I was lucky enough a couple of years ago on my road trip to the Ole Miss game to spend the night in Clarksdale, Mississippi, home of the blues. One of the highlights of my night there was dropping into a joint called Red’s and watching T-Model Ford. I learned shortly afterwards that he suffered a stroke and, sadly, no longer performed. Given his age (and that’s a matter of whom you asked), I expected that he wasn’t long for this world.
When Ford was young, he served two years of a 10-year prison sentence for killing a man in self-defense, and he had scars on his ankles from serving on a prison chain gang, Stolle said.
Ford had six wives and 26 children, Stolle said. When Ford’s fifth wife left him, she gave him a guitar as a parting gift.
“He stayed up all night drinking white whiskey,” or moonshine, “and playing the guitar,” Stolle said. “He kind of went on from there.”
This is a good introduction to what Ford was doing late in life:
And this is my favorite tune… NSFW. But it’s catchy.
Stella was with him that night in Clarksdale. She’s a helluva woman, too.
Last Friday, McDowell made an appearance at UGA’s Dawg Night prospect camp and had a long conversation with Bulldogs coach Mark Richt.
“I had it in the back of my head that Georgia would be a good place, but I didn’t think I would be happy there at the end of the day,” McDowell said. “It’s because of the trouble the players get into, and stuff like that. I didn’t want to take that risk to be around that.”
UGA already has two safeties committed for 2014, including last Friday’s addition of 4-star Kendall Gant of Lakeland, Fla.
“I feel a connection there but then again, there were a lot of safeties already committed to them,” McDowell said. “So I just wanted to go somewhere where I could set my name in stone and compete (for playing time) early.”
I’ve been waiting to share this one with you for a while. Bill Connelly has written a book that should be published by month’s end. One of the neat things he’s done in it is compile a list of “the 10 games that most directly formed my fandom as I know it”. Even better, he asked me to do the same for inclusion. I’ve been waiting to share my list with you guys because it was such a fun exercise – although keeping it to ten was damned tough – but held off until Bill had the info out there. Since he’s let the cat partially out of the bag, I figure there’s no stopping me now.
I will follow his lead, though, in only providing the list itself, without my reasons for why each particular game is included. (Not that you should have much trouble figuring out some of those.) Keep in mind, as I told Bill, these aren’t necessarily the ten best college football games of my lifetime, although several of them qualify as such, but they are the ten games that best explain my obsession. They are the touchstones that remind me why college football resonates with me more than any other sport I’ve followed:
1966: Notre Dame 10 – Michigan State 10.
1971: Nebraska 35 – Oklahoma 31.
1978: Georgia 17 – Kentucky 16.
1980: Georgia 26 – Florida 21. (Duh.)
1981: Georgia 17 – Notre Dame 10.
1997: Georgia 37 – Florida 17.
2002: Georgia 24 – Auburn 21.
2006: Texas 45 – Southern Cal 42 (41-38).
2007: Arkansas 50 – LSU 48.
2012: Alabama 32 – Georgia 28.
Like I said, there are a few more that just missed the cut, but so it goes. I’d love to hear what games you guys would pick. Give me your lists in the comments. And have fun with this.
Get The Picture 