Sunday, September 14, 2008
News, Sports, A+E, Food, Life, In this Issue..., Style, Nightlife
The SP 100
Presenting the fourth annual SP 100: The Sunday Paper staff’s thoroughly researched, hotly debated and extremely opinionated list of Atlanta’s finest entertainers, restaurants, philanthropists, nights...
Sports
Greg Fiume/Getty Images
Matt Ryan
Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Sada Jacobson
Rob Tringali/Getty Images
Brian McCann
Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images
Mike Smith
Elsa/Getty Images
Chipper Jones
Spark St. Jude
UGA coach Mark Richt
Scott Cunningham/NBAE via Getty Images
Betty Lennox of the Atlanta DreamMATT RYAN
WHY: The third player taken in the 2008 NFL draft is also the league’s fourth-highest paid player. More important locally, Ryan has done and said all the right things to help a wounded franchise and fan base pick up the pieces after the Michael Vick fiasco of 2007. He won the starting quarterback job in training camp, and then went out and completed his first-ever NFL pass for a 62-yard touchdown, leading Atlanta to a season-opening upset of the Lions. No. 2 Falcon jersey sales are on the rise.
MICHAEL TURNER
WHY: The Falcons’ big free-agent acquisition in the offseason, Turner produced the best performance ever by an Atlanta ball carrier in his very first game with the club. Nicknamed “The Burner,” Turner blazed his way to a franchise-record 220 yards rushing and two scores on just 22 carries in the Birds’ season-opening 34-21 win over Detroit. After four backup seasons in San Diego, this former Charger bolted for the ATL, where his future looks very bright.
MIKE SMITH
WHY: One of seven candidates interviewed to be the Falcons’ coach not long after predecessor Bobby Petrino quit, the 26-year coaching veteran quickly brought experience and a track record of success to the long-floundering Falcons. Equally as important, Smith brought high character and integrity to a franchise that has endured one public relations embarrassment after another in recent years. While Smith had never before been a head coach at any level of the game, he sure looks like he knows what he’s doing so far.
BRIAN MCCANN
WHY: While fellow hometown favorite Jeff Francoeur labored through a disastrous 2008 season, his longtime friend has again excelled at catcher, and became the first Braves player ever selected to the National League All-Star team in each of his first three seasons. A fan favorite, McCann was not only solid behind the plate, but at the dish as well. Entering the final two weeks of the 2008 season, he’s in position to bat .300 and lead all Major League catchers in home runs and on-base plus slugging percentage.
CHIPPER JONES
WHY: Named to his sixth All-Star team this summer, Jones batted over .400 for the first two and a half months of the season before injuries and a weak-hitting surrounding lineup led to his average slipping. Still, Jones enters the final two weeks of the season battling for the N.L. hitting title. Oh, he also managed to hit career home run No. 400 in June, and released a charity wine called “Chipper Chardonnay,” with all proceeds going to serve children with disabilities.
PAUL JOHNSON
WHY: Named as head football coach at Georgia Tech late last year, Johnson looks as if he’ll enjoy the same type of winning success on The Flats as he had at previous stops at Navy and Georgia Southern. The 51-year-old Johnson demands a lot from his players, and after Tech opened the season with a pair of wins—including an upset victory at Boston College—it appears the Yellow Jackets are listening. In a watered-down ACC, Johnson could have Tech back in the conference title game sooner than expected.
GEORGIA FOOTBALL
WHY: The Bulldogs began 2008 with a crushing victory over Hawaii in January’s Sugar Bowl to finish No. 2 in the final national rankings, and began this year atop the Associated Press poll for the first time ever. After a pair of easy non-conference wins, the Dawgs are set to begin SEC play looking for their first conference title since 2005 and first national championship in 28 years. A multitude of offseason player arrests has proven disconcerting for coach Mark Richt’s program, but the prospects of a big season has Dawg fans barking louder than ever these days.
WHERE: www.georgiadogs.com.
THE GWINNETT BRAVES
WHY: It remains to be seen whether Atlanta can support two baseball teams, and then there’s that little matter of the minor-league Braves’ new stadium costing 50 percent more than originally projected. Still, we’re excited about the Richmond Braves’ move to Gwinnett next year, for several reasons. We can enjoy the intimate atmosphere of minor league games without driving all the way out to Rome; we can catch future major leaguers in action; and unlike their higher-paid counterparts, the Gwinnett Braves have been to a title game in recent memory, having lost the AAA Championship Game last year to the Sacramento River Cats. And although they finished 2008 with a less-than-stellar .447 (62-80), that may still end up being a better record than ATL’s Braves come away with this year.
WHERE: www.gwinnettbraves.com.
THE ATLANTA DREAM
WHY: The addition of a new professional sports franchise is always cause for celebration. And the fact that Philips Arena’s newest tenant is a WNBA expansion team means—well, two things. The first, of course, is that it will probably take a couple of years for coach Marynell Meadors and crew to truly gel and produce a winning season. But we’re OK with that, because the second thing is that Atlantans now have a chance to pull for an all-female team of athletes. And that’s something worth cheering about.
WHERE: www.wnba.com/dream.
ATLANTA LAWN TENNIS ASSOCIATION
WHY: When someone mentions Atlanta, tennis likely isn’t the first word that comes to mind. But make no mistake, ours is a thriving tennis town. Just ask the approximately 80,000 members who’ve made ALTA the world’s largest recreational community tennis league. Maybe it’s the opportunity to work out our freeway aggression, or the exercise it affords citizens of our smoggy city—whatever the cause, when it comes to donning tennis white and attempting to annihilate each other, Atlantans don’t mess around.
WHERE: www.altatennis.org.
SADA JACOBSON
WHY: Jacobson’s Olympic medals for fencing—a Bronze in 2004 (the first medal ever awarded in the women’s saber category), and Bronze (individual) and Silver (team) during this summer’s Beijing games—are certainly impressive. Her many other achievements (more than two dozen medals in all, including an individual Gold Medal at this year’s World Cup), prove the winsome Dunwoody resident is a world-class athlete. But the 25-year-old named the top seed and favored to win the Gold in Beijing isn’t all agility and mental tactics: She’s also an Ivy Leaguer with a degree in history from Yale, and is said to be starting law school.