A History of Volleyball at the University of Georgia

The University of Georgia (UGA) boasts a rich athletic tradition, with the Georgia Bulldogs competing in NCAA Division I as part of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). While football often dominates the headlines, the university sponsors twenty-one sports, including women's volleyball, a program with its own unique history and accomplishments.

Early Years and Program Development

Georgia's first volleyball season came in 1978 under head coach Sid Feldman. The program has seen eight different head coaches guide the team. For many years, the Georgia Bulldogs would see seasons with average records, until 2004.

NCAA Tournament Appearance

A significant milestone for the program arrived in 2004 when the team, under then-coach Buczek, achieved an 18-12 record and earned a spot in the 2004 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Tournament. Although they lost to Georgia Tech in the first round, this appearance marked a turning point and demonstrated the program's potential for growth. Stemke led the Bulldogs to their first NCAA tournament in nine years.

Recent History and Accomplishments

The Georgia Bulldogs women's volleyball team participates in the Southeastern Conference and is currently coached by Tom Black.

Milestones and Noteworthy Information

The Georgia Bulldogs are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Georgia. The Bulldogs compete in NCAA Division I and are members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The official mascot is an English Bulldog named Uga, (derived from an abbreviation of the University of Georgia), while the costumed character version of Uga is Hairy Dawg. The university sponsors twenty-one sports - baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, women's equestrian, football, men's and women's golf, women's gymnastics, women's soccer, softball, men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's track, and women's volleyball. The first mention of "Bulldogs" in association with Georgia athletics occurred on November 28, 1901, at the Georgia-Auburn football game played in Atlanta. The Georgia fans "had a badge saying 'Eat'em Georgia' and a picture of a bulldog tearing a piece of cloth". However, it was not until 1920 that the nickname "Bulldog" was used to describe the athletic teams at the University of Georgia.

Success Across Other Sports

The Georgia Baseball team has seen most of its success in recent years, including winning the 1990 College World Series, as well as making the trip to Omaha in 1987, 1990, 2001, 2004, 2006, and 2008. Coach Andy Landers, a pioneer in the sport, coached the Lady Bulldogs from 1979 to 2015, leading them to seven regular-season SEC titles, four SEC tournament championships, twenty 21-win seasons (an average of 24.4 wins per season), 23 NCAA tournaments, and five Final Fours. Landers currently stands as the winningest women's college basketball coach not to have won the national championship. While Dominique Wilkins is considered the greatest player in school history, the team's most successful season came one year after his graduation. The Bulldogs made their first NCAA appearance in 1983 - which would have been Wilkins' senior year had he not opted for the NBA. That team advanced to the Final Four before falling to eventual national champion NC State. Under the Tom Crean regime, the Bulldogs landed the number one recruit in the country in Anthony Edwards in 2018, the highest rated recruit in school history. Equestrian was added as UGA's 21st intercollegiate varsity sport in 2001. guided the team to a national championship in the Varsity Equestrian National Championships (NCEA) that year as well as a repeat national championship the following year (2003-2004). After a series of runner-up finishes, the team reclaimed the top spot in 2007-2008 and repeated as champions in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. In January 2009, Georgia riders moved into their spacious new home, the UGA Equestrian Complex, located in Bishop, Georgia. The site is approximately 12 miles south of the Athens, Georgia campus. The team originally trained and held meets at the Animal Science Arena on South Milledge Avenue. The Animal Science Arena is maintained by University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). The 93,033 seat Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium is the home of the Georgia football team.

Football Dominance

The Bulldogs claim four football national championships: one for the 1942 seasons based on the determinations of several selecting organizations, and three consensus national championships for the 1980, 2021, and 2022 seasons based on the votes of the AP and Coaches Polls (several selectors have recognized the Bulldogs as national champions for the 1927, 1946, and 1968 seasons as well). Georgia owns the nations longest active bowl streak at 26, surpassing the previous leader Virginia Tech, who reeled off 27 in a row. The bulldogs are 20-6 in that stretch, excluding the three CFP National Championship games in 2018, 2022, and 2023. In that time period; Georgia has accumulated 3 Peach Bowl victories, 3 Sugar Bowl victories, and a CFP Semi-Final Rose Bowl win to send them to the 2018 CFP National Championship game. Georgia's brand has grown exponentially under coach Kirby Smart, who's pieced together three #1 recruiting classes in his five seasons as Head Coach and led the Bulldogs to the 2021 National Championship victory over Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide team 33-18. The Bulldogs' most historic rivalry is with the Auburn Tigers, referred to as the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry and dating back to 1892. The other rivalries are between the Bulldogs and the Atlantic Coast Conference's Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets ("Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate") and the Florida Gators ("World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party"). In addition, UGA enjoyed a strong rivalry with the nearby Clemson Tigers for many years in football, especially in the 1980s. The Bulldogs and the Tennessee Volunteers annual showdown on the second Saturday of October has become a rivalry as a result of the 1992 division of the Southeastern Conference into Eastern and Western divisions. Before 1992, the two teams had only met 21 times since 1899. Beginning in 1992, the two teams have played annually as members of the same division. The Georgia-Florida game is held annually in late October/early November in Jacksonville, Florida, a site intended to be neutral. However, the game's location is a point of contention for many Georgia fans; many of whom argue that Jacksonville's location relative to the two universities favors Florida. The city lies 342 miles from Athens, Georgia, home of the Bulldogs, but only 73 miles from Gainesville, Florida, home of the Gators. The game is considered a must-do for many UGA students and alumni. The game was traditionally referred to as the "World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" due to the tailgating and celebration by fans, but in recent years the city and universities have dropped the usage to discourage drunkenness among fans. However, fans and former players on both sides of the rivalry still refer to it by that name, or a shortened "Cocktail Party," choosing not to ever use the sanitized "official" name. Georgia holds the all-time advantage in the series, posting a win-loss record of 56-44-2 (55-44-2 according to the University of Florida, which does not include the 1904 game in Macon, Georgia, played before officially sanctioning its football program). The University of Florida closed what was a substantial gap in the series by posting a better overall record in the 1990s and 2000s. Georgia turned the tables in the 2010s, winning 6 of 10, and Georgia leads the series since 2020, winning the last two games.

Golf, Gymnastics and Swimming

From 1946 to 1970, Howell Hollis built the Georgia men's golf team into a conference power, claiming 13 SEC titles. George Hamer won the individual national title in 1946. Todd McCorkle coached the Georgia women's golf team from 2001 to 2007, when he abruptly resigned before the NCAA Women's Golf Championship under a cloud of sexual harassment allegations. His inaugural UGA team won the national championship. UGA's sixth place tie at the 2006 national event marks the seventh top-10 final ranking in the last nine years. The program has won eleven SEC titles. Since 1986, the Gymdogs have brought home 10 gymnastics national championships (1987, '89, 1993, '98, '99, 2005, '06, '07, '08, '09), the most of any team in NCAA history. Georgia is also only the second team (Utah, 1982-86) to win the national title in five consecutive years, winning in 2005-2009. UGA Alum and Coach Jack Bauerle has placed the women's program among the nation's elite. As of the 2016 season the women's team is tied with the University of Texas for the second highest number of national championships at seven (1999, 2000, '01, '05, '13, '14, '16) and posted eight national runner-up finishes (2002, '03, '04, '06, '09, '11, '12, '15). The women's swimming and diving team has also won twelve SEC team championships (1997, '98, '99, 2000, '01, '06, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15). Bauerle has coached 11 female Olympians and 88 SEC individual champions.

Softball and Tennis

The Bulldog softball team began play in 1997. The team has won two SEC regular season championships in 2003 and 2005. The Team won the SEC tournament in 2014. The team has made eighteen NCAA tournament appearances. The team has made four Women's College World Series appearances in 2009, 2010, 2016, 2018, and 2021. Under the direction of Dan Magill from 1954 to 1988 and his successor (and current head coach) Manuel Diaz, the Georgia Men's Tennis program ranks among the nation's best. The team has won a total of eight tennis national championships in 1985, 1987, 1999, 2001, 2006 (indoor), 2007 (indoor and NCAA Division I), and 2008. The NCAA Men's Tennis Championship has been held in Athens 24 times in the past 35 years, including consecutively from 1977 to 1989 and in 2007. UGA alumnus Jeff Wallace coached the Georgia Women's Tennis program from 1985 through 2023 and was then the winningest NCAA women's tennis coach with six National Championships (2 NCAA, 4 USTA/ITA Indoor) and an 814-198 record. Former Georgia men's tennis national champion Drake Bernstein became head coach in 2024.

Track and Field

The UGA women's track and field teams have won two national championships. Caryl Smith-Gilbert coached the Georgia team to the 2025 NCAA Division I Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championship, which included Stephanie Ratcliffe who won the hammer throw as her second title after transferring from Harvard and became the first NCAA competitor to accomplish the feat at two different schools and in the non-consecutive years of 2023 and 2025.

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Non-Varsity Sports

The University of Georgia offers several non-varsity sports such as ultimate frisbee, fencing, rugby, Men's Wrestling, lacrosse, women's tennis and ice hockey. Founded in 1967, the University of Georgia Rugby Football Club plays Division 1 college rugby in the Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference against its traditional SEC rivals. The UGA Rugby Club won the 1979 Savannah St.

Athletic Department Controversies

The athletic department suffered through several controversies in the early 2000s, including a major scandal within the men's basketball program. In 2003, a power struggle between University President Michael Adams and athletic director and Bulldog legend Vince Dooley stole headlines when Adams refused to renew Dooley's contract, effectively firing him. The firestorm has calmed slightly since then, however, largely due to the success of Dooley's successor, Damon Evans. In 2006, the Bulldogs recorded the highest profit margin of any athletic program in the country (according to the EADA report), pulling in $23.9 million, and also recorded another highly successful year on the field. Damon Evans was replaced by Greg McGarity, a Georgia alum and Associate AD at the University of Florida, in 2010. McGarity's tenure as Georgia's AD was one that saw a great surge in fundraising prowess. In 2015, McGarity made the controversial decision to fire long time Head Coach, Mark Richt. He then hired Alabama Defensive Coordinator Kirby Smart as Richt's replacement. Greg McGarity retired at the end of 2020 and was replaced in the summer of 2021 by Josh Brooks, who is the athletic director of record for the Bulldogs' 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship win.

Notable Athletes

The Georgia Bulldogs football team boasts two Heisman Trophy winners (Frank Sinkwich, 1942, and Herschel Walker, 1982), and holds the distinction of having three graduates become Super Bowl MVPs (Jake Scott, 1972, Terrell Davis, 1998, and Hines Ward, 2005). Additional notable former players include WR Lindsay Scott, QB Eric Zeier, QB Fran Tarkenton, RB Charley Trippi, RB Rodney Hampton, FB Mack Strong, RB Garrison Hearst, DE Bill Stanfill, DB Terry Hoage, CB Champ Bailey, RB Olandis Gary, DE Richard Seymour, LB Boss Bailey, DE/LB David Pollack, QB David Greene, K Kevin Butler, CB Sean Jones, SS/LB Thomas Davis, WR Reggie Brown, FS Greg Blue, QB Buck Belue, RB Knowshon Moreno, QB Matthew Stafford, WR Mohamed Massaquoi, QB Evan Boose, PR Prince Miller, R Rennie Curran, LT Jon Stinchcomb, WR A. J. Green, RB Todd Gurley, RB Nick Chubb, RB Sony Michel, LB Richard Tardits, QB Stetson Bennett, DT Jordan Davis. TE Brock Bowers, and WR Ladd McConkey. Despite being overshadowed by its football program, the Georgia Bulldogs basketball team has produced several notable players that went on to be successful in the NBA. In 2020, Georgia freshman Anthony Edwards was selected first overall in the 2020 NBA draft, becoming the first Bulldog to do so. Olympians (Vern Fleming, Willie Anderson, Anthony Edwards), with Fleming and Edwards eventually each earning gold medal. Other notable alumni include Dominique Wilkins, 9-time NBA All-Star whose number 21 was retired by the Atlanta Hawks, as well as Shandon Anderson, Jarvis Hayes, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Nic Claxton, and Toumani Camara. Olympians who have combined to earn six Gold Medals (Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain Johnson), 16 former players who have continued to the WNBA (second-most nationally), and six WNBA first-round draft picks in the past five years (second-most nationally). The Bulldogs baseball team has seen several of its former players move on to successful professional careers, most notably former New York Yankees pitcher Spud Chandler.

Broadcasting

Bulldogs football and basketball games air locally on WRFC and WNGC in Athens, and on WSB and WSBB-FM in Atlanta. Scott Howard serves as radio announcer for both sports. Eric Zeier and Chuck Dowdle are the football and basketball color analysts respectively. sports announcing and who was endeared by Georgia Bulldog fans, award winning Larry Munson provided radio play-by-play for the Georgia Bulldogs football games from 1966 to 2008.

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