“UGA”
Ugamania isn’t reserved for Saturday football game at the University of Georgia, it’s a year round happening. UGA VI assumed the school’s mascot role on September 11 th, 1999 when he replaced his father UGA V in pregame ceremonies at Sanford Stadium. With the long legacy of mascot greatness that has been established at Georgia, UGA VI has big paws to fill.
Before UGA V passed away on November 22, 1999, The solid, white English Bulldog was heralded as the country’s best college mascot in 1997 by Sports Illustrated and was featured on the magazine’s cover for the issue rating America’s Top 50 jock schools.
UGA V showed he was much more than a cover boy when he made his big screen debut in the Clint Eastwood directed film “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” This 1997 film set in Savannah, Georgia, also boasted the talents of former Dawg quarterback Buck Belue. UGA V expressed his apparent knowledge of the heated Georgia-Auburn series, when his actions following an Auburn touchdown had Bulldog fans cheering. This odd time for exuberance resulted from UGA’s attempt to bite the Auburn player as he ran through the end zone.
While howling with delight, Bulldog fans inundated Patricia Miklik, a photographer for the Montgomery Advertiser, with more than 600 photo requests for the photo that she took of the incident in 1996. Once copies were released UGA’s snarling leap became quite a popular Christmas present.
UGA VI, like all of his predecessors, is a white English Bulldog bred through a line leading back to the original UGA born in 1955. The Georgia mascots are all buried in the embankment near the south stands at Sanford Stadium at a site that’s marked by memorials made from Georgia marble.
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