Ordinary Time (with Bulldogs)

On Monday, almost without warning, the Christian world fell from the Christmas season into that plain-sounding condition called “Ordinary Time.” Technically, this designation simply means the days and weeks of the liturgical year that do not fall in Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter. Most of us struggle, suddenly finding ourselves in this kind of time, not to take “ordinary” in what the Oxford English Dictionary calls a “depreciatory sense,” as though it were “somewhat below the usual level of quality.” It’s hard to give up Christmas, in particular, and some make plaintive arguments that the season used to stretch all the way to Candlemas on February 2. We need to remember, as consolation, that history, public and private, largely takes place in ordinary time—wars, weddings, plagues, birthdays, revolutions, barbecues. The original July 4 in Philadelphia was in ordinary time, as were the Charge of the Light Brigade, D-Day, and the first landing on the moon.

Time on Monday was ordinary all day long. Morning went by, noon came, afternoon followed — nothing special. But then came 6 PM Mountain Time, when the University of Georgia played the University of Alabama for the National Championship in football. Those of you uninterested in football might want to check back next week — but this game, as I hope to explain, is perhaps the greatest argument in recent memory that ordinary time should not be depreciated. Granted, my current standing as a football fan cannot begin to rival that of some colleagues here at Wyoming Catholic College, especially Notre Dame graduates. I have not watched a whole game, college or professional, this past season, and I hardly know the names of players who have been stars in the NFL for years, much less those of current college players. But Monday night it did not matter.

My daughter and I went over to watch the game at the invitation of Bob and Barbara Spengler. Barb had to tell me when the game was being played, but she knew I would want to see it. Her father was Dallas Ward, a legendary football coach at the University of Colorado, and she knows the power of attachments. She knew that I grew up in Georgia and have two degrees from UGA. Moreover, the Bulldogs were not playing a rival team from one of those states with alternative contact sports, such as the one that encourages grown men to dash around on ice skates and swat a small disk with crooked sticks. No, their opponent was from the South, where football is not so much a game as a sacred and momentous rite. Georgia was playing Alabama. Bear Bryant in his houndstooth fedora was gazing down in serene judgment from the heights of the pantheon.

I confessed my pessimism early on. I knew who Nick Saban was, but I did not remember that Kirby Smart was the Georgia coach. Maybe I had repressed the information after watching Georgia (despite leading late in the fourth quarter) manage to lose the 2018 National Championship to Alabama in overtime. That was the only game I saw them play that year. The problem is, it was not out of the ordinary. In fact, before the game on Monday night, the Bulldogs had lost the last seven times they played the Crimson Tide, most recently in the Southeastern Conference Championship just a month ago.

In the first half, neither offense could do much against the crushing defense of the other team, but Georgia’s quarterback, whose unlikely name is Stetson Bennett IV, was clearly doing worse than Alabama’s Heisman-winning sophomore, Bryce Young. Midway through the game, Alabama was up 9-6, and the last of the five snooze-worthy field goals of that half was apparently so boring that ESPN’s camera wandered away from the Georgia kicker to a random shot of the Alabama sidelines. With Georgia losing right on schedule, Julia and I thanked our hosts and went home.

As everyone knows, the second half was altogether different from the first. Georgia scored the first touchdown on a run by Zamir “Zeus” White and took the lead. After a fumble that led to an Alabama touchdown, Stetson Bennett IV rallied for two touchdown passes, and, in the last minute or so of the game, Georgia cornerback Kelee Ringo intercepted a pass from Bryce Young and ran it back 67 yards for the crowning touchdown. Georgia won the national championship 33-18.

Barb Spengler texted me updates until the game was over. My wife thinks that I must be devastated that I did not see the second half. Not so. I read a story in my childhood about the perils of time travel. Going back and changing any slightest thing in the past might alter the whole course of subsequent history in potentially devastating ways. Had I stayed for the second half, in other words, Alabama would have won as usual. (Look at what happened in 2018.) I consider not seeing the end of the game a worthy sacrifice on behalf of my home state and my alma mater. Julia and I did what was necessary to bring about Georgia’s first championship since New Year’s Day 1981, though I doubt we will ever get the recognition we deserve.

That New Year’s Day in 1981, by the way, Georgia was playing Notre Dame. We were watching the Sugar Bowl at the home of Doug Jeffrey (now the Vice President of External Affairs at Hillsdale College) on Etain Street in Irving, TX, and our renowned professor Leo Paul de Alvarez, a Notre Dame graduate, had joined us. Herschel Walker, an 18-year-old true freshman from Wrightsville, Georgia (population 3500), had racked up over 1600 yards and 15 touchdowns in the regular season before this championship game. On this memorable day, after having dislocated his left shoulder early in the game, he ran for 150 yards and two touchdowns to help Georgia beat the Fighting Irish. I saw that whole game. I remember it so vividly because my wife was in labor with our second child and refused to tell me until the game was over.

I’ll say this: Georgia’s victory on Monday night made falling into ordinary time altogether acceptable. The slight madness that accompanies this latest championship will pass, and I will speculate someday about why things like this matter so much to us. But not right now. Ladies and gentlemen, if I may: How about them Dawgs?

Republished with gracious permission from Wyoming Catholic College.

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