This past Saturday, I decided to head north to Lexington, Ky., to see my alma mater, the University of Georgia, play a football game against the Kentucky Wildcats.
I actually go to several University of Tennessee football games a year with my old friend from high school, Steve Smalling, whose family has had season tickets for years.
While those games are certainly fun and I am on much friendlier terms with UT now that I am living in Knoxville and am periodically getting to teach adjunct classes there, I still long to see my beloved Dawgs play in person.
Since they were to be in Lexington and it is less than three hours from Knoxville, I decided to head up there this past Saturday, even though I could not talk my wife, Laura, into going with me.
She was apparently not overly excited about getting up at 6 a.m.
and being gone for more than 12 hours on a rare off day she had pinpointed for relaxing and getting caught up on some home and work chores.
Since I don’t get up to Lexington very often, I wanted to tour as much of the campus as I could. I figured it would be another opportunity to enjoy my periodic hobby of visiting and critiquing college campuses and their appearances.
Without a doubt, the most interesting place I found at Kentucky was the old Memorial Coliseum, but more on that later.
After arising early that morning for the noon game and after a stop at the local Hardee’s for a cinnamon raisin biscuit and a sausage biscuit, I headed north on foggy Interstate 75.
About 30 miles below Lexington, I stopped at a travelers’ center. It was like a rest area, but also had a giant area where people could buy artisan crafts from Kentucky. It seemed like a neat concept.
However, I must admit that a couple of maintenance men did appear not to like the artwork on my Georgia sweatshirt as I headed to the restroom. However, they did not say anything.
Back in my car, I turned back to the Kentucky pre-game radio show, and some of the Wildcat callers seemed confident of victory. I think that is typical of most schools. Most of us college football fans try to be optimistic before a game. I rarely have been certain Georgia was going to lose before a game.
As I neared Lexington, my biggest fear was where I would park. Would I find a parking place under $50, or be sent home disappointed?
I did not need to fear. After driving into Lexington on U.S. 25/421 past some simply gorgeous early 20th century homes and turning off a couple of side streets, I saw a parking spot along the street. Since I saw some fraternity houses and what looked like off-campus housing nearby, I figured the campus could not be far away.
So I pulled into the space thankful and somehow hoping it was not in some tow-away zone. I guess I have parking phobia for football games because a free spot within a mile of Neyland Stadium in Knoxville is unlikely.
Of course, Kentucky’s Commonwealth Stadium seats 62,000, not the more than 100,000 found at Neyland Stadium.
I had also looked at a campus map beforehand so that I could walk through, see and photograph some of the campus before and after the game. I see fans of the other teams at games at Georgia and realize they often do not get to see much of what I think is a beautiful campus, and I did not want that to happen to me.
I like to experience at least a little of the atmosphere and appearance of the college campuses I visit. I think they call that sampling the local culture!
With my printed campus map and crude own drawings of the locations of places I wanted to see, I soon began walking through campus in the direction of the stadium. As I started, there in front of me, surrounded by grass, was the massive and fairly new looking W.T. Young Library. It was neat looking and seemed to be more gargantuan than about anything I had ever seen.
I continued walking and saw several nice tree-lined streets, newer buildings and some structures that were satisfying my fix of wanting to see mid-20th century buildings. First was the Alpha Gamma Rho house, and a little closer to the stadium were a couple of giant 1960s-era towers, which I later learned were dorms, not academic buildings as I first suspected.
According to the campus map, they are the Blanding and Kerwin towers, and were surrounded by smaller buildings featuring the same Brasilia-like architecture that I love.
I also saw the newer student recreation and aquatic facilities, and they appeared to be nicely done architecturally.
I was planning on meeting up and saying hello to my wife’s niece, Elizabeth Garrett, and her husband, Mark, and lo and behold, there they were walking to the stadium after I took a picture of the swimming facility.
Elizabeth is also a Georgia graduate who lives in Bowling Green, Ky., now.
As I walked to the stadium with them, I heard the sound of drumbeats and knew I needed to follow that sound for rhythm’s sake. As we reached the outside of the stadium, a group of about 20 drummers in blue were pounding away for the fans gathered in the parking lot.
Since some of them looked a little old to be college students, I figured it must have been some kind of alumni or even community group that has not gotten drum pounding out of their system.
But I was glad they were there and enjoyed them for a few moments.
Elizabeth and Mark soon headed inside, so I went across University Drive from the stadium and sat under a tree on the cool morning in my jacket and ate my lunch Laura had made for me.
I might have looked a little silly doing that on a regular school day, but no one seemed to notice or care, so I enjoyed the moment. The drummers had actually moved close to where I was, and their pounding sound continued to be nice to hear and likely helped me digest my food.
I might not have cared for them being outside my house window at midnight, but before the game was perfect.
Going into the stadium, I liked how there seemed to be room to move around and even sit in the stadium. I did not have the feeling of being a moving or sitting sardine, as is the case at larger college stadiums where football is king.
I also liked two pre-game traditions Kentucky had – the playing and singing of “My Old Kentucky Home,” and then the blowing on a bugle like what is done before a horse race.
In the game, however, Georgia was the one with the horses. The Bulldogs returned the opening kick for a touchdown and went on to win by a whopping 63-31 score, even though the game was temporarily close in the second quarter.
As I left the stadium of this school where basketball, not football, is king, I enjoyed the victory, while knowing tough games for Georgia remain with Auburn and Georgia Teach.
After walking through the parking lot after meeting up again with Elizabeth and Mark, whom did I see again but the Kentucky drum corps. While many of the Big Blue Wildcat fans had disappointingly left in the third quarter, this group had stayed and looked as energetic as ever as they continued to pound away.
I greatly appreciated them, and it made my game day experience in Lexington much richer.
After saying goodbye to Mark and Elizabeth, I headed to see a little more of the campus. For some reason, all I had seen closer to the stadium was mostly newer buildings.
But working my way over to Rose Street, I found some older looking buildings. I went past the mid-century Chemistry/Physics Building, the historical Maxwell Place with a nice goldfish pond in front of it, and the Fine Arts Building, which was also from the mid-century and featured nice decorative artwork.
Across Rose Street was the interesting-looking Chi Omega sorority house – a touch of mid-century and New Orleans.
However, the best for me was still to come. I came to where Euclid Avenue becomes Avenue of Champions, and there in front of me was Memorial Coliseum. Built in 1950, the architecturally pleasing structure had an appearance that made me think the year was no later than 1951.
It was neat looking at it and thinking of all the good basketball teams Adolph Rupp coached inside the building, which is still used by the UK women’s basketball team. I learned later that another older basketball gym was nearby, but I missed it. I also did not see the off-campus Rupp Arena, which I had seen from the outside before.
However, Memorial Coliseum was enough to make me feel nostalgic. About all I needed to add to the ambience even more was that drum corps. The attractive outside appeared to have changed little over time, and I loved that about it.
In this historic preservationist’s opinion, too many people want to update buildings by changing their appearance too much.
The coliseum had probably been strategically placed closer to the downtown Lexington area so that it could have concerts and other big events besides basketball.
Next to the coliseum was the Wildcat Coal Lodge, which is where some basketball players live along with regular students. It replaced the adjacent and unique Joe B. Hall Wildcat Lodge that housed basketball players from 1978-2012 before being torn down.
It is not hard to tell that basketball, not football, is king at this school, even though the new lodge has almost an understated look about it. Outside the new hall is a statue of former coach Joe B. Hall sitting on a metal bench seat with a rolled-up paper in his hand.
Across the Avenue of Champions is a field obviously used by the Kentucky marching band for practice. Although I could not find any marker, this was the site of the old Stoll Field, where Kentucky played football games until Commonwealth Stadium opened in 1973.
The adjacent newer building was probably part of the old Stoll Field grounds as well.
This spot was where coach Paul “Bear” Bryant led Kentucky to some football great seasons in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It even had a tower like he liked, but this one was no doubt built long after the Bear had left for his eventual date with destiny at his alma mater, Alabama.
As I headed back to my car to drive back home, I continued savoring the football win and was glad I was a Dawg.
But I did feel that I experienced at least briefly what it was like to be a Wildcat.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net