Youthful college pride and exuberance meets alcohol.
Student hops fence at Sanford Stadium
On Aug. 9 at 2:34 a.m., a UGA campus safety ambassador observed a man sitting in the stands of Sanford Stadium using his phone.
UGAPD arrived and identified the man as a UGA student who said he had “hopped the fence” into the stadium. Officers reviewed the security cameras and observed the student entering the stadium at 2:12 a.m.
The student stated he was sitting in the stands to “connect” with a friend who recently passed away and wanted to be a football player.
The student was barred from the stadium for 60 days. However, UGAPD declined to prosecute for criminal trespass after explaining to the student that he could have been arrested.
I have to say that the UGAPD was way more lenient than the ACCPD. The student must’ve been able to provide his middle name.
Anyway, it’s easy to think about this in two ways: one, I’ve been there and done that. There was a small opening at the top of the closed gates that me and my buddy used to climb through around the same time on Friday evenings, and we’d sprint the length of the stadium and back and run back out. I don’t think I could make it halfway across the field without passing out nowadays. Two: we were all young once, and gloriously stupid. We are still likely gloriously stupid, just older now.
So for today’s Thought Provoker…what youthful exuberance do you most miss…and what youthful exuberance are you glad finally took a backseat to reality and maturity?
I do miss my penchant for risk taking and boldness, to an extent. There was a time when I felt bulletproof and like King Kong, and it worked in all manners of life from the ladies to sports, but that was crushed through a series of failed relationships and the reality of workforce life.
I am somewhat happy, though, for the reality check. Risky actions have consequences, some of which could’ve been worse if I hadn’t had the check down when I was younger. Having the ability to develop the key quality of discernment has proven helpful in my older years, although it doesn’t always prove true and sometimes still finds me on the down side of a bad deal.
So it goes.
So how’s about you?
Pulling onto the lot at Kemp’s with two one dollar bills, one for two Millers in bottles and one for the car hop. Yes, I’m really old.
I did the normal amount of stupid shit growing up, maybe a little less than some. I’m sure glad digital cameras and camera phones didn’t exist back then.
amen to that.
Driving like an idiot and consuming anything on offer, was not a great plan for longevity. Chasing skirt was not a great plan for contentment. Living at the max credit line of whatever visa/mc the banks were willing to ship me wasn’t either. All seemed like good ideas at the time.
I often wonder whether or not anyone tried to warn me or if I ignored it because I knew everything about everything back then. Waking up at 30 knowing that, as a percentage of what is knowable, I know dick and that even at maximum capacity I’ll die knowing dick, was humbling.
The only thing I miss about being young is the endless energy. That energy was mostly wasted as well.
As an aside, the year Zeier showed up out of high school and participated in Spring, I snuck into Sanford and watched from the bleachers. Didn’t know what might happen. Fortunately, nothing did.
I did leave knowing we had a bad muthafucka at qb.
Did plenty of stupid stuff. Some l could tell and some l might have to check statute of limitations! It would take a pretty big volume to get them all in. I do wonder sometimes how l got this old. And yes, if camera phones would have been around, my Daddy probably would have killed me!
I used to enjoy jumping off cliffs into the water. Generally speaking I wasn’t exactly sober or clear headed at the time. A fifty foot jump was routine for me. Did that ten or fifteen times every visit.
To the cliffs. My highest jump was from eighty feet. Only did that a few times. That would probably break my back today. Not sure it was youthful exuberance, mostly youthful stupidity but one night in Athens our neighbor called and said he’d been picked up for drunk driving. This happened in 1979 so the jail was still downtown on the top floor of the police station. My roommate and I were both pretty dang drunk ourselves but we figured we needed to go spring Mo. Off we went. It was two or three o’clock in the morning and the Police station was locked up tight. But we were drunk and determined. We kept looking around, trying every door and window and eventually found an unlocked door that got us into the basement. From there we made our way up via two different service elevators and arrived at the jail. The Police were not happy. Weapons drawn and pointed at our drunk selves they made us show them how we got up there. They then observed that we might be drunker than our friend who was already locked up. We of course assured them we hadn’t driven down to the jail. We had. The Police then proceeded to let us take Mo home without posting bail as long as we promised to walk home. Which we pretended to do. We wandered around for a while and eventually one of us snuck back over to the station, got the car and we three happy drunks drove home. Stupidity on a spectacular scale.
That’s a dang good story.
Second
“What youthful exuberance do you most miss?”
Sleeping through the night without having to get up to pee.
At my graduation in ’92 my older brother came up to me, shook my hand, and said “Congratulations. You can now drink exactly half of what you could 24 hours ago.” Damn if he wasn’t right…
I miss the days when us country boys could ride dirt roads and drink beer without it being the end of the world. When I was young it was understood they would give us the dirt as long as we didn’t give them a reason to put an end to it. Used to be you could park on a bridge on a dirt road and not see anybody all day on a Saturday. Now Thst people have side by sides somebody is coming along every ten minutes or so. When it was just four wheelers people didnt do that.
Having suffered grievous loss of loved ones in the past few years? Hats off to UGA PD.
I do think the 60-day banishment is excessive.
“Get your drunk ass home and don’t let me catch you here again without a ticket” would have been enough.
Grief is a funny thing; it brings thoughts and emotions that you don’t really have a place to put and sometimes you feel a little helpless. It is an odd bit of pain that’s different than a physical injury or embarrassment you caused yourself. So, if Homey felt he could get a little (assuming) beer-soaked closure? Yeah man.
As far as stupid shit we got away with and a couple of cool scars? Those are stories for the Grandkids, so they know Old Grandpa Got wasn’t always as sedate as time and experience has dictated.