Saturday was a busy day in a weird way. I began a mini-spring cleaning spree, and one of the things I did was clean up what I can best call my “OG” tailgate cooler.
Sometime during last season, I thought about that cooler. It was the first one I bought when I started hosting the tailgates for Duck Sports Authority in 2009. For a long time, I forgot where it was. Then, two weekends ago, my son Braden, who some of you met at my tailgates, sent me a text with a photo.
Lo and behold, I had forgotten that for a couple of seasons he and his friend Trevor shared tailgating space next to me before GA parking was kicked out of Autzen. The cooler had been sitting in Trevor’s attic since 2012.
There is something funny about recovering an object you did not even realize you missed until it comes back to you. It is not just a cooler, of course. It is all the things attached to it. Early mornings. Folding tables. Ice runs. Cheap chairs. Familiar faces. The version of life where the whole day stretched out in front of us and Oregon football Saturdays felt like a small neighborhood that popped up six or seven times every fall.
That got me thinking about how often we take for granted what we already have while spending too much time thinking about things we only thought we might have.
And, because this is still Oregon football, my mind eventually wandered to the Donte Wright flip from Georgia to Miami.
For the longest time, everyone I spoke with felt some level of confidence that Wright was eventually going to flip to Oregon. The relationship with Rashad Wadood was strong, perhaps the strongest behind Georgia defensive backs coach Donte Williams. Oregon had been involved. Oregon had reason to feel good. Oregon had a staff with a proven track record in the secondary, a defensive identity that keeps getting stronger and a clear developmental pitch.
But the reality is also pretty simple.
Oregon never actually had Wright in the fold.
