It's all about puttin' on the dog

ATHENS, Ga. -- Let the word go forth to every present and future Georgia football player or coach. You may win the Heisman Trophy. You may capture the national championship. But no matter what you do, you will always remain the A-Rod to Uga's Jeter. In the state of Georgia, Uga rules.

Uga VI (pronounced ``Ugh-a") is the English bulldog mascot of the University of Georgia. There has been an Uga performing this task since 1956, and they have all been owned by Georgia alum Sonny Seiler, a Savannah attorney. Uga goes to every Georgia home game, and many away games. Simply put, Uga is a rock star.

An Uga has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. All Ugas have had honorary degrees. Uga VI endorses his own dog food. At the team's annual Picture Day, people have been known to start lining up at midnight so they can photograph Uga some nine hours later. (I am not making this up.) ``He used to upstage Herschel," says Seiler. ``And that was hard to do."

That's Herschel, as in Herschel Walker.

I have been privileged to meet many celebrities in the worlds of sports, entertainment, and politics, but Uga out-cools them all. The others all had to learn to be celebrities. Uga knows no other life. Uga just is. And when it comes to conversation, Uga understands that less is more. Mel Gibson, take note.

I met Uga in the lobby of a convention center and hotel. Three of us waited alone. When Uga exited the elevator with Seiler, people suddenly materialized. Within a minute, there were 10. Within 15 minutes, there were 50. Uga knows the drill. ``He loves the attention," Seiler says. ``He just loves people. This could be a Sunday School wienie roast."

Uga posed and posed and posed. In this state, there are two kinds of people. There are those who have been photographed with Uga, and there are the losers.

This being Homecoming, Uga had a busy morning. He made appearances at the Law School, the Business School, and the Journalism School before heading over to Sanford Stadium, where he has a palatial, air-conditioned home (it does get hot here in September and even in October, you know) on the 5-yard line.

Sanford Stadium, located smack in the middle of the campus, has come a long way since its dedication on Oct. 12, 1929. To dignify the occasion, Georgia sought a high-profile opponent, and the school was thrilled when Yale agreed to come. Yes, a Battle of the Bulldogs.

Wrote Jimmy Burns in the Atlanta Georgian on the morning of the game: ``Ambitious to blaze their name across the national gridiron horizon, Georgia's Bulldogs this afternoon will spend all their physical stamina, and extend their football cunning, in the laudable endeavor to repel Yale's first inversion of the Sunny South."

Lordy, Lordy, they just don't write that way anymore.

And with Vernon ``Catfish" Smith scoring all the points (including tackling the legendary Albie Booth in the end zone and kicking an extra point), Georgia's Bulldogs stunned the haughty Yale Bulldogs, 15-0.

Seventy-seven years on, Sanford Stadium seats 92,746 and has evolved into one of the great venues in all of college football. Georgia is the only team that plays, as they say here, ``between the hedges," the field being framed by two rows of English privet hedges. And Sanford Stadium will always remain the only collegiate venue in which five Ugas are buried in wall crypts located just inside the west end of the stadium.

And few schools can match the pageantry of the ``Dawg Walk," the team's dramatic entrance to the stadium. As hundreds -- probably even thousands -- of people line the parking lot or watch from above, the team follows the band and cheerleaders in boisterous procession straight into Sanford Stadium.

I know what you're asking. What would Homecoming Weekend be without a Homecoming Parade?

Well, they had one Friday night, and it was a sight no New Englander has ever seen. This is the South, remember. Football is right there next to godliness. Georgia is a proud Southern school whose historic marker just inside ``The Arches," a famed entranceway to the campus, makes reference to the ``War For Southern Independence." With most of its students off fighting for the Confederacy, the school shut down from 1864 to January of 1866.

These people know how to put on a proper Homecoming Parade. School president Mike Adams was front and center, tossing out little footballs to the crowd. The Poultry Science Club was represented, not to mention the Air Force ROTC, Army ROTC, and the Georgia National Guard. There were no fewer than 12 shivering baton twirlers. The UGA Ballroom Performance Group danced down the street. One float was pulled by a massive John Deere with 6-foot wheels. You had floats from the usual fraternity suspects. And then there was this sign of the times: a banner proclaiming ``Noche Latina" on Oct. 20, an affair I'm certain was not held during either the Frank Sinkwich or Francis Tarkenton eras.

Uga, it goes without saying, was riding right near the head of the parade.

If it all seemed as if it came from a 1948 movie, well, so what? The thousands of people lining the streets were perpetuating a great local tradition. You New England folk shouldn't have any trouble with that.

I know another thing you're asking. What is Homecoming at a traditional Southern football school without a Homecoming King and Queen? By official student vote, I give you Trey Stephens (Marietta, Ga.) and Amanda Wartner (Alpharetta, Ga.), classic campus go-getters, I can assure you.

Have I mentioned the 400-member alumni band that performed before the game? Or the alumni cheerleaders?

The game? Ouch. Vandy, Georgia's most frequent Homecoming foe (17 times), was apparently tired of being the Designated Homecoming Punching Bag. The Dawgs missed a 2-point conversion and a makable (37-yard) field goal with 5:02 left, and Bryant Hahnfeldt kicked a 32-yard field goal with two seconds remaining to provide the Commodores with a shocking 24-22 victory.

But it all fell under the heading of Homecoming Weekend at Georgia, and, hey, the night was still young.

Last I heard, Uga was attending a postgame cocktail party with the Board of Trustees. Word is he was planning on having more than one.

Bob Ryan can be reached at ryan@globe.com.