Nationally Televised Georgia/Florida Game

I was on national TV. Yep. And not just some blip of a moment. But a full 45 seconds. Ask Danny Hill. He'll tell you. He saw me. And he wasn't drunk either (I don't think.)

First year teachers get every student sickness that comes around that year. Tag! You're sick.

Well, I really got the flu that first year. I promise. But, by golly, that was NOT going to stop me from going to the Georgia/Florida game in Jacksonville.

Fall 1977.

I had only been teaching 3 months. I called my school office to tell them I had the flu and would be absent on Friday. But of course, I was NOT too sick to get in a Winnebago with 3 other couples and my date and good guy friend, John Cox. John was a Kappa Alpha at Georgia Southern University where I went for undergrad school. John was very proud of this fact. So much, that he brought along this huge 4' by 6' banner with KA printed on it to hold up, I guess, when Georgia scored a touchdown. Did I mention John was a big Georgia fan? I was too, in 1977. (Went there for grad school a year later...)

Anyway, I really, really, really am dying from the effects of the flu. But I soldiered on as this was a great opportunity, and I recall, we had decent seats in the student section. We settled in to our places with our tickets. Many rum and cokes later (no one was watching what you brought into the stadiums in 1977...don't you miss it?) there is a camera and with a man behind it holding it and pointing it straight at us. John and I had end seats and we were no more than 8 feet away from this guy.

I saw the cameraman pointing the camera at us, but I didn't know about little green lights being on to tell you that it was LIVE! So, John starts to pull out his KA banner. I thought, "No way you are going to drape that thing across my face. We could be on TV!"

And we were.

Now let's change the location for a moment. Back in Conyers, Georgia, Danny Hill, a devoted Tech fan, was watching the UGA/Florida game. He sees us on the broadcast. He yells from his comfy chair in his den to his wife in the kitchen, "Jane, hurry in here. Joanna is on TV."

Jane told me later that she thought to herself at this moment, "If I go all the way in there, by the time I get there, Joanna will have disappeared." So, she didn't go.

15 seconds pass. "Jane, come in here now! Joanna is still on TV!" Jane thinks, "Well, I know now for sure that as soon I walk in there, she won't be on."

"JANE! Joanna is on TV!" 15 more seconds of us hooping and hollering in the stadium. Acting like fools. We didn't know that were being seen by THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE...heck, maybe millions?

Friends I hadn't seen or heard from in years came out of the woodwork after that weekend. They called to let me know they had seen us on TV. So long, in fact, that they did recognize me. You know how sometimes images go by so fast? Well, not this time.

But, the ONE person I didn't want to see me on national television was my principal. I never knew if he watched that game. I didn't want to know. (I really WAS sick!)