The Georgia Tech Football Gnome and Bart Starr Autographed Football

When my husband can swap between NASCAR and football, he is a happy man. When his Georgia Tech team wins he is truly happy. When the Atlanta Falcons then proceed to win, it’s nearly a perfect football weekend for him. (I won’t go into the rest of the formula of what makes an actual perfect weekend). Anyway, football and racing are his prime sports and as I have previously mentioned, the short gap in February after the Superbowl and before the new NASCAR season starts is always sort of a “sports trough” for him. It’s not as if we have many sports-themed items around the house and in general, the presents I give Hubby tend toward dive equipment, tools, and now of course, photography stuff.

Back in 2009, I think it was, I decided to surprise him with an autographed football from one of the greats he’d admired when growing up before Atlanta had a football team. The one I knew he had really liked came with a much higher price tag than I was willing to pay, but one from Bart Starr was reasonable. Although I had no actual idea how he would react to this, he did like it and in fact built and designed a little wooden stand for it. And even though I didn’t realize it at the time I bought it, when we looked at the authentication photo the autograph session had taken place in Marietta, GA which is where Hubby was born. That was quite a coincidence.

Okay, a few years ago I ran across a reference to “football gnomes”. Really? It did pique my interest and sure as the world, I went into the GA Tech on-line store and there they were. I suppose I should have known that where there is entrepreneurship, sports-logo gnomes would be inevitable. So, off went my order and in came the gnome. I wasn’t exactly sure of the size and as it turned out, he fits perfectly in front of the autographed football.