The Luck of the Irish

On September 1, 2016, alumni Ashley Hancock and Elizabeth Elkins met in Dublin, Ireland, for the Aer Lingus College Football Classic as random strangers, despite living 2 miles apart in Atlanta and sharing mutual friends. Within 24 hours though, they’d already gotten a head start on dating and becoming lasting teammates in life, getting married one year to the day later. Today, after celebrating nearly eight years together as a happy couple, they’re preparing to return to the Emerald Isle alongside their kids Kora (11) and Catherine (4) for this fall’s game. So, too, will Tech’s football team, whose ACC opener kicks off against Florida State at Aviva Stadium on August 24 in front of up to 50,000 screaming fans.

“The joke was that my friends said to meet somebody while I was over there because I’d been single too long,” Elkins laughs. “They said I might have better luck with an Irish guy, though, because previously, efforts to find an eligible Tech grad didn’t work out.” Ironically, fate would effectively fall into the soon-to-be couple’s lap, almost literally, when—a day after jetting in to meet friends for a 10-day GT tour package—Elkins sat down in an empty seat on a crowded bus next to Hancock. Despite having flown in that morning himself, and having no plans beyond hitting the game, then renting a car to drive around Ireland, he struck up a friendly conversation. Cheerfully, by the time the bus had parked, he’d gotten her number and made plans to meet for drinks that night at the hotel.

Later that evening, after a nightcap, Hancock told the bartender to put the bill on his room number—and Elkins realized, to her shock, that it was the room right next to hers. “When we rode the elevator up and he walked me back, I went up an extra floor since I’d literally just met him and didn’t think it prudent to let him (or anyone I just met) know which room I was in,” she chuckles. Happily, the chemistry was there, and the couple got on famously, which led to drinks again the next evening—and a goodnight kiss. “I messaged my friends and told them what had happened,” she reminisces. “Of course, when I woke up the next morning there was an entire text chain saying, ‘No, you have to give us more information.”

Luck was definitely with the pair for the rest of the trip, as evidenced by each accidentally ending up at the same pub, as well as repeatedly bumping into what they realized were mutual friends. “I honestly don’t know how we didn’t meet or cross paths around Atlanta before,” Hancock muses. But the fact that Elkins’ seat also happened to be directly behind his at the game, which they then also spent together, didn’t hurt either. “So I mentioned that I had a car and planned to travel for a couple of days after, and invited her to come—thankfully, she said yes,” he beams.

With so much time to talk on the road, they’d gotten to know each other so well wandering the streets of Galway and Dublin, that by the time Elkins caught a flight back to America, Hancock was calling her every day to talk. And the next Saturday, he flew home for a Georgia Tech football game, which the couple consider to be their first official Atlanta date. Both diehard fans, Hancock notes he has high hopes for this year’s football season. “Fall means that Tech sports will always be on in our home—there’s not much choice of anything else,” Hancock says.

He and Elkins are equally excited to return to Ireland for the big game and share the magic in person with their girls. “It’s their first time out of the country, which will be educational,” says Elkins. “The 4-year-old is super excited to go to Killarney because it’s in the song that I’ve been singing to put her to sleep since she was a baby.”

But as Hancock succinctly puts it, it’s also a joyous homecoming of sorts for the family, who truly found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow there. And for that matter, a chance for the youngest fans in the family to bask in the joy of sharing the team spirit. “The girls love wearing their Georgia Tech gear…they love the band and fans cheering and cheerleaders and pomp and circumstance of games.”

As for just who’s the luckiest partner in this happy home, Elkins offers some food for thought. “At the time I went to Tech, it was a majority male student population, and the joke among my circle of friends was that none of us managed to find a husband at Tech—how could we not with the odds? Ironically, of my friend group, I’m one of only a few who eventually married a Tech grad.”

The lesson here is simple, Elkins says: “Remember that you may not meet the right one during school. But you may meet them later.”