Here's to Hoping the Numbers Never Lie

In college and professional sports, numbers are retired all the time. A player has a great career, and his team or university wants him to forever be the only person associated with that number. As a fan, that number starts to hold a special place in your heart and in your mind.

If you are a Braves fan, or even a baseball fan and I say 755 what do you think of? Hank Aaron’s career home run total. (Which is still the all time record for someone whose head didn’t magically grow at age 35.)

If you are a Chicago Bulls fan and I say 23, all you are going to be able to think about is Michael Jordan and the glory days of the 1990’s.

Sometimes in sports, you can look back and notice that something just worked out the way it was supposed to. For example, the Red Sox hadn’t won the World Series since 1918. In 1986, they were three outs away from ending the Curse of the Bambino, but then they became the Red Sox again, and managed to lose the World Series to the Mets. For years, if you talked about the number 86 to a Red Sox fan all they would see was Bill Buckner missing that ground ball.

The Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004. Ironically, it had been exactly 86 years since they last won it in 1918.

Some teams have a lot of numbers that invoke those types of memories.

For the Georgia Bulldogs there is only one number: 34.

I say 34 and your mind immediately goes to images of a white jersey with red pants running straight over that hideous orange uniform of Tennessee. As you picture the play happening in your mind, the narration from the Mighty Munson automatically switches on, and at the end of the play you are left hearing that famous voice make one of his most famous calls and with utter amazement and awe exclaim, “my God a freshman.”

I say 34 and you are going to think back to the glory days, 1980-1982 when the Georgia Bulldogs ruled the college football world. With the number 34 in the backfield, Georgia went 33-3. During that time, they lost only one game during the regular season, and won the national title in 1980.

Any time there is a running back that plays well at the University of Georgia he will be immediately, and unfairly, compared to the iconic number 34.

Watching Georgia play Tennessee in 2012 you saw Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall, both freshman, dominate the game in the first half. They were almost taking turns running through the Tennessee defense. I sent out a message on Facebook that said there would never be another 34, but we got a 3 and a 4, and that ain’t bad.

Georgia fans can’t escape the number 34, and we don’t want to.

The number 34 has been very good to Georgia fans, and recently the numbers 3 and 4 have been pretty good to us as well.

There is nothing scientific about it, but if you need a good omen that makes you raise your eyebrows about the 2014 season just think about this:

How many years has it been since 1980?

Go Dawgs!