University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: Rodrigo Blankenship
November 06, 2019 | Football, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Rodrigo Blankenship routinely delivers on the field, in the classroom and in the community. On Tuesday, it was announced that Georgia's fifth-year senior kicker was named one of nine semifinalists for the 2019 Wuerffel Trophy, an award that recognizes college football players for their community service.
The first two times Blankenship sat down for a Quick Chat, in 2017 and 2018, the super-accurate booter (making 83.95 percent of his career field-goal attempts, best in school history) shared some great stories and some great insights into who he is beyond the game:
Quick Chat 1: https://georgiadogs.com/news/2017/10/26/football-quick-chat-rodrigo-blankenship.aspx
Quick Chat 2: https://georgiadogs.com/news/2018/11/13/football-quick-chat-rodrigo-blankenship.aspx
After practice Tuesday, the man from Marietta, Ga., who draws perhaps the biggest cheers at Sanford Stadium when the Bulldogs are introduced, sat down for his third and final Quick Chat. And he definitely delivered again. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: It is almost two years ago to the day that we did the first one of these things, when you told me about dressing up as Iron Man at school and in front of your friends and classmates asking a girl to the Homecoming dance. Where did you get the confidence to do something like that?
Blankenship: [Laughs.] I think it was a combination of things — I had really liked that girl and I had asked her out sophomore year, and she turned me down at the time. So I was just really determined to kind of make a statement and show her that I had some confidence about me.
Of course, I love Iron Man so I was very enthusiastic about any opportunity I could get outside of Halloween to have a good reason to wear the costume. I had a lot of help and encouragement from some of my best buddies from high school that really kind of juiced me up and hyped me into it.
I had help from one of the teachers to get the P.A. system to play the Iron Man theme song, so that really helped. … It just kind of took off from there.
Frierson: Hearing that and hearing that she'd already turned you down once before, that makes the fact that you put yourself out there like that again, with an audience, even more impressive. Have you done similar bold things in public like that?
Blankenship: I had another … later that year I started dating a different girl and I asked her to prom, and that was also another kind of public display, so to speak. She was on the girl's varsity soccer team at Sprayberry (High School) and I was on the boy's varsity soccer team, and so we always played our games on the same night. …
We had a home game and my mom and dad had ordered a bunch of Fatheads (the giant posters or cutouts) of me for football season, for my family and friends to hold up in the stands. We still had five of them …, so I used those and put the giant letters P-R-O-M-? on the back, one letter for each of the heads, and gave them to friends to go up into the stands with.
It was in between our two games, I walked up to her and pointed up into the stands and all my friends flipped the Fatheads around, from my face to the letters. That was kind of big and all the people in the stands were like, "Awww! that's so sweet."
Frierson: And she said yes?
Blankenship: Yes, she did.
Frierson: Wow, you were just fearless.
Blankenship: [Laughs.] Yeah, I was just crushing the dance proposals in high school. [Laughs.]
Frierson: Is that why you're so good at kicking, because you're so calm in these kinds of dramatic moments?
Blankenship: I don't know, I definitely have not always been that way. It definitely took a lot of build-up, I guess, to actually have the confidence to be able to do that. I think junior year was a good year for me, just to kind of grow and develop as a person and just explore my personality, I guess you could say.
I definitely previously had been very shy and reserved, so that was the year, when I look back, that I kind of came out of my shell a little bit.
Frierson: I saw where you were one of the semifinalists for the Wuerffel Trophy and I know that you've been recognized for your work in the community before. Have you always been involved like that or is it something that's blossomed at Georgia?
Blankenship: I've always been willing to give back to the community that I've come from and to other communities, but being at the University of Georgia and being part of this football team and just being on a national stage for the last few years has really given me a great platform to be able to do some of these things.
I've made so many connections and been able to network with so many people through the University of Georgia, people from all walks of life that I can reach out to, so it's really kind of taken off. Being able to be at UGA and being on the football team has really helped me to really give back.
Frierson: Now for some silly questions — which do you prefer, breakfast, lunch or dinner?
Blankenship: [Laughs.] I don't know. I'm going to say lunch, I feel like you have a little more flexibility at lunch. When you're eating breakfast, I feel like there are certain foods that you're kind of expected to eat at breakfast, and the same goes for dinner. But at lunch you could have something that someone might consider a lunch food but you could also eat something that maybe is considered dinner food or breakfast food, and no one's going to bat an eyelash.
It feels like you can eat whatever the heck you want when you're eating lunch.
Frierson: So what's a perfect lunch for you?
Blankenship: There have got to be some nachos in there …
Frierson: [Laughs.]
Blankenship: Usually one of my favorite days at (Georgia's) training table lunch is when you have the make-your-own-nachos bar. I feel like there's got to be nachos; I feel like there has to be either tater tots or cajun-seasoned french fries. I'd want some fresh fruit in there: strawberries, blueberries, bananas, like a medley of fruit. Probably some broccoli with the melted cheese sauce on it … and probably a Powerade to drink.
Sounds pretty good to me.
(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.
