By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

As someone who grew up in North Carolina and didn’t start really following college football until the late 80’s/early 90’s, I never had much interest in the Georgia/Florida rivalry.

At that time Florida was dominating the series like a father does in basketball against his 7-year-old, so unless you had some connection to either team, it was just a regular game with a clever nickname.

It wasn’t until my wife and I began our short, two-year stint in Athens (‘01-‘03), that I realized just how big the entire game, and the festivities surrounding it, were.

I don’t remember much about the 2001 game, other than the fact Florida won, but the day before the 2002 certainly stands out in my mind.

All sports fans are superstitious to some degree, whether they want to admit it or not. In the case of a fellow employee I worked with at an Athens carpet store during the 2002 season, his superstition involved a Georgia t-shirt he wore every Friday before the weekend’s game.

Leading up to the Florida game, I suppose the superstition was working, since Georgia was undefeated and ranked in the top 5. So, you can understand my surprise when this person showed up to work on that Friday, the day before arguably the biggest game of the season to that point, without his Georgia shirt.

Now it wasn’t just those of us in the warehouse that were aware of this ritual, everyone else in the building, including the owner, knew about it.

As word of the forgotten t-shirt trickled throughout the store like a game of telephone, the owner, who was apparently well versed in superstition lore, decided to step in.

Not only did he send my co-worker home to collect his t-shirt, while on the clock, but he stepped right in and filled in for him while he was gone. He, like most everyone else, didn’t want to be the jinx that caused Georgia to lose.

Since I didn’t have a dog in the fight (no pun intended), I thought the whole ordeal was pretty funny, especially since I thought Georgia was going to win.

Florida had really struggled to begin the season and Georgia was clearly the better team; just goes to show records don’t matter in any rivalry, even if it’s one you don’t pay much attention to.

Even though Florida won, the magical shirt continued to be worn every Friday as Georgia finished the season with only one loss. I guess it wasn’t only that the shirt had to be worn, but it needed to be on his body before he arrived at work in order for its mystical powers to flourish?

Now, I realize this isn’t some scandalous story, or one that ends with my buddy running down Broad St. screaming “Danny Wuerffel is my Dad”, but, when was the last time the owner of the business you work for paid you to go home because of a superstition?

Plus, over the course of the two years I lived in Athens, and five years in Georgia overall, I never encountered a situation that embodied how important the Georgia/Florida game is to its fans.

If you’re a Georgia fan, I can only hope my former co-worker remembers to wear his shirt to work on Nov. 1.

From my experience, the outcome of the game depends on it.