`Chickenhawk' Is Living His Dream
December 30, 2015 | General
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
From a young age, long before anyone (and eventually most everyone) affectionately called him "Chickenhawk," Steve Bryant knew what he wanted to do with his life. He saw his dream, pursued it and has been living it for more than 30 years.
We should all have such fortune and focus.
Bryant currently serves as the Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Medicine and is the administrator for the Stegeman Coliseum athletic training room, working with the Bulldogs' Olympic sports. Last April, he received the Chris Patrick Award at the Southeastern Conference's sports medicine meetings. The award is given annually to the outstanding athletic trainer in the conference.
"We have a saying around here: People want to know how much you care before they care how much you know. And I think he embodies that," said Ron Courson, Georgia's Senior Associate Athletic Director of Sports Medicine. "When you first meet Steve, I think the first impression you take of him is that he's generally one of the nicest people that you've ever met, you know he truly cares about you and he's going to do everything he can to get you well."
For those that don't know Bryant, and Courson said there can't be that many that don't because every time they travel together they bump into people Bryant knows, here's a quick version of how the nickname "Chickenhawk" came about:
In his early days working Georgia football practice, before there were large water containers scattered all over the field, the trainers carried water bottles in their hands. They were small and emptied quickly, forcing the trainers to frequently run to and from the shed for refills.
"I would make hundreds of trips it seems like during each practice and coach (John) Kasay said I looked like a chickenhawk swooping off the hill. You could come off the hill at that time and he said I looked like a chickenhawk coming off the hill, and it stuck."
Stegeman Coliseum has been Bryant's office for several decades now. Of course the building now looks almost nothing like the one he starting going to in the late 1970s. His office and almost every aspect of Georgia sports has transformed dramatically during his career.
"Collegiate athletics itself has exploded, TV has certainly brought that on, and the emergence and explosion of women's athletics is beyond anything that I thought it would be, and that's been a very good thing," Bryant said. "And you know what, watching these young ladies compete and win championships is right at the top of my list, from tennis to swimming to gymnastics, and on and on."
The son of educators -- dad was a principal and mom a teacher -- Bryant grew up in Elberton, Ga., where he said he first began wrapping ankles as an eighth-grader. He continued throughout his time at Elbert County High School, where the coach was former Georgia football player Bill Coer.
After starting out at Gordon Junior College (now Gordon State College), in Barnesville, Bryant finished up his undergraduate studies at Georgia. He stayed in Athens and got his master's degree.
"Things just fell into place and as soon as I finished my master's," he said, "there was a position open for the assistant trainer -- and I've been here ever since."
And what a time for him to arrive, in the late 1970s.
Bryant, a tennis fan who played in high school, was a student as the Georgia men's program and the NCAA championships (then always held at Georgia) were coming on strong. He said he regrets not making it to the tennis courts to see the singles finals of the 1978 NCAAs, when a Stanford freshman named John McEnroe, already with a semifinal appearance at Wimbledon on his resume, beat N.C. State's John Sadri for the title.
He missed one all-time great, but he saw plenty of Herschel Walker, Dominique Wilkins and so many more great players and teams. His first season as the men's basketball trainer was in 1982-83, when the Dogs made the Final Four.
"The belief on those guys I think really kicked in when we won the SEC Tournament in '83 and that moved us into the NCAA tournament," he said. "We won it over in Birmingham, and then is was just a wild, fun ride."
The ride has been fun, and sometimes wild, ever since.
Among Bryant's most fond memories are listening in when Erk Russell, Georgia football's legendary defensive coordinator from 1964-80, would talk to the team.
"Sitting up there and listening to him give a talk to the team, you'd want to fly out of there you were on such a high," he said.
During his Georgia career Bryant has served stints as the athletic trainer for men's and women's basketball and co-head football trainer, as well as working with other sports. Here's an example of how long Bryant has been at Georgia: he was the last wrestling trainer. The younger crowd might not know that Georgia once had a wrestling team, which existed from 1960-80.
"In 1979 I was a very green student trainer and was assigned wrestling, and I knew nothing about wrestling," he said. "Wrestling wasn't big around the South as it was at one time and schools were eliminating it for financial reasons. ... I enjoyed it. That indoctrinated me into a whole new world of athletics that I had no clue about."
Through the years, Bryant said he has never given any serious thought to leaving for a position elsewhere. His connections to UGA and Athens run deep.
"This is home," he said.
In 1985 he married Peggy McGarity, the sister of Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity.
"Certainly when he became a member of our family, our family got stronger, knowing the type of person he is and knowing how he's wired," Greg McGarity said.
As much as facilities, finances and so many other aspects of collegiate sports have changed and evolved over the years, sports medicine's transformation might be even greater. Technological advances have radically altered how injuries are treated and, Bryant said, "we've gotten so much more educated about understanding what's going on with the human body and why."
Despite all those changes, he said, "we still wrap ankles and we still ice people down." And like it was when he started, it's about taking care of the student-athletes who need you.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
