Well, look what the Dawg dragged in.

Dear Athens,

You had us at hello. Or maybe it was the first time we walked beneath those magnificent old trees on North Campus, heard the Chapel Bell ring, or discovered that downtown Athens could turn an ordinary Thursday night into a story we’d still be telling decades later.

Thank you for the late-night study sessions, the early-morning classes we occasionally attended, and the professors who somehow managed to teach us something despite our best efforts. Thank you for the friendships, the traditions, the music, the magnificent old buildings, and the kind of memories that get better every time we tell the stories.

And thank you for the Arch. Some of us still instinctively walk around it, even though our diplomas have been hanging on the wall for years.

Athens wasn’t just where we went to college. It’s part of who we became.

Dear Georgia football,

Where do we even begin?

Thank you for Saturdays Between the Hedges, for a sea of red and black, for the Redcoat Band, for the Battle Hymn, and for the electricity that rolls through Sanford Stadium when 90,000-plus people decide, all at once, that there’s nowhere else on Earth they’d rather be.

Thank you for the tailgates, the road trips, the friendships forged over football, and the complete strangers we’ve hugged after last-second victories. Thank you for Larry Munson, whose voice could turn an ordinary football game into an epic struggle between good and evil. We still get chills thinking about hobnail boots, broken chairs, and sugar falling from the sky.

Thank you for the heartbreaks, too. Well, perhaps thank you is a little strong. But they made the victories sweeter, and they taught us that loyalty isn’t something you turn on and off with the scoreboard.

And speaking of victories, those back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022? We’d waited a long time for those. We’re still grinning like fools.

Thank you for Uga, the most distinguished four-legged gentleman in college athletics, and for reminding us that barking at another adult in public is perfectly acceptable behavior under certain circumstances.

There are more important things in life than football. We know that.

We just prefer not to discuss them on Saturdays in the fall.

Dear Georgia baseball,

We haven’t forgotten you.

Thank you for spring evenings at Foley Field, the crack of a bat, the smell of freshly cut grass, and the peculiar optimism that comes with every new season. Thank you for the sunshine, the seventh-inning stretches, and the perfectly reasonable excuse to spend a weekday afternoon thinking about nothing but baseball.

Football may own our autumn Saturdays, but you give us springtime in Athens. And there are few better places to spend a spring evening than watching the Diamond Dawgs.

Besides, some of us believe nine innings are a perfectly acceptable way to spend three hours doing absolutely nothing productive.

Dear Redcoats, classmates, and fellow Dawgs,

If you ever marched onto Dooley Field with the Redcoat Band, pulled an all-nighter at the library, celebrated downtown after a big win, or stood shoulder to shoulder with thousands of fellow Bulldogs singing “Glory, Glory,” you’re part of something special.

We may have graduated in different decades, studied different subjects, and taken very different paths since leaving Athens. But a few notes from the Redcoats, the sound of the Chapel Bell, or one enthusiastic “How ’bout them Dawgs!” can make complete strangers feel like old friends.

That’s the thing about being a Georgia Bulldog. You can leave Athens, build a career, raise a family, and travel halfway around the world. But some part of you is always right back on North Campus, beneath those trees, feeling like your whole life is still ahead of you.

To the students making those memories today, savor every minute. It goes by faster than you think.

To the alumni who know exactly what we’re talking about, wasn’t it something?

And to every Georgia Bulldog, wherever life has taken you: you’re always among friends here.