Ryan Clark’s Peach Bowl Diary
For the first time in two years, we get to eat Christmas dinner with families other than our own. Today, which is Christmas Day, the team as well as all members of the travel party gathered for a Christmas Brunch at the hotel. Everyone seemed up-beat even and ready to enjoy Atlanta and win a football game. After the meal, everyone really seemed to really miss their mothers, especially moms cooking. The food looked great, but once we started to eat we realized we weren’t at home. No, seriously the food was good and it was cool to be with the guys and enjoy Christmas with the football family.
Mr. Dean, our Athletic Director at LSU, gave a speech at the brunch and presented all of the wives of the coaches and staff with gifts. After Mr. Dean finished, Santa Claus came for us and he put on quite a show. He was great and he brought gifts and loads of laughter. The first gift Santa gave out was to another Nick as in coach Nick Saban. Coach Saban received a bag full of goodies – I guess he wasn’t naughty last year (after all we did win seven games). After Coach Saban go this gifts, Santa’s elves passed out goodies for the big boys(the players). The big boys received Christmas bags filled with loads and loads of fun.
After the gifts were distributed, we were treated to a musical delight by all of the children. The kids jingled all the way on a one-horse open-sleigh. The women of LSU (the coaches wives) excited us with a treat worthy of an MTV music award as they all joined on stage to sing Joy To The World. That song never sounded so beautiful. The seniors then had their shot of the stage as they attempted to sing the 12 Days of Christmas lead by Fred Booker. Let’s just hope they play ball better than they sing Christmas songs. Thus far, this has been the highlight of my Peach Bowl experience. A few of the guys stayed after the Christmas Party to get a little work on our vocals. We got to listen to a high-pitched version of one of the LSU fight songs courtesy of Coach Sal’s (Sunseri) little girls.
Now that all of our Christmas activities were done for the moment, it was time to get to the business at hand – Georgia Tech. Everyone was ready into Georgia Tech. The meetings went well and everyone was attentive. The ride to practice was rather boring., Practice went great, as usual. Coach Saban coached hard and we listened even harder. Everyone knew their assignments and cam back in better shape than I expected. After practice we went back to the hotel. We started to do our own thing. Some people slept, some played video games, others went out. The day went well and was very productive.
Good night Tiger fans! I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.