University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: Best Of 2018
December 31, 2018 | Baseball, Equestrian, Football, General, Men's Basketball, Men's Tennis, Softball, Women's Basketball, Women's Golf, Gymnastics, Soccer, Women's Tennis, Volleyball, Cross Country, Track & Field, Swimming & Diving, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
It's the end of the year, a memorable 2018 for Georgia athletics and a memorable 2018 for yours truly, who gets to interview Bulldogs for a living. With the end of each year comes year-end lists and what follows is a list of interesting moments from my Quick Chats with Georgia players (and one coach) during the past 12 months.
Throughout the year I do Q&As and those one-on-one conversations that may or may not have anything to do with sports have become my favorite part of my job. I never know where the conversation will go, because a question about X or Y often leads to a follow-up that's in a totally different direction than what I anticipated. And I'm usually delighted when that happens.
Many thanks to all the Bulldogs for sitting down with me and entertaining my often silly queries, and many thanks to everyone that reads them. Now here are some of my favorite Quick Chat moments from 2018:
Gymdog Sydney Snead
Frierson: Did you ever do diving, just because there are some similarities between it and gymnastics?
Snead: Fun fact: I never did diving, I am, like, scared to dive into the pool, which is so weird. Whenever I did swim meets, when I was six years old or something, I would just jump in and then take off and start swimming.
I never could dive, never learned how to dive and still to this day, I've never really gone to try it. I'd be scared to try and dive which is so weird because with gymnastics and diving you can see the similarities.
Frierson: That's really funny. I think of you all as such daredevils, these courageous stuntwomen or something that are constantly trying these things that to me look really dangerous.
Snead: It's funny, that's why it's so embarrassing. My mom's like, Sydney, you need to learn how to dive, that's embarrassing. You do gymnastics, you can't even dive into a pool. (Laughs) I'm like, I know, I need to learn. That is a fun/embarrassing fact.
Volleyball coach Tom Black
Frierson: What's the best or most important book you've ever read?
Black: I think it's this book, "Integrity" by Henry Cloud. ... He talks about how integrity is like the structure of a plane and it has to be honest and true or else the plane's not going to fly, but it also has to be up to the demands that the turbulence is going to put on it. ... It really resonated with me. It's one of those books where you read it and it feels like a shot to the heart.
Another really good book that I've read recently, a book that's changed me, is "Chaos," it's on how we discovered chaos theory and what it is. That's changed my view of life.
Women's basketball guard Taja Cole
Frierson: What do you remember about your initial days in basketball as a young kid? What drew you to the game?
Cole: I think my uncle (Tarik Wallace), he played at the University of Arkansas, and Allen Iverson, he's from Virginia, and he was just a really, really good basketball player and I liked his style. I wanted to try basketball because of them and basketball was my first sport, actually.
I also played football and that was where I got all my basketball moves, between football, Allen Iverson and my uncle.
Frierson: How were you as a football player?
Cole: I was pretty good, I was the only girl on the team and I played running back and safety. I loved playing safety, I could stay in the back and anticipate and read the quarterback's eyes and get a lot of interceptions. I had a lot of fun with that but they gave me a hard time for being the only girl on the team.
Volleyball player Sydney Gilliam
Frierson: What's something you've tried to get really good at but have never even come close?
Gilliam: I really like to bake, but I never follow the recipe for some reason — I always try to change it. And I don't think I stink at it, but it's always interesting to see what that recipe turns out like in the end when I've kind of been like, well, I want to do this instead of that.
I think it's more experimenting to see if it does stink or if it's successful and tasty.
Frierson: Is there something that most of your teammates and friends are into that you just don't get?
Gilliam: Honestly, I feel like music, like the type of music that most of my teammates are into, I just, I'll listen to it but it could be two years that a song has been out and I'll have no idea. Those things just kind of go over my head, so I trust them with the music at practice and on the road.
Men's swimmer Blake Atmore
Frierson: Do you have a plan for the next 10 years or so? In a perfect world, how does the next decade unfold for you?
Atmore: This is kind of what I've been talking with Jack about: so my dad is from Zimbabwe, so I'm trying to talk to the swimming federation there and the swimming federation wants me to represent them.
Frierson: In the Tokyo Olympics?
Atmore: Yeah, that's the goal. It's the dual-citizenship part, because obviously I will not give up my U.S. citizenship, so if I can get that approved by a minister there then I would be all-aboard that and hopefully compete in the worlds this summer, then maybe the African Games this summer, and the Olympics in 2020.
Ideally, that's how it works out. I just need to get everything approved. Otherwise, I have an internship at Barclays this summer, then I'll come back to school and then start banking in New York for a couple of years, then probably move back to Atlanta and do private equity or something.
And if we're going 10 years, hopefully in 10 years maybe I'll have a wife or something, if I can find the right girl.
Women's basketball forward Stephanie Paul
Frierson: What's something creative you do, or wish you could do?
Paul: I like to dance a lot. That's all do is dance.
Frierson: I've heard you can sing, too.
Paul: I'm not that comfortable singing around that many people. Sometimes I'll do it, I've gotten more comfortable, but I like to sing. Dancing is more of my thing.
Frierson: You were clearly the star during StegMania.
Paul: I had the time of my life doing that. I was genuinely having the time of my life doing that dancing. I didn't really care about the competition that much, I mean it was great that we be (the men's team), but I was just having fun dancing.
Frierson: Have you ever danced in an organized event or production?
Paul: The only real dancing I've done, in high school I did theater and there was a lot of choreography that we had to learn. It was pretty difficult because we had to sing and dance at the same time, which is very hard.
Equestrian rider Jessica Blum
Frierson: What was your first Georgia football game experience like? I'm betting that was a new thing for you (as a Canadian).
Blum: I came here not knowing that football was such a big deal. I remember on my recruiting trip we went to the football game and went on the field and I was like, "What is this?" I didn't really care but my dad was like, "This is the coolest thing ever!"
I don't remember who we were playing but I was not wearing red, I was wearing blue. I just didn't know that it was that big of a deal. I just really didn't realize that it was such a big deal, and I had no idea what was going on on the field.
I understand football now, but then I really didn't get it.
Frierson: You weren't watching a whole bunch of Toronto Argonauts games back home?
Blum: No (laughs).
Frierson: When you go to a Georgia game now, what's the experience like?
Blum: I used to not go to all the games and not watch the away games, but now I watch every game and I'm super into it. It definitely kind of consumes you.
Distance runner Grace Tavani
Frierson: Do you have a favorite city you've explored while running?
Tavani: I spent the past two summers in Jackson Hole, Wyo., so literally everywhere there you can step out the door and it's beautiful — running there is beautiful. ... I have a bucket list of everywhere I want to travel.
Frierson: What all is on the travel bucket list?
Tavani: I want to go to Oktoberfest in Germany, and I'm obsessed with "The Sound of Music" so I want to go to Austria and Switzerland and do the "Sound of Music" tour there, and then I want to go to all the national parks, especially the ones in Canada.
Australia and Fiji are up there, and I've never been to Hawaii so I want to go there.
Women's tennis player Mariana Gould
Frierson: Congratulations on graduating — how does it feel to sit here as a college graduate?
Gould: You know, I was hoping it was going to feel different, but it feels no different to me, yet. I'm going to grad school, so that could be why; I still have more school. It was a crazy weekend, it was awesome, and it's nice to graduate.
Frierson: What are your grad school plans?
Gould: Right now I'm going to be in the MPH program, which is Master of Public Health, and that's a two- to three-year program depending on what I add and stuff.
Frierson: You majored in psychology and health promotion — what exactly is that and how did you get interested in it?
Gould: That's a hard question. It's kind of one of those majors that has so many aspects to it that it's hard to describe. It's public health, so working with the health of the public and going out and doing wellness and stuff. That's not exactly what I'm interested in; I'm more interested in the health policy and health management side of it.
My whole thing was, I wanted a career that I could always find a job not matter if the economy's suffering, and I've always been interested in health care and medicine. But I was not going to become a doctor. I also really want to work with people. This major is really broad so you can kind of tailor it however you want, and this seems like a good fit.
Softball pitcher Mary Wilson Avant
Frierson: If you could be truly great at any other sport for one day, just to experience it, what sport would it be?
Avant: OK, competitive cheerleading. Yes.
Frierson: I was not expecting that answer.
Avant: I know. In high school I really wanted to be a cheerleader; all my best friends were cheerleaders and my older sister was a cheerleader, and so I knew all the cheers. We didn't have competitive cheerleading, but it was one of those things where I wanted to do it.
Frierson: I have no idea what the difference is between cheerleading and competitive cheerleading, other than one is being judged. Are they doing much different routines and stuff?
Avant: Our cheerleading squad at Stratford, it was basically a spirit squad, like rah-rah. They didn't do the big flips and stunts and stuff. In competitive, you do the big flips and tumbling and all that.
Soccer player Katie Ralys
Frierson: What's something you could eat every day and never get tired of it?
Ralys: I eat Cheez-Its every day, they're my favorite snack. I'm a really big food person, so anything.
Frierson: Is there something from home that you can't find here?
Ralys: Just my mom's cooking, she cooked every night and I would get home and there would be a meal waiting for me. I really miss home food in general.
Frierson: What's the dish when you go home that you can't wait for her to make?
Ralys: Her chicken pot pie is really good. She just came up here recently and we made it for all our roommates and we literally finished it in one night — it's so good.
Football defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter
Frierson: Tell me about football players on a cruise ship, which are legendary for having 24-hour buffets and just tons of food available.
Ledbetter: Honestly, it was fun. It was me, J.R. Reed, Michael Barnett and we went with our other roommate, he doesn't play football, and it was probably one of my favorite, favorite moments throughout college. It was a five-day cruise to Cancun and then went to Cozumel, and did the whole resort thing.
On the cruise we definitely ate a lot. Dinner was everything included, so I'm pretty sure every night we ordered every entree. They had like five or six options to choose from so we got everything. We just said to bring out everything and that's how I tried escargot, which is actually really, really, really good. So I'm a fan of snail now (laughs).
What else did we try? Lamb, duck, we had a bunch of crazy stuff on the cruise, and honestly, it was all really good. We met a lot of new people from a lot of different schools. And it was actually a Green Bay Packers cruise, we didn't know about that before, and Ha-Ha Clinton Dix was on there and I knew him from recruiting back in the day, so we got to catch up and hang out and kind of fellowship. It was a good time.
Frierson: Did you ever imagine you'd be eating snails? I had snails for the first time this summer, in Italy, and the dish was really, really good.
Ledbetter: Honestly, you have to try them. They're kind of chewy but they're not super, super chewy like calamari. They'll like melt in your mouth when you just take a bit of it. They put a little cheese on the top of it and they had them in these little trays that they cooked them in. I ordered like four trays of them because they were so good. I couldn't believe I was eating snail, but that's one of my favorite dishes now.
Frierson: Are you an adventurous eater all the time?
Ledbetter: Surprisingly, I'll try stuff but I've got to know where it's fun. I have to know what it is. I won't just eat something, because it can freak me out, like texture is really weird for me. If it's a weird texture I'll be like, uuhhh.
Men's golfer Spencer Ralston
Frierson: If you could experience greatness for one day in any other sport, what would it be?
Ralston: Probably baseball — I played baseball for most of my life. I think I was 12 when I quit playing, but I played all while I was growing up, travel ball and all that stuff. I decided after that that I probably had a better opportunity playing golf, so I ended up focusing on that. You couldn't really play both of them at the same time, so I had to choose one.
I love baseball, I still watch it all the time, and I have a bunch of buddies that play here on the team.
Frierson: What kind of player were you? What position did you play?
Ralston: I was a catcher. I would like to say I was good, but maybe other people would disagree. I was baseball through and through when I was younger.
My dad played golf at Clemson so I was always around the game, and I finally was old enough when I could go out there (and play golf) more and more, and kind of caught the itch for it. It kind of blew up from there.
Softball outfielder Ciara Bryan
Frierson: Say your body no longer required sleep, how would you spend those extra six or seven hours a day?
Bryan: I don't know, maybe go to the pool. We've all been talking about how we hate these suntans that we have, so I'd like to go even it out (laughs) at the pool or the lake.
Frierson: A popular answer to that one is Netflix.
Bryan: I don't even watch Netflix. A lot of my team watches Netflix and they have seasons of shows they watch, but don't even watch it. I don't really watch TV.
Baseball outfielder Tucker Bradley
Frierson: When you have a school as small as Gordon Lee, were pretty much all of you together from kindergarten through graduation?
Bradley: I would say 75 percent I started out with in kindergarten, yeah. That's pretty cool. It was awesome growing up there and I wouldn't trade that for anything, growing up in a small town, just getting to know everybody.
It's a great thing about Chickamauga, everybody knows everybody.
Frierson: There can be a downside to that.
Bradley: That's true. My mom found out anything I did before I even got back home, especially with her being an administrator at the school.
Men's basketball guard Jordan Harris
Frierson: As I get older I like giving gifts more than receiving them, so what's the best present you've ever given someone, like when you absolutely knew that you'd nailed it?
Harris: I bought my mom some perfume, it was Gucci Bamboo perfume, and my mom loves perfume, she likes smelling good, and it was big for me because I knew she didn't have that kind, that she hadn't heard of it.
I also got her a book, I wrote a book for her.
Frierson: Okay, tell me about that.
Harris: I think it was like, "50 Things I Love About You," and in it I stated 50 things I love about her. She read it and cried.
Frierson: When you think of your home or hometown, what sights, sounds or smells immediately come to mind?
Women's golfer Bella Skinner
Frierson: What's something creative you do, or something creative you wish you could do?
Skinner: I don't know if you can think of it as creative, really, but I do my own hair coloring. I dye my own hair, and beauty, whether it's hair or makeup, that's kind of my interest outside of golf. ... I watch Youtube videos a lot, looking at different techniques for how to do hair and makeup. It's kind of my creative outlet.
Frierson: What is it like the first time you color your own hair? That's a pretty big leap of faith that you're going to do it right.
Skinner: The first time my mom and I tried it, it actually worked really well. Typically you hear the story of, oh, my hair turned orange or it's bright yellow, it's terrible. I got so many compliments. My hair was really receptive to it and ever since then I've found it really interesting, and I don't have to pay $200 to go get my hair done.
I have gone with it and I've had a couple of people actually ask me to do their hair, because they love the way I do my hair.
Men's tennis player Jan Zielinski
Frierson: What do you remember about your first Georgia football game? What did you know about American football when you first got here?
Zielinski: Nothing. Nothing. To be honest, I didn't know anything about American football. I didn't know how many players were playing on the field; I didn't know any of the rules, like how you score or anything. It was just a completely different sport for me. I would say the same for Americans would be like handball or something — they don't really know what handball is but it's pretty big in Europe.
I honestly don't remember my first football game, but I remember it was fun. That's all I remember. I don't remember who it was against but I really enjoyed it. ... I really like the time before the game, when everyone is hanging out together and talking and having a good time, and then going to the game together. It's a fun time being with friends.
Frierson: Have you embraced the game at all? Do you know what you're looking at now?
Zielinski: Right now, yeah. I really got into it last semester when Georgia was doing really well. I don't really follow any professional football teams, the NFL, or anything. It's just not my thing. I really follow the NBA closely, though. I was always a huge fan.
Ever since I got to the U.S., I started watching it even more just because the games are usually in the evenings. The games were on when I was sleeping in Poland and Europe, so they were hard to watch back home. I was only following scores and statistics, but now I get to watch the games. ...
I really want to go to a huge game, like Golden State against the Cavaliers or something. That's one of my dreams.
Men's basketball guard Christian Harrison
Frierson: I understand that your dad's a doctor (Emerson, a urologist) and your mom's a lawyer (Cynthia, a defense attorney). What is it like growing up in a house with those kinds of academic and professional achievers?
Harrison: I guess you're held to a high standard and you want to make your parents proud, of course, because they've worked so hard to provide for myself and my siblings. It's a blessing because you get to see a different lifestyle to work towards, to get to and achieve, and you want to go out and do your best in everything that you do.
Frierson: Are you interested in going into either of those fields?
Harrison: No (laughs), I don't want to go to medical school, too many years doing that, and law school, I don't think I like reading enough to become a lawyer. I respect both of my parents for what they do and the sacrifices they've made, but I don't think I want to take either of those routes for my career choice.
Women's swimmer Jordan Stout
Frierson: I don't know that most people really understand what swimmers go through in a given day. Can you take me through a typical difficult day of training?
Stout: Mondays are never easy because it's Monday and we have practice 5:30 [in the morning] and that lasts until 7, and then we go straight from practice in the morning to weights, and that lasts for about an hour. And then I go to my two classes and after class I work at the Exercise Psychology lab here doing research, so then I go do research.
After that I come back to practice, from 2:45 to about 4:45, and then I do homework.
Frierson: Plus you have to eat a bunch to fuel all that training and get a good, healthy amount of sleep, so how hard is it to find that rhythm to where those training days before as comfortable and routine as they can?
Stout: I've always been pretty good at managing my time, I have a whole planner where I plan day by day by day, with everything I have to do, so I'm pretty good about that. I normally try to get to bed around 10:30 at the latest — there are of course nights when I've had projects that take so long — but I'm usually pretty good about managing everything.
Football kicker Rodrigo Blankenship
Frierson: Is there anything really old-school that you're into, like music or movies or cars?
Blankenship: When I was younger, going through elementary school, my dad (Ken) would take me to school every day and we would go in his Ford Ranger from, like, 1996, and we would listen to his cassette tapes, there was no aux (auxiliary) cord or CD player. He had a bunch of Beatles tapes, so I grew up listening to The Beatles and I'm a really big fan of The Beatles.
I'm also a little bit of an old car junkie. Back home in Marietta, on the first Saturday of every month, I think, at 8 a.m. there's an old car show at Piedmont Church. Whenever I was home and available, my dad and I would always get up and go to that. All the old cars, like '55 Chevys or old Pontiacs, that kind of stuff, any kind of old car you can imagine, would be there.
Frierson: Do you have a dream car that you'd like to one day own?
Blankenship: If I was going to have an old car, I think it would be an old Camaro. I remember when the first "Transformers" movie came out and one of the first Transformers was Bumble Bee and he starts off as an old Camaro, like a '69 Camaro, and then halfway through the movie he does this little scanning thing and he turns into a new Camaro, and from that point the old Camaro became one of my favorite old cars.
Men's track sprinter Cejhae Green
Frierson: What's something your friends are all into that you don't get or understand?
Green: Where I'm from, we dance a lot. But our dances are a little different — a lot of American dances are almost like breakdances in a sense, you just stand up and dance with yourself. We're more interactive when we dance; that's one thing I didn't get for a long time.
It's like, we have a culture where we interact with persons when we dance; we get into a group and everybody dances together. Up here it's more of a show-type thing. That's one thing I didn't get for a while, a long time, but I'm starting to get it a little bit more. As a said, we're festival people and we like bringing together everybody and having fun as a group.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
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.
