Pictures from my latest Georgia trip, ESPNU broadcast

I made my second trip of the year to call a game at the University of Georgia last weekend, including what felt like my umpteenth flight from LaGuardia to Atlanta. Many more still to come, of course!

With a free Saturday night and no college football in the area, I went to see Silverbacks Park in north Atlanta, home to the Atlanta Silverbacks of the North American Soccer League. Small stadium (c. 5,000 capacity) with a large youth-soccer presence in the crowd.

I was very surprised by two things: 1. The wind made it quite a cool evening. 2. T-shirts for 'MLS Atlanta 2017' were sold side-by-side (from a third-party vendor) with those of the home team, a member of a league often considered in competition with MLS. Very interesting.

My partner for Sunday's game, airing on ESPNU this time instead of the SEC Network, was former US women's national team star Shannon MacMillan, who won the MAC Hermann Trophy as the nation's top player in 1995 while at Portland, then was a key player as the US won the 1996 Olympics and 1999 World Cup and later played in the WUSA.

What had not occurred to me was that the 1996 Olympic soccer competition culminated in Athens, Georgia, with MacMillan scoring the semifinal game-winner and a goal in the final in games played before capacity crowds in Sanford Stadium, the Georgia football stadium! This was Shannon's first time back to Athens in 18 years, and even though she was performing in a much smaller venue, I think she had a great afternoon.

Most of us working on the broadcast were shadowed by University of Georgia broadcast television students as part of ESPN's Campus Connection program, and Shannon and I had the chance to talk to a bunch of them before things got too crazy, so that was a lot of fun.

Great opportunity for @UGAAthletics Students to learn from @jtyardley & Shannon MacMillan @ESPNU Campus Connection pic.twitter.com/ByqwRALPyM
— Meg Aronowitz (@megaronowitz) October 19, 2014

The game itself was a little hectic. A half-marathon held in the morning had limited our crew's access to the site, so there were a few things that wound up being done on-the-fly. In taping our opening segment, we were about to complete our best take when the stadium PA system launched into The Star-Spangled Banner, a definite no-no. So we did the open live, and except for one word stumble on my part (which I fairly successfully worked through), it still went great!

Afterward, with flights from Atlanta scheduled for Sunday night, we both high-tailed it out after the game, but not before I changed clothes and took a quick selfie with the stone Uga (pronounced like Uggla without the L) that keeps watch over the UGa Soccer Stadium!

Once I got to the airport, I could not convince TGIFriday's to switch any of its televisions away from Sunday Night Football, so to catch the first half of LA vs. Seattle for the MLS Supporters' Shield title, I used their wireless signal instead.

Finally, here's a link to our post-game segment, including both of the game's goals.

Since I'm in the area ... My first college football game at an SEC stadium

My fall work in the SEC means I will occasionally get to drop in on extra sporting events, and I had the chance to take in my first college football game in an SEC stadium (although I have been to midnight yell practice at Texas A&M) at the University of Georgia's Sanford Stadium on Saturday.

While I have no special ties to Georgia, I've always had a soft spot for Sanford Stadium because of its distinctive hedges. When you see a lot of the big stadiums on TV, they're mostly distinguishable only by the colors painted in the end zones and worn by the fans. With Georgia, however, you see the hedges and instantly know where the game is taking place. It always makes me think of watching football with my grandfather as a kid.

Georgia's game on Saturday was a noon kickoff against Troy, a school I called twice in 2012 but was definitely going to be overmatched in this game. After a wake-up call around 5:30 am CT in Mississippi, I flew to Atlanta, got my rental car, and set out for Athens, Georgia (only a little more than a year after my first trip to Athens, Greece).