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Top Row Dawg · (This post was last modified: Today, 01:59 AM by Top Row Dawg.)

With Love for Uncle John Always!

Woof™ For 16th Best Season in History of UGA Football #6 Final AP Poll (SEC Champs)

It has been a busy offseason for Wes Johnson, Georgia's Ike Cousins Head Baseball Coach, and the Bulldog program. The Bulldogs have signed transfer hitters to replace the nearly 100 homers that departed players hit last season, as well as signing pitchers who threw about 600 innings to replace the roughly 450 innings tossed by players who have moved on. "I don't want to give away all our secrets in the portal and how we go about our business, but we have a very complex model that we've been fortunate enough to put together and bake a lot of ingredients into a model of things that we really value and we think fit our ballpark," he said. He added that one focus is power — power hitting and power pitching. Not all of the paperwork on the portal additions is done, which limited who Johnson was allowed to discuss. Two transfers he did discuss were two-way player Kenny Ishikawa of Seattle University and pitcher Joey Volchko of Stanford. Ishikawa, a left-hander from Yokohama, Japan, batted .318 and hit eight home runs as a sophomore last season, with just 28 strikeouts in 201 at-bats. He also struck out 73 batters in 66.1 innings on the mound. Volchko, a righty, pitched 113.0 innings over his two seasons at Stanford, starting 21 games and striking out 109 batters. Johnson said Volchko has "the most talented arm we've had in my time here." Last offseason, Foley Field was undergoing a major renovation and the baseball program had partially moved out to Athens Academy. Johnson said having recruits in then made for "a tough sell" because the field was under construction. Now, with the $45 million project complete in time for last season and during the recruitment period, it has made a big difference. "The facility is phenomenal, and it has truly helped in recruiting and this summer," he said, adding that some of the guys are already in town lifting weights and doing the workouts they're allowed to do per NCAA rules. "I think that's just how you get chemistry and synergy flowing, right? I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are with each other every day, and a lot of them are back here and doing what they need to do."

Several years ago, Bryant Gantt had an idea. The former Georgia football player and longtime staff member wanted a photo taken of the five living Bulldog football head coaches: Vince Dooley, Ray Goff, Jim Donnan, Mark Richt and current coach Kirby Smart. It took some doing, but on May 4, 2022, about five months before Dooley passed away, Gantt was able to get them all together. The photo was up in Gantt's office, a special keepsake for the man who played for Dooley and Goff, worked for Richt as Program Coordinator, and now serves as Smart's Director of Player Support and Operations. He thought that was the end of it, but it wasn't. Others encouraged him to do something with it, which led to Friday's gathering at Butts-Mehre, called "Legends Between The Hedges." With Goff, Donnan, Richt and Smart in attendance, along with Barbara Dooley, and dozens more family members and longtime Bulldog supporters, a large Steve Penley painting of the five men together was unveiled.

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