On Saturday, thousands of students, season ticket holders, Gamecock fans and Bulldog fans will arrive in Columbia, S.C. to attend a game between the two teams.

For one fan, this will not be an ordinary SEC game. It will be his 400th consecutive Georgia football game.

Dwayne Gilbert, an 81-year-old retired police officer and former Marine from Griffin, Ga., will see the Dogs tee it up for the 400th time in a row.

Gilbert saw his first Georgia football game on Saturday, Nov. 17, 1948, when Georgia beat Georgia Tech 21-13 in Sanford Stadium. Gilbert, then a Georgia State Trooper in Toccoa, was in Athens to direct traffic that day.

“[UGA] went on to win the Southeastern Conference Championship that year and I immediately fell in love,” he said. From 1948 to 1968, he saw two or three games a season. In 1969 he bought season tickets, and in 1971 he began attending away games.

The last game Gilbert missed was the 1974 Tangerine Bowl.

In addition to going to games, Gilbert helped former University coaches Vince Dooley and Ray Goff with football recruiting.

Gilbert said in the 1970s, his hometown of Griffin was producing many talented athletes. His recruiting career started when the Athletic Department asked him to write letters to 300 high school recruits asking them to play football at the University.

He continued to do this for the next six years, writing more than 1,000 letters.

“I don’t know if I really got more than one to come to Georgia,” he said. “But that one, last name Gilbert, too, turned out to go All-American, so I was really proud of that. He even went pro for a while and now works in Athens.”

During this time, Gilbert went to many high school football games to scout the players that the University wanted to recruit.

“You couldn’t go and talk to them, of course, but I wore my Georgia gear and all so they knew who I was,” he said.

Gilbert got a sideline pass to the Vanderbilt game in 1980, which happened to be the first time Herschel Walker played as running back for the Bulldogs.

That year, the University used what Gilbert called “tear-away jerseys” so opponents couldn’t pull the players down by grabbing their jerseys.

“It would just tear off of them,” he said.

Gilbert noticed every time Walker ran the ball, other players tore off pieces of his jersey. Each time Walker changed into a new one. One of the team managers told Gilbert that the torn jerseys were thrown away after the game ended, so Gilbert asked the manager if he could have a used jersey.

“He got me one [of Walker's jerseys], and so now I have a jersey that Herschel Walker wore in that game in 1980 hanging on the wall at my house,” Gilbert said.

Before attending Georgia games, Gilbert was drafted into the Marine Corps during World War II.

He joined in July 1944 and was shipped to the South Pacific.

“Lucky for me, I got derailed for a little while in Hawaii and didn’t ever see combat,” Gilbert said.

He was sent to a camp on the North Shore of Hawaii, which became the headquarters for the Fleet Marine Corps football Team.

“So for about two or three months, I had the best duty a man could ever ask for. I watched the best in high school and college level football practice. I had a great time,” he said.

Gilbert injured his arm working on the base and spent more than a year in the hospital, where he remained until the war ended.

He was discharged from the Marine Corps when his injury healed.

Later, Gilbert applied to the Georgia State Patrol in Atlanta. He became a state trooper and was sent to Toccoa, where he worked for three years.

From there he was sent to help direct traffic in Athens on the day that he saw his first Georgia football game.

After his three-year stay in Toccoa, Gilbert was transferred back to Griffin, the place he considered home.

In 1959 he was elected sheriff in Spalding County and remained for five terms.

As sheriff, Gilbert studied earned a criminal justice degree from Georgia State University.

Gilbert resigned as sheriff when he was appointed U.S. Marshal by former President Jimmy Carter.

He remained at this post for the next six years before moving on to work for Georgia’s Peace Officers’ Standards and Training Council for three years. He retired in 1989.

One of Gilbert’s proudest accomplishments is his involvement in apprehending and sentencing five white men in 1957-1958 who robbed a church and raped two young black girls.

As a result of this case, Gilbert received letters from all over the world.

Gilbert had a son, now 54, and a daughter, 60, with his first wife. He has a 45-year-old step-daughter.

During the past six weeks, Gilbert stayed in his motor home at Bulldog Park in Athens. He occasionally watches football practice and is enjoying a relaxing retirement.

Gilbert said that to this day, his favorite Georgia football tradition is winning.