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Here is what I had to say to Bill Martin:
"Dear Mr. Martin:
"I hope this message finds you well.
"I am writing to you today as a University of Georgia alumnus, Bulldog football season ticket holder, and college football fan. As I am sure it is quite out of the ordinary for you to receive e-mail from intercollegiate sports enthusiasts whose loyalties and locales lay well outside of your environs, I should begin by explaining why I am writing to you today.
"It is my hope that, at the earliest available opportunity, Michigan and Georgia will schedule a home and home series against one another in football.
"As you can tell, a small but devoted community including fans of both schools has expended substantial time and effort in an attempt to persuade the Michigan and Georgia athletic administrations to work together to make a two-game series between these storied programs a reality. I trust that I am not the first booster of either institution to contact you in this regard. I hope the evident enthusiasm for this matchup causes you to give serious consideration to the reasons for, and wisdom of, such a series.
"Neither the Maize and Blue nor the Red and Black have traveled outside their respective regions in recent years. Michigan has not played a regular season game in the South in 20 years; Georgia has not played a regular season game outside the South in 40 years. (As a matter of fact, the last cross-sectional opponents the Bulldogs went on the road to face were the Wolverines in 1965.) However, the benefits of interregional out-of-conference scheduling were made readily apparent in last season's meetings between Texas and Ohio State and between Southern Cal and Notre Dame.
"Both of those games garnered the attention of college football fans around the country and around the world. Wins by the Longhorns in Columbus and by the Trojans in South Bend put U.T. and U.S.C. squarely at the forefront of the national title race and those two teams met in the Rose Bowl to decide the 2005 championship of Division I-A college football. Even the losers of those contests profited from playing those games, though, as the Buckeyes and the Fighting Irish were able to parlay impressive efforts and close losses into successful seasons, culminating in at-large B.C.S. berths for both teams.
"With the addition of a 12th regular season game, elite programs like Michigan and Georgia now have greater flexibility to schedule outings against traditional powers from other B.C.S. conferences. The national prestige earned by both combatants, irrespective of the outcome, was made evident by the Fiesta Bowl bids extended to two of the Wolverines' biggest rivals. I have every confidence that Michigan, a program that has never shied away from scheduling rugged non-conference competition, will not allow the winningest program in Division I-A history to be outdone by historic opponents like Notre Dame and Ohio State.
"Accordingly, I hope you will see fit to contact your counterpart in Athens, Damon Evans, and make arrangements for Michigan and Georgia to be added to one another's slates in an upcoming autumn. Such a two-year home and home series between two historic programs would benefit both teams and be a boon for the sport as a whole.
"I thank you for your time and I hope I may look forward to seeing the Maize and Blue playing between the hedges and the Red and Black taking the field in The Big House in the near future. Regardless of your decision, though, I send my best wishes to your program, your family, and you for a safe and successful 2006.
"Sincerely yours,
"T. Kyle King"
Go 'Dawgs! |
