to some degree. The Stinchcombe brothers did well (I’m thinking one is a doctor, but I’m not positive). A kid that I knew of in my youth (I was about the same age as his older brothers), Jeff Lewis, was a great linebacker for UGA and did well enough academically to be a Rhodes Scholar candidate, and he also went to law school and practices at one of the silk stocking firms in Atlanta, and has done some acting as well [My Cousin Vinny, e.g.]. We have a number of people who did well academically but are still playing [Chris Conley and Van Pranger come to mind, but there are others}. I don’t begrudge any player getting a ‘football degree’, but I am extra proud of those who get both a football degree and have academic success.
Tommy Lawhorne, Jr. is another one of those guys who go way back.
Richard “Le Sack” Tardits is another. Walked on after never playing a down of football in his life, earned a scholarship after one year, graduated with double major without being very proficient in English when he arrived in the US, and did some crazy number of hours in the fall of his senior season (like 20+). Oh, and was the career sack leader at Georgia until David Pollack and played four seasons in the NFL. If I remember correctly, Tardits owns a professional rugby club and winery in France.
Tommy Lawhorne is the only person I have ever seen that could shave and read a chemistry book at the same time.
Hell of a nice guy. I was a freshman when he was a senior. He would get letters from pro teams wanting to know if he were interested in playing pro ball. The starting pay from any pro team was $24,000.00. A first-year teacher in the Ga. system was about $20,000.00 per year. I don’t know how pro teams got any one to play at that pay scale. This was 1966 or 1967, how things have changed. A teacher does not make much more than that now. Police and teachers are the most underpaid professions in the USA.
Always remember him as Hoage the Rogue, cause that boy was a ball hog. 12 interceptions in 1982. 3 in the game vs. Vandy.
Munson said that Terry Hoage was the best football player he had ever seen.
Never out of position and more athletic than many thought. The fact he had a double digit career in the NFL speaks volumes.
I think Vince said the same.
I remember reading about Hoage’s 3.9 gpa In genetics. Pretty damn impressive. To put that in perspective, we had one genetics course the freshman year medical school. On the final, the highest grade was 89. I had the second highest grade an 84. The rest of the class failed. That’s 180 medical students. 178 failed the test. I’m not bragging, I just enjoy genetics and put a lot of time into studying when many of my class looked at it as a throwaway class that they didn’t need to study hard for. Hoage’s IQ must be off the chart.
Bro wants all NFL talent, not students. I’m predicting this will soon be the case for the 2-deep roster with a few exceptions and the rest of the practice field fodder will be the only remaining SAs. The proposals to reign thus all in under a CBA will make this more likely than less.
Guys, this is now professional football. There are a few echos of the old system and players still bouncing around, but we are all just paying mercenaries on one-year deals to wear team gear to entertain us. I have a hard time giving a shit about graduation rates in this climate.
I don’t care about the rate per se. That’s an arbitrary number calculated by the NCAA. I do think the academic side of the equation matters. YMMV.
THIS. Also, I would add that I could care less if they are even attending college at this point. If the program still wants to give out scholarships for kids who can play some ball and get an education, fine by me. But for these other guys with NIL and school hopping? Who gives a shit really. That ship done sailed.
First, there should be a degree in Football, or in Basketball, or Baseball. Those are huge industries and the University could build a complete degree program around that to teach the student everything about it, from playing to coaching to training, managing, representing, etc. They trained me to be an engineer and they’ve trained journalists, scientists, lawyers, teachers, etc.
Secondly, no I don’t agree with the venter as long as these players are tied to the school. Unfortunately we have those types of fans. I had to remind myself to skip the Dawgs sub reddit for the off season as yesterday someone was on the lamenting that we were returning to the dark days of Richt.
I remember back in the day when about 95% of all college teams majored in General Studies or Physical Education. The ones in Genetics or even Business were celebrated. How many NATS players actually graduate as engineers anyway? (I’m a Ramblin Wreck from GA Tech and a helluva…management major…).
I think it would be beneficial to have an “Athletic” major where they are trained in health, nutrition, finance, personal marketing, contract law, entrepreneurship, etc. Everything they might need to succeed as a professional athlete (or these days, professional influencer). The purpose of college is to prepare oneself for the professional world – that would probably go far for a lot of these athletes.
The M Train is real over there, and highly traveled.
Also, the “calculus” that many of them take is essentially an overview of what calculus is. Also, I believe they can take some of the classes at Clarke-Atlanta or one of the HBCUs in Atlanta in a joint arrangement.
Think about how it’s changed. In the 80s-90s every SEC school would have a handful of recruits that would not be allowed in due to academics. Also every SEC school would have a few players academically ineligible. These would be announced in August, everyone would wait to see who would not be on the team. When is the last time a recruit did not qualify? Or the last time a current player was academically ineligible? It’s NFL lite with zero free agency rules. With +20% of football players in the portal the graduation rates will much lower than the NCAA standards. Georgia has 11 senior players on the roster that signed with Kirby out of high school.
Every fan base has them. I just don’t understand paying to read their musings. I do still have several autographed bottles of wine from Terry’s vineyards that I purchased. NIL for past services rendered?
Nice. That’s pretty cool.
So right, Tonyhig! We now have these “career” graphics from our own athletic department that include ugly-ass Orange & Blue (#FTMFs) to satisfy the grown-assed-men-wearing-jerseys crowd. This sport is so dead to me.
https://i0.wp.com/gtprefugees.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/IMG_0883.jpeg?w=1179&ssl=1
Yeah, I can’t believe there’s a Florida uniform on an official release from the Georgia athletic department. What would the senator say?
I figured I wouldn’t be the first to point out that NascarDawg (and what he spews) is a made-up “spoof” persona. He is mocking what he advocates for. Also known as ThreeYearLetterman on twitter. I know, I know, who has time for that shit.
But, at least you can feel better knowing we may not ACTUALLY have fans that crazy. I think the guy was a UGA law grad and works in DC.
Didn’t know that, but I’m guessing his spoof is still what some believe should be the case.
Didn’t know that ThreeYearLetterman and NascarDawg were the same person, but had heard that 3YL was a UGA law grad. And, of course, a notary public.
The Wilson family wouldn’t stand a day on Coach’s Youth Football Team.
*unless you are Stetson.
I remember when they put the majors of the players when introducing them on the abc “game of the week” in the 80’s
whoa nellie