Home State Heartbreak

So I’ve finally reached a point where I think I can write about this but I’m even going to veil the subject in a more global discussion about my home teams in general. I’m a sports nut and I live in Georgia. Historically, that has been the equivalent of being a snow skiing fanatic in Florida. We have a 1980 National Title in Athens and a 1995 World Series in Atlanta. Other than that, bupkis. I’m not going back to some obscure 1923 title that may or may not be claimed somewhere to find something else. I’m also not a Georgia Tech fan so I’m not including anything they may have done, though I’m not bashing either. I will do that closer to football season. All my home teams have some red in them; Bulldogs, Braves, Hawks and Falcons. They also have a long history of, in the words of the Great Lewis Grizzard, tearing out your heart and stomping that sucker flat. So, how ‘bout that Super Bowl 51?Atlanta Falcons – Well, the Falcons have zero championships in their history. We (and yes, I’m using “We” throughout this piece) have 13 playoff appearances since 1966 and 2 conference championships. The first conference championship was in 1998 when we snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in Minnesota with the great Gary Anderson missing his first field goal of the year and the even greater Morten Anderson connecting on his. We would finish the regular season at 14-2 that year but were still the #2 seed. Those Great Lakers deserved that defeat as payback for what happened in 1991, which we’ll get to shortly. But the Falcons giveth, and the Falcons taketh away. We went on to get drummed by future Hall of Famer John Elway and the Denver Broncos 34-19.Then we had to endure the Michael Vick era with its teases and near misses. We’d fall to the Eagles in our next bid at a trip to the Super Bowl in 2004. We followed up with 8-8 and 7-9 the following years, respectively. Then Bobby Petrino came in and made his mess. We followed the next few years with an occasional playoff appearance and even clinched the #1 seed in the 2010 playoffs. But we would go on to get lambasted by Green Bay, 48-21 in the NFC Divisional. This was the worst loss by a #1 seed in divisional playoff game history and the second worst playoff loss by a #1 seed period. 2011 brought a playoff loss at the hands of the Giants. 2012 saw us clinch the #1 seed again and we picked up our only playoff win in the Mike Smith Era (2008-2014). The playoffs looked promising at halftime of the NFC Championship vs the 49er’s with a score of 24-14 in our favor. We coughed that up and lost 28-24.Then we hit the doldrums with a 4-12 season in 2013. We did a reverse Braves and went from 1st to Worst. 2014 was much of the same. After a coaching change to Dan Quinn in 2015, we would return to a .500 season but showed promise along the way. In 2016, the Falcons lit the world on fire on offense but still showed inexperience on defense until the second half of the season. We would finish with an 11-5 record and a first round bye. Then, despite trepidation from the fan base because of all the previous misery, we went on to take down the two hottest opponents in the NFC, Seattle and Green Bay. We held a 21-3 lead at halftime over the New England Patriots. We increased that lead to 28-3 in the third quarter. Even this old hardened Falcon fans heart started to soften. And then the unthinkable happened. Conservative play calling and horrendous defense lead to a complete collapse and we lost 34-28. Many people will give Tom Brady credit for that win but not me, and I’m not anti Tom Brady. We gave that one up! We gave him the opportunity to do what he did. Without some horrible decisions in the second half, he doesn’t have that window. Just an abysmal display and one I fear has the opportunity to carryover to 2017 like a bad Goldschlager hangover.Atlanta Braves – The Falcons aren’t alone in providing misery for the fan base but the Braves did give us one of those elusive championships in 1995. Granted, the Braves gave us a magical 14 consecutive Division Championship streak which is unmatched to this point. The problem with the Braves always came in the postseason. In that streak of 14 consecutive division titles, we have 4 NL pennants to show for it. And of those 4 NL pennants, we have one World Series ring. That means that we won the NL 28.5% of the time we made the playoffs and we won the World Series 7% of the time we made the playoffs and 25% of the time we won the National League. And like the Falcons, its how we lost that drives me the craziest. I will touch on it but you can read all about Lonnie Smith by clicking here.The Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee in 1966. From 1966 to 1991, we had a total of 2 division titles. That’s 2 divisional titles in 25 years. This doesn’t even scratch the surface on how bad the teams actually were during most of that span. We’re not talking about barely missing the playoffs in the 80’s. We’re talking about a .494 winning percentage in 84, .407 in 85, .447 in 86, .429 in 87, .338 in 88 and .394 in 89. Yes, Donruss was not the worst thing you could be called in 1988. But things were about to turn around with another Atlanta coaching change. This time, Bobby Cox was brought in during the middle of 1990. 1990 still finished as an abysmal season and resulted in the trade of Dale Murphy, an icon in Atlanta.But in 1991, we started to see fresh faces John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Steve Avery start to do work on the mound while Ron Gant, David Justice and Terry Pendleton carried the torch at the plate. The Worst to First season was completed on the last day of the regular season when the Braves clipped the Dodgers by one game. After defeating the Pirates in 7 games, the Great Lakers would drive a dagger in our hearts in the 91 World Series, which is still considered one of the best ever. My hatred for Kent Hrbek after his cowardly display of pulling Ron Gant off of 1st base and Dan Gladden for his grittiness shifted to Lonnie Smith at the conclusion of Game 7 that saw John Smoltz and Jack Morris duel for 9 scoreless innings. The Twins were able to muster a run in extra innings to win the series. We would’ve never been in that position had Lonnie Smith just ran the bases in the 8th inning. It’s been 26 years and I still get heartburn thinking about that!1992 saw another 7 game series with Pittsburgh in the NLCS with the defining moment in Braves history occurring in the 9th inning with a 3 run rally and Sid Bream lugging his piano around the bases to slide just ahead of Spanky LaValliere’s tag. We would lose in the World Series again, this time to the Toronto Blue Jays and Kelly Freakin Gruber! In 1995, we actually won the World Series I thought we should’ve lost. We took down the Cleveland Indians, who had won 100 games (10 more than the Braves.) The Indians were loaded too with Eddie Murray, Orel Hershiser, Dennis Martinez, Kenny Lofton, Carlos Baerga, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez and Albert Belle. Go figure, we beat the Indians but lost to Gene Larkin and Greg Gagne. The rest is history as we would go on to win 10 more consecutive division titles and zero World Series.The Atlanta Hawks – This one will actually be short. The Hawks have been in Atlanta since 1968 and have 5 division titles and zero conference titles. We’ve seen some great (some good) players in Dominique Wilkins, Spud Webb, Kevin Willis, Dikembe Mutombo, Pete Marivich, Al Horford, Paul Millsap, Lenny Wilkins and Moses Malone. We had some close calls like in 2015 when we had the best record in the East or in 2008 when we took down the Heat in the playoffs, only to lose to the Cavs in the next round. There really isn’t much to say about the Hawks other than we’re better than we used to be but not as good as the best in the conference. I will still sit down and take in the game every time they are on TV though because I love them!Georgia Bulldogs – I’ve talked about The Life of A Dawg at this link but to round this out, we can give a synopsis of that life here as well. The National Title in my lifetime was in 1980 when I was 3. We had a running back by the name of Herschel Walker that may still be the best college football player to ever play. Since then, we spent a lot of time up until the early 2000’s winning 8 games a season. In the early 2000’s we started finding success under Mark Richt and won two early SEC titles in his tenure (2002, 2005). We also won the East 6 times during his tenure. We came painstakingly close to the big dance though a couple of times and it has me all in the pepto still today.First there was 2007 where we finished the season ranked #3 in the coaches poll and #2 in the AP after blasting Hawaii 41-10. If there had been a playoff that year, who knows what would’ve happened. We didn’t even get to play in the SEC Championship because we lost to TN that year and finished 11-2. This was the same record as Tennessee but we lost to them head to head. We even beat the Mighty Bammers in overtime that year. We peaked at the wrong time after stumbling out of the gate.Speaking of the Bammers, our nearest miss came in 2012. This one ranks right up there with Kyle Shanahan’s mishaps and Lonnie Smith’s blunders. After an 11-1 regular season, we faced off with #1 Bama in the SEC Championship. We gave them all we had! We held the lead with 3:15 left in the game before AJ McCarron connected with Amari Cooper for a 44 yard score to take a 32-28 lead. We weren’t done though as the gutsy Aaron Murray led a last minute charge from our own 15 yard line with 1 minute left an no timeouts. A pass completion to Arthur Lynch took us to the 8 with 9 seconds to play. Instead of clocking it and getting a clean shot at the end zone, Richt (Bobo) decided to push the defense and ran a play. That play wound up being a tipped pass that was caught at the 5 in bounds by Chris Conley, allowing the clock to run out. I don’t blame Conley to this day because he was doing what football players are taught to do. This one was on the play callers shoulders much like the Falcons Super Bowl bid. Bama then got the easy task of playing Manti Teo’s girlfriend in the national title. ARRRGGGHHH!!I have spent a lot of my sports life with my face buried in my hands in the prayer position on my living room floor. It’s been exacerbating at times. It’s been mind numbing, exhausting and miserable. There have been high points no doubt. There was the Mikey Henderson catch in OT to beat Auburn. There was the Morten kick. There was Sid’s slide. There was the Hobnail Boot. But I can name many more times that it didn’t work out. And when it doesn’t work out, it’s unbelievable. The Prayer at Jordan-Hare in 2013, the Lonnie Smith bumble in 1991, the Navorro Bowman interception in 2012, Aaron Rodgers in 2010, Joe Carter in 1992, and finally, Kyle Shanahan in 2016. There are plenty of other franchises that have their share of misery but now that Cleveland has their basketball championship (plus Ohio State), I don’t know that there is a more tortured fan base than that of the state of Georgia. I could be wrong and if I am, I’m sure I’ll hear about it. But chances are, you can find a championship with one of your major professional or college teams that make the pain a little more bearable. Again, this isn’t just about championships. This is as much about opportunities not seized or games lost. There have been a lot of jokes made at my expense but I will always bleed for the State of Georgia and her sports. One day, that will all pay off. One Day.

J-Dub