Road Trip: Georgia Southern – From the Bird’s Nest

Games are being played at such a rapid-fire pace it’s hard to keep up.  But given it was my first-ever trip to campus and the city of Statesboro, I really needed to do this blog.

If you want to go to Georgia Southern, it really isn’t a bad flight (It’s about eleven hours if you drive it, which is like going to Bowling Green, KY).  You can get a flight from Lafayette or Baton Rouge on Delta to Atlanta and then a quick flight down to Savannah.  (If you drive from Atlanta, it’s about 200 miles.)  The Savannah airport is really nice.  One terminal…about 12 gates.  But there are shops and places to eat there.  Much more variety than, say, Baton Rouge.  I had a long layover in Atlanta so it was nearly 4pm by the time I landed.  Got my rental car and started the journey.  After a few miles on I-95, I got on I-16, where I found miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.  (Think about that drive from Alexandria to Shreveport, except without Natchitoches as a respite.)  About fifteen miles from Statesboro you get off the interstate and onto a two lane state highway.  And, again, there’s not much there.

But I was in Statesboro for a little after 5pm and checked into the hotel.  I got in touch with Sports Information Director Ben Rikard and it was time to start thinking about dinner.  I asked the front desk (ALWAYS ask the front desk…I’ve never been led astray when it comes to food) about choices.  I told him we were looking for a sports bar type of place with good food.  He gave us one recommendation which he said was the best restaurant in town (that’ll have to wait for the next trip) and then said we probably wanted to eat at Gnats Landing.  And, he added, it was .50 wings night.

Sold.

The place was packed when we got there but after just a few minutes a couple of seats opened up at the bar.  We each ordered (you guessed it), a Yuengling and visited with the young man behind the bar.  According to the menu, they had nine or ten different sauces and I asked if I could sample three of them.  He brought them out and I decided on their house sauce.  In the meantime, the Yuengling was cold.  I ordered twenty wings (yeah, I know, I’m a cochon) while Ben ordered ten.  Once again, a good recommendation from the folks at the front desk.  Wings were meaty, sauce was complimentary, beer was cold, basketball on TV and a great atmosphere.

Then the bill came.

Twenty wings.  Four beers.  Wanna take a guess?

$20.13, with tax.

God bless Gnats Landing.

Ben and I both had jackets that identified where we were from.  I was impressed that so many people knew we were in town for the basketball game and the fact it was the next night.  Georgia Southern was dead last in the league in attendance, but it was pretty obvious they were going to have a decent crowd for the game.

Back at the hotel I did some prep work for the game and turned in at a decent hour.  I’ll have to admit, the older I get, the more day long travel takes out of me and I slept in Thursday morning.  Ben and I had planned to have lunch together and it was really too close to lunch to eat a big breakfast.  So I just had a roll and some coffee downstairs.  I saw Coach Bob Marlin visiting with someone I didn’t know.  Normally Coach and I visit over breakfast but I didn’t want to interrupt.

But it wasn’t long before the two men headed my way and Coach introduced me to Georgia Southern head coach Willie Fritz.  The two, of course, worked at Sam Houston State and when Coach Fritz was hired, coach Marlin said Georgia Southern would be successful

I guess we can say he was right.

Coach Fritz was very personable and we chatted for a couple of minutes before he left.

Now it was almost lunch time and it had been decided for a while now where lunch would be.  As you know, UL Athletic Director Scott Farmer is a Georgia Southern alumnus.  He met his wife Jackie there while in school.  He was the swim coach and assistant AD and if you mention his name in town, everyone recognizes it.  He had contacted me the week before just to tell me that we had to eat at Vandy’s.  Vandy’s is a barbecue place near the downtown area.  They’ve been in business since just after the Great Depression.  Scott could be a front desk clerk in his next life, because his recommendation was spot on.

Vandy’s isn’t a very big place (they also have a location at the local Mall, but you have to go downtown to get the real atmosphere.)  It’s a very old building and you can see into the area where they prepare the food.  And, I was able to imagine the place back in the ’50’s and ‘60’s when the South was still segregated and how the separation worked inside the restaurant.   Scott had said to order the barbecue plate with potato salad and Brunswick Stew.  Ben and I did as we were told.   The plate was a hearty portion, served with four slices of white bread.  (Scott said to take the barbecue, put it on a single slice of bread and fold it over.  He said I could thank him later.)

Thanks, Scott.

I’ve had Brunswick Stew before.  It’s a dish that can be served as an entrée or a side dish and it’s unique to the area between Virginia and Georgia.  What the ingredients are depends on what area you’re in and what you take out of your freezer.  You know that old “just take it and put it in the pot” recipe?  It works for Brunswick Stew.  Here’s a recipe I found.  Some recipes call for diced potatoes as well as the ingredients listed in the recipe.  Rabbit, venison and other meats can be used in place of, or in addition to, chicken, pork and/or beef.  Trust me.  It’s good.  And I’ve never had better than what I had at Vandy’s.

Afterward, we drove around the Georgia Southern campus for a bit.  It was pretty easy to navigate and was beautifully landscaped.  (No hills, though.  That area is pretty flat.).  We spent about 15-20 minutes on campus then it was time to finish game prep since I was doing a double header that evening.

I’d love to say Hanner Fieldhouse is a basketball palace.  That would be a lie, however.  It’s old.  It’s pretty antiquated and is pretty much devoid of any modern bells and whistles.  It reminded me a little bit of the old Sartain Hall at Troy, although Hanner was a nicer place.  But it seats just 4,300.  Many of those seats are in the end zone.  The sideline seats are chairbacked.  Georgia Southern’s Media Relations department did a good job and I had everything I needed to make the broadcast work.

The biggest issue with the facility (for me and other media) is the lack of space.  I was told I’d have three seats at press row and sure enough there were three reserved for me.  Work space wasn’t the issue.  It was the space between the table and where the stands were.  I had been told I’d be right at mid court and I was.  Great vantage point.

But I knew I’d better use the bathroom before the women’s game started, because once I got in, there was no getting out.  There was absolutely no way to exit without everyone working on press row getting up and moving out.  That wasn’t going to happen.  Neither was going to the media room for food or drink (which, it turned out, Ben said, wasn’t served anyway…very unusual.)

Now, I don’t know whether folks were excited over Georgia Southern’s record or thought maybe Duke was playing the Eagles, but they had their first sellout since Steph Curry and Davidson visited five years ago.  I was a little surprised the crowd wasn’t a bit louder considering the bad acoustics and the fact their team won.  But I’m sure the players and coaches were encouraged with what they saw.

Georgia Southern has one of the stranger looking mascots I’ve seen.  Eagle?  Pelican?  Stork?  This Eagle was tall and had a big, open beak.  Not exactly the proportion you think of when you think of an eagle…unless it’s anorexic.  The Eagle was friendly though, came over, took my bottle of water and made believe he was drinking it.  He gave it back, which insured he would not be an ingredient in Brunswick Stew (wasn’t enough meat to make a difference anyway.)

Georgia Southern won the game.  But when it was over, Eric Ferguson, their sixth man came over to where we were, and jumped on the scorer’s table to celebrate.  He did not land on my equipment but it was close.  Eric…really…it wasn’t Duke you just beat.

We packed up (I FINALLY got to go to the restroom) and headed back to Savannah to spend the night since we were flying out the next morning.  Ben and I hadn’t eaten since lunch so we decided to grab something on the way to the hotel.  We passed a McDonalds on the way out but decided to wait and grab something else.

Mistake.

Because after that, there wasn’t another choice until Savannah.  That’s when I realized how remote I-16 was.  And, when we got on the outskirts of Savannah, every place we found was closed and it was only 11:30.  But when we turned on the road where the hotel was, there sat a Waffle House.  Breakfast at midnight.  We both ate too much and didn’t care.

The men and women both went to Savannah rather than stay the night in Statesboro.  The women left for the airport at 5:15.  The men left at six.  My flight wasn’t until 11:40 so I slept in.  I had a long layover in Atlanta and grabbed lunch at the Five Guys in Terminal C.   I still had lots of time to kill and wound up at a bar that played music concert videos (they also served food.)  I saw Cyndi Lauper was the concert playing and immediately went in to watch.  A seat at the bar opened up and I had a brew while watching.  When the concert ended I was going to go to the gate…but then they put an Etta James concert on.

Another brew, please.

The three beers total that I had were more expensive than the entire food and drink bill at Gnats Landing in Statesboro.

But, Cyndi Lauper and Etta James?  Yes, please.