55 Years Ago....

savbandjacket

Dr. SBJ
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texstinger

Dodd-Like
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8,816
Sounds like Tech left because they actually had some integrity and wanted to honor their commitments to players/recruits. I respect that philosophy. Same crap different decade with the SEC.
“Sounds” can be very deceiving. Some truth to what you say, but you can not expect to be in a conference and proclaim you will not play certain teams, or that you demand they play at your stadium every year.

Regardless, instead of fighting the good, intellectual fight we picked up our marbles.

Whether we admit it or not, it damn near killed our program.

But onward and upward.
 

aeromech

Dodd-Like
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Jan 14, 2007
Messages
15,945
Worked out alright for us.

Wouldn’t trade the 1990 National Championship for anything.
Who knows how many Championships we may have won without leaving the SEC. If we had been a recruiting presence in 1980 it may have prevented that debacle.
 

georgiatech22

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Dec 24, 2008
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6,614
For all of the good things that Bobby Dodd did for us as coach, his decision to leave the SEC has haunted us ever since 1964. The sad part about this story is that the feud between the Bear and Dodd ended in the 70's and Bear tried to help bring us back in the conference. Back in 1964 after we left, the ACC immediately tendered an offer to join, but we refused, feeling that being an independent was the key to financial success. That changed in the 70's with TV contracts and bowl tie-ins. If you weren't in a conference you weren't getting either of those. Around 1976 or so, Bear Bryant asked Bobby Dodd to consider rejoining. Dodd agreed and Bear sponsored the initiative within the conference. They scheduled a 6-game home-home as a down payment on the plan.

That led to the fateful vote in 1978. Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Vandy, LSU, and Florida all voted yes to readmit us. Auburn, Ole Miss, and Miss St. voted no. We had to have seven yes votes in order to get back in. The deciding vote fell to of course, UGA. If UGA voted yes, we were back in. However, instead of voting yes or no, they chose to abstain. Georgia wanted to vote "no" in 1978, but was told to abstain instead by influential members of the Georgia legislature. Of course, it was the same as a "no" vote. UGA just turned their back on their sister school in-state. We were bankrupt and Dooley wanted us dead and out of the way. He had so much sway over their President Davison that he wasn't about to break lockstep with Dooley.
As soon as they turned us down, the ACC called with a unanimous pre-vote already in hand. We joined immediately.
 
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wesleyd21

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Joined
Jul 16, 2007
Messages
16,143
If we were still really good at basketball, I’d say this was a great move. Recently, it has worked out to our detriment on the hardwood.
 

ricejacket

Damn Good Rat
Joined
Jun 12, 2005
Messages
1,423
For all of the good things that Bobby Dodd did for us as coach, his decision to leave the SEC has haunted us ever since 1964. The sad part about this story is that the feud between the Bear and Dodd ended in the 70's and Bear tried to help bring us back in the conference. Back in 1964 after we left, the ACC immediately tendered an offer to join, but we refused, feeling that being an independent was the key to financial success. That changed in the 70's with TV contracts and bowl tie-ins. If you weren't in a conference you weren't getting either of those. Around 1976 or so, Bear Bryant asked Bobby Dodd to consider rejoining. Dodd agreed and Bear sponsored the initiative within the conference. They scheduled a 6-game home-home as a down payment on the plan.

That led to the fateful vote in 1978. Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Vandy, LSU, and Florida all voted yes to readmit us. Auburn, Ole Miss, and Miss St. voted no. We had to have seven yes votes in order to get back in. The deciding vote fell to of course, UGA. If UGA voted yes, we were back in. However, instead of voting yes or no, they chose to abstain. Georgia wanted to vote "no" in 1978, but was told to abstain instead by influential members of the Georgia legislature. Of course, it was the same as a "no" vote. UGA just turned their back on their sister school in-state. We were bankrupt and Dooley wanted us dead and out of the way. He had so much sway over their President Davison that he wasn't about to break lockstep with Dooley.
As soon as they turned us down, the ACC called with a unanimous pre-vote already in hand. We joined immediately.
Wonder why Auburn would vote no since they were our longest running rival at the time? Wonder if Dooley had some sway since he was an Auburn grad.
 

georgiatech22

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Joined
Dec 24, 2008
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6,614
Wonder why Auburn would vote no since they were our longest running rival at the time? Wonder if Dooley had some sway since he was an Auburn grad.
Not quite sure. Probably the biggest thing was that we refused to play in Auburn for a long time. From 1906-1959, every game was played in Atlanta. At one point, we beat Auburn 13 years in a row, and we were ahead in the series by about 5 games when the vote was taken. We were 16-2 against Auburn from 1938-1956. Auburn had turned the tide of recruiting once we got out of the SEC, and I also have heard through the years that Jordan hated Dodd. Still, we had owned them for most of that long and storied series up to that time and Jordan did not want Tech back in the conference. UGA didn't play in Auburn until 1959. We played them at Auburn 4 times between 1896 and 1904. Otherwise, we played them at Legion Field in Birmingham beginning in 1960 because it was far larger than Jordan-Hare which only held 44.5K before 1970. Legion Field held between 55 and 68K during the 60's. Once we pulled out of the SEC, Auburn quickly seized the recruiting momentum and took the upper hand in the series going 17-4 over the next 20 years until we stopped playing in 1987.
 

GEETEELEE

We suck this much.
Joined
Jul 8, 2002
Messages
37,131
For all of the good things that Bobby Dodd did for us as coach, his decision to leave the SEC has haunted us ever since 1964. The sad part about this story is that the feud between the Bear and Dodd ended in the 70's and Bear tried to help bring us back in the conference. Back in 1964 after we left, the ACC immediately tendered an offer to join, but we refused, feeling that being an independent was the key to financial success. That changed in the 70's with TV contracts and bowl tie-ins. If you weren't in a conference you weren't getting either of those. Around 1976 or so, Bear Bryant asked Bobby Dodd to consider rejoining. Dodd agreed and Bear sponsored the initiative within the conference. They scheduled a 6-game home-home as a down payment on the plan.

That led to the fateful vote in 1978. Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Vandy, LSU, and Florida all voted yes to readmit us. Auburn, Ole Miss, and Miss St. voted no. We had to have seven yes votes in order to get back in. The deciding vote fell to of course, UGA. If UGA voted yes, we were back in. However, instead of voting yes or no, they chose to abstain. Georgia wanted to vote "no" in 1978, but was told to abstain instead by influential members of the Georgia legislature. Of course, it was the same as a "no" vote. UGA just turned their back on their sister school in-state. We were bankrupt and Dooley wanted us dead and out of the way. He had so much sway over their President Davison that he wasn't about to break lockstep with Dooley.
As soon as they turned us down, the ACC called with a unanimous pre-vote already in hand. We joined immediately.
I thought Alabama voted no in what was a shock to Dodd?
 

georgiatech22

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Joined
Dec 24, 2008
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6,614
I thought Alabama voted no in what was a shock to Dodd?
Alabama voted no in 1964 to keep the 140 rule in place after Bear promised he would get his president to vote with Dodd. That was the final straw that led Dodd to leave the conference and led to the feud between the Bear and Dodd. Eventually, they both reconciled and Bear tried to get us back in the SEC. Alabama voted yes in 1978 to invite us back along with Kentucky, LSU, Vandy, Florida, and Tennessee.
 

georgiatech22

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Joined
Dec 24, 2008
Messages
6,614
Dennis Scott hitting the shot to beat UNC at home would not have happened otherwise. Perhaps the greatest play in GT Basketball history. I wanna cry right now again about it

True, but think about how many more NCAA tournaments we would have made in the SEC with only Kentucky to deal with as opposed to UNC, Duke, and NC State.
 

Yukonwreck

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Joined
Sep 27, 2007
Messages
6,599
“Sounds” can be very deceiving. Some truth to what you say, but you can not expect to be in a conference and proclaim you will not play certain teams, or that you demand they play at your stadium every year.

Regardless, instead of fighting the good, intellectual fight we picked up our marbles.

Whether we admit it or not, it damn near killed our program.

But onward and upward.
Two years from now this might be a fading memory. The ACC may be gaining in stature, Georgia Tech may be on a meteoric trajectory, Saban retires, Kirby, Orgeron, Jimbo, Pruitt, Muschamp, Gus all öööö the bed. You never know.
 
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