By Joe Johnson
Some jubilant, and most likely liquored-up fans Monday night carried a blue metal pipe over their heads on East Clayton Street as though it was a goalpost from SoFi Stadium in California where the University of Georgia Bulldogs trounced the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs to win a second consecutive College Football Playoff National Championship.
The curvy section of pipe was ripped from a sidewalk where it had been part of a larger, $55,000 artwork called "Frequency" that snakes its way along Clayton, and is just some of the property damage that occurred in the wake of UGA's historic football moment. It was carried aloft by a group of young men as they made their way through the bar and tavern-lined street that was jammed packed with other fans celebrating UGA's lopsided 65-7 victory over TCU.
A video of the the moment was posted on Reddit by someone with the username Monksdream3, who titled the video "Mama there goes that squiggle."
There are other videos circulating around the country on TikTok and other social media showing such post-game scenes as a young man hurling a burning tree into the crowd packed shoulder-to-shoulder on East Clayton Street.
Athens-Clarke County Unified Government spokesman Jeff Montgomery said that rowdy and destructive behavior on display was the exception and not the rule Monday night.
"The vast majority of people in downtown Athens celebrated the University of Georgia’s amazing accomplishment of back-to-back college football national championships in exuberant, but appropriate, ways. We join them in their excitement and thank them for honoring the team’s victory in this way," Montgomery said. "Unfortunately, some revelers opted to celebrate in a more disappointing fashion by damaging or removing items in the hometown of the University of Georgia and the football team that they were celebrating. We hope those who chose to do so will consider Athens a special place and choose better, non-destructive options for future celebrations that can serve as an example for other communities."
Athens-Clarke County Deputy Police Chief Harrison Daniel said the county anticipated that the big game would draw large crowds to downtown, and an Emergency Operations Center was established to monitor the area and coordinate responses by ACCPD, other county departments, and the UGA Police Department.
An additional 70 police officers were deployed to complement the police department's Downtown Operations Unit, Daniel said.
He said the crowd at its height was made of an estimated 15,000 people, and that 18 arrests were made for offenses ranging from public intoxication to battery and obstruction of law enforcement.
Among the mugshots of people booked into the Clarke County Jail Monday night were those of college-age men and women wearing UGA jerseys and other red and black Georgia attire.