Archive for the ‘Live chat’ Category

The midfield reunion we've long awaited: Arthur M. Blank and Michael Vick. (Photo by M. Bradley)

Michael Vick has returned to the Georgia Dome. He jogged on the field at 11:24 a.m. He received a polite round of applause. (There weren’t many folks in the stands yet.) The first person he approached was Jimmy Cribb, the longtime Falcons photographer. The two embraced.

“He told me I always took good pictures of him,” Cribb said, “and if I got anything good today to send them to him.”

Then came the long-awaited meeting with Arthur Blank. (See above photo, shot by someone much less professional than Jimmy Cribb.) And then Reggie Roberts, the Falcons’ VP of communications, walked over to Vick. More hugging ensued.

Roberts: “He told me he missed being here. He misses the city, misses the Dome. He said he was crying on the bus ride over.”

Along those lines, here’s a snippet of an as-told-to article Vick did with David Fleming of ESPN The Magazine. Here’s Vick speaking his mind on, of …

Continue reading Live from the Dome: A former prince returns to the city »

The ACC motto: Nothing says college football like a pirate ship in the end zone. (Photo by M. Bradley)

Tampa — The ACC tried Jacksonville. Didn’t work. Then it tried here. Hasn’t worked. Next year it tries Charlotte. Probably won’t work.

The ACC has this problem. It wants to be seen as a big-time football conference but lives cheek-by-jowl with the big-time football conference. The SEC championship game — the granddaddy of such events, at least in the upper tier of college football — dwarfs all else. Best teams, loudest fans, nicest setting. (Atlanta, Ga., thank you very much.)

The ACC expanded to 12 teams in 2005. Its first title game — between Florida State and Virginia Tech — drew 72,749. Last year’s title game — staged here, in the stadium rigged out with the pirate ship — drew an actual crowd of 27,360. (Nearly twice that many tickets were sold.) Tonight’s game between Georgia Tech and Clemson will do better than that because these schools are much closer to Florida than …

Continue reading Live from Tampa: Tech goes for a title in a windy setting »

The ideal Christmas gift for a Dawg fan? Not this. (Photo by M. Bradley)

Understand: In my entire life, I have never thought of Bobby Dodd Stadium as the Joke by Coke, but seeing as how I’m tasked with chatting live tonight from a Georgia perspective I thought I’d get in the spirit. But that, I should report, is where it ends. No cracks about John DUI-berry. Or Reggie Ball. (Well, maybe only one or two.) Everything else will be straight down the middle. Fair and balanced, as we say here at Fox News.

And we at Fox News have learned that the Ol’ Ball Coach doubled the score on young Dabo of Swinney, which has the effect of doing two things near and dear to Georgia fans’ hearts. First, it devalues the ACC title game, in which the North Avenue Trade School — sorry, couldn’t t resist just one more — will take part, and it also offers further proof that the ACC isn’t exactly a fortress of a league.

South Carolina entered having lost five of 11 games, same as Georgia. South Carolina …

Continue reading Live from the Joke by Coke, and the Evil Genius = hope »

The view from my perch. The stage awaits Diamond Rio, I believe. (Photo by M. Bradley)

Hello there. I’m at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where a goodly crowd has already gathered in preparation for tonight’s Pep Boys 500, which will be a significant gasoline-driven event in local annals. It is, as you’re aware, the first night Cup race in track history, and hopes, as they say, are high.

But because this is NASCAR and we car-racing veterans know to get to the track early lest ye sit in traffic worse than the seventh circle of Hades, I’m here with time to burn. And I’d like to spend it with you, dear readers. I’d like to give you my impressions of a fairly eventful weekend in Atlanta sports doings, and I’d be greatly interested in hearing your feelings. So here goes:

Georgia: I wasn’t shocked the Bulldogs lost. I was shocked they lost the way they did: Rather routinely after having jumped out to the necessary on-the-road start. Oklahoma State seemed determined to choke on that game, …

Continue reading Chattin’ with Bradley: UGA, Braves, Shockley & NASCAR! »

The state's finest football squad makes its extremely noisy entrance. (Photo by M. Bradley)

Yeah, I know. I meant the headline to be, as we say in the trade, a grabber. But I believe Georgia Tech will again be the finest college football team in our fair state this season, and if I didn’t say something semi-provocative up top you wouldn’t have much cause to participate in a live chat off Tech-Jacksonville State, would you?

I’ve hung around Tech long enough to know that the first thing the Institute’s Old Guard checks on entering the stadium is this: Are the Jackets wearing gold? (Taz Anderson is a stickler on this point.) And my early answer is: I think so, but I’m not certain. Because all I can spot at this moment are Jackets warming below clad in white football pants and gray T-shirts.

I assume they’ll be wearing shoulder pads eventually, but you never know. Paul Johnson likes his teams to be tough, and maybe he has decided to measure that commodity by having his men go …

Continue reading Live from Tech: The best team in Ga. makes its debut! »