Tom Dudley stands among the 1,500 University of Georgia Bulldogs hedges Thomson-based R.A. Dudley Nurseries Inc. has been growing for the past three years. Hedges at Sanford Stadium were removed last year to make room for Olympic soccer. With the games over, the plants will return to the stadium. Photo by Bob Rives/Staff

Web-posted August 8, 1996

Now that Olympic soccer is over, the secret home of the hallowed hedges is revealed

  Dogs are back in camp

By Michael Cass
Columbia County Bureau

Die-hard Dawg Tommy Dudley was appalled when he heard they were going to cut the storied hedges out of Sanford Stadium so the world could play soccer.

Mr. Dudley soon changed his mind, however. Removing those famous rows of ``common privet'' for the 1996 Olympic soccer tournament could help the University of Georgia correct some persistent drainage problems. And, the new hedges would be the ``sons and daughters'' of the ones originally planted in 1929.

``When they were first talking, it... kind of hit a nerve with you,'' said Mr. Dudley, 45, a 1973 UGA graduate. ``But after realizing the same plants would be there and all the problems they were having anyway, it was just good timing.''

Realizing a hedgerow-filled stadium wouldn't be able to handle a regulation field for soccer, UGA's athletic department approached Mr. Dudley and his brother Mike (UGA Class of '77) in the fall of 1992 about regrowing the hedges for post-Olympic football.

The brothers soon went to work, taking 1,500 three-inch cuttings from the original, now 67-year-old Ligustrum sinense and growing them at R.A. Dudley Nurseries Inc. A Florida nursery, whose location Mr. Dudley and UGA officials refused to disclose, nurtured identical cuttings in case of irrigation problems, bad weather or vandalism in Thomson.

The Dudleys rooted each cutting in June 1993, then potted them in 10-gallon containers in August 1994. Beginning April 10, 1995, the plants were pruned every 24 days until November; the process resumed May 1.

The results were 1,500 box-like pieces of common privet, each of them 2 feet long by 2 feet wide by 4 feet tall. Ten tractor-trailer rigs will carry 1,000 of them west to Athens on U.S. Highway 78 in two weeks.

They should be spreading their roots in the Sanford Stadium sod by Aug. 31, allowing Georgia's players to avoid the ``severe psychological disadvantage'' they would face without the hedges as they open the 1996 season against Southern Mississippi, UGA sports information director Claude Felton said.

Tommy Dudley will have two reasons to smile when that day comes. He'll be proud of helping his Bulldogs remain in the environment they know and love. And he, too, will be able to get back to normal.

All that pruning can be a chore, no matter how much you support the cause.

``I'm ready for 'em to get out of here,'' Mr. Dudley said. ``It's been very time-consuming to do.''