University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: Grace Bridges
November 19, 2019 | Equestrian, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Grace Bridges is a Dawg from a Dawg family. All three Bridges daughters (Sara, Grace and Lilly) have either graduated from the University of Georgia or are currently in school, following the lead of their mom, Beth. Grace, a senior equestrian rider from Eatonton, Ga., about 50 miles from campus, knew Athens and knew UGA when she got here.
That doesn't mean she knew everything, of course. As she explained during a recent Quick Chat, being part of the Georgia equestrian team has been beyond her wildest expectations: "I'm a senior and these people are going to be in my life for the rest of it."
Here's some of what she had to say:
Frierson: You're somebody that grew up not too far from here, so I'm wondering if the experience of being at Georgia has been about what you expected or has it been a lot different?
Bridges: I would say yes, it's been about what I expected in terms of the school, just because my mom went to school here and my older sister graduated from Georgia. I'm here and my little sister is actually a freshman, so we're just a diehard Dawg family all the way.
I was already pretty familiar with campus and Athens, but the team was like everything and more than I expected. I honestly didn't know what to expect when I got here, but it has more than delivered on my expectations
Frierson: What specifically stands out to you about the team experience?
Bridges: I didn't expect to come in here and meet and get so close to so many different people. I've known a few girls that were from Atlanta but the majority of the team is from all over the country.
It's such an individual sport before you get to college that I didn't really know it could be so much like a family, and it really has been. I'm a senior and these people are going to be in my life for the rest of it, I'm hoping.
Frierson: One of my questions was along those lines: You're from about 50 miles away and you're on a team with players from all over the country and beyond, so how that has shaped your Georgia experience?
Bridges: Just having friends from everywhere is pretty cool; I've got cool places to visit and stuff. It's just meant a lot of different experiences and some of my teammates were a little shocked coming to Georgia when it's what I've known my whole life.
Another fun part for me has been mixing my friend groups, like my friends from high school come to hang out with me and my equestrian team friends. It can be fun to watch everyone interact.
Frierson: What is your riding origin story? Were you practically born on a horse or did you come to it later on?
Bridges: It was definitely a slow thing. Neither of my parents rode competitively; my mom took lessons and loved it as a kid for a little while, but neither of them pushed that on me when I was little. We lived in Atlanta until I was 8 — my dad played college basketball so me and my little sister both had basketballs in our hands by age 4 and we played all the sports; and my mom's a track coach so all did that heavily, too.
Ever since age 5, after a pony ride, I started bugging them and nagging and nagging, "I want to ride horses," it was just something that clicked for me. We finally moved out to Eatonton where we are now and we lived five minutes from a little lesson barn, and my mom was like, "All right, fine." At age 8, she was like, we'll let you take one lesson and see how it goes.
So I started taking lessons and that was it! [Laughs.]
Frierson: You have very sporty parents, obviously, but I suspect they were entering a world they knew very little about.
Bridges: It was eye-opening for all of us, I think, and it took us a while to kind of know what we were really getting into. But my parents were amazing in fully committing and being there for me in whatever I wanted to pursue.
I still played basketball and ran track all through high school, and was really competitive intuit, too, so they got to enjoy that for a while. ... We all learned a lot together over the years. [Laughs.]
Frierson: Which do you prefer: breakfast, lunch or dinner?
Bridges: That's hard but I have to say breakfast. I love breakfast food, savory and sweet. I love waffles, I love cinnamon rolls, you can't beat a big plate of hash browns, eggs and bacon. [Laughs.]
Frierson: I think you're the third person in a row to choose breakfast.
Bridges: Oh, yeah, I do eat breakfast for lunch and dinner half the time. I'll eat breakfast food any time of the day.
Frierson: What is it like being at Georgia with your younger sister (Lilly) also in school here?
Bridges: It's awesome to have her here for one year. We're three years apart so growing up we bickered a lot as sisters do but we were also on the track and basketball teams together, so it kind of clicked my senior year and her freshman year of high school. It was like I was leaving and she's going to be alone because she's the youngest, and from that point on we got super close.
I would definitely say she's my best friend and now that she's here, it's kind of cool to have her around. We'll grab lunch in between classes and I'll make her come out to our meets and everything.
Frierson: Do you have a creative side? Is there anything creative you do or wish you could do?
Bridges: No, honestly, I'm so type-A and so about organization and planning, like my planner is planned out hour by hour and color-coordinated. I'm so type-A analytical that I think my older sister got all of the creative ability in the family. She sang and danced and drew and everything else. She's super artsy.
I guess if there's one thing, I am pretty good at makeup, which is weird. I'll help out some of my friends, the reining girls, with their makeup. One of the girls, Annabeth Payne, I do her makeup before the home meets. I'm pretty good at that.
If there's one thing I wish I could do, I played piano as a kid, I took lessons for three years, and I wish to this day that I'd kept doing that — and also maybe learned how to sing or something. To me that's the coolest, being able to play an instrument. [Laughs.] I wish I was musically talented in some way, but unfortunately I'm not.
(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.
