Up Front | From the Editor

June 2001: Vol. 80, No. 3

hen Sports Illustrated put Uga V on the cover in 1997 and dubbed him the nation's No. 1 sports mascot, it apparently had some effect on our student-athletes, who have seemed bent on achieving the same kind of national recognition as Uga ever since. We finished second to Stanford in the Sears Cup all-sports standings in '99—and, wow, what a spring this has been.

Keppinger hit for the cycle in one game, followed by a three-homer outburst that won the regionals in Athens.

The quest for the Cup began in earnest in March when Jack Bauerle's SwimDogs won their third straight NCAA title. You remember Jack. We put him on the cover in December because he said he might never have another year like last year when the Georgia women repeated as NCAA champs, then won a bunch of Olympic medals in Sydney. Last time we believe anything Jack says.

Reilley Rankin, too—or at least her doctors, who said she might never play golf again after an ill-conceived cliff dive off Chimney Rock in June 1999. Her 67-foot cannonball resulted in broken vertebrae and a broken sternum, and you may recall the photo we ran of her lying in bed trying to get well enough just to walk again. So what does the resurgent Ms. Rankin do last month? Shoots 72-78-70-72 to lead Georgia to the NCAA title.

The woof-woof-woofing reached a fever pitch at the men's NCAA tennis championships here in Athens last month. Team title: Dogs. Singles title: Dogs. Doubles title: Dogs. The hero was Matias Boeker, who pulled off a triple (see this page).

Hosting nationals, the gymnastics team finished second with a score that would've won most years, and Cory Fritzinger was NCAA champ on vault. Hammer/35-pound weight thrower Andras Haklits won the NCAAs indoors and out, and Thorey Elisdottir won the indoor pole vault.

My favorite calendar event happened on April 22—when the Dogs won four SEC team championships on the same day! Men's and women's tennis. Men's and women's golf. Never been done before.

My favorite trivial-pursuit moment occurred in May, when UGA set a record for the shortest distance between two NCAA-hosted venues. So close were they that a miss-hit backhand could have sailed out of court one at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex and landed in the outfield at Foley Field, where the Diamond Dogs (as we go to press, they have advanced to the College World Series) were hosting the baseball regionals.

My Roy Hobbs moments of the year were both turned in by Jeff Keppinger, who hit for the cycle (single, double, triple, home run) in a 10-9 win over Georgia Southern—and then managed to top that in an 8-7 victory over Coastal Carolina in the region finals. He had five hits—three of which left the yard, including a game-winning, two-out, two-run shot that had Dog fans leaving the stadium saying, "Greatest baseball game I've ever seen!"

Alas, we probably won't win the Sears Cup this year because Stanford can afford to sponsor 13 more sports than we can, and fencing hasn't yet caught on in Athens. But we've had virtually the same kind of success we had in '99 when we won four NCAA championships—and, as the following news bulletin attests, we're gaining on the Cardinal.

Final score from the women's national ultimate frisbee club championships: Georgia 15, Stanford 10.