Hey Boomers! The man who Killed GT football was...

ciegetanks said:
Bobby Dodd.

My granfather is also a Tech Alum. He graduated in the late fifties and tells me that Dodd was so embarassed by the Cumberland game that he called games and used substitution to keep scores close.

In the 60's, when the NFL became a more viable career path many recruits avoided Tech because they would not acquire the stats needed to get drafted.

Also Bobby Dodd is the one who left the SEC. For twenty years we were athletically homeless with no automatic avenues to Bowl Games and National Championships.

The majority of the decline in Tech Football took place between 1963 and 1983.

Oh, one last thing: in 1963 when we left the SEC COFH was 27-26-5 in our favor. Since leaving the SEC GT is 14-42 against the Athens Community College.

So, old people who venerate Dodd, remember he was Dodd not God. His idea to go independant is what tanked GT football.
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I think you should direct your ire towards the Hill specifically Dr. Petit. They are the ones who hate football. Coach Dodd was a great football coach but was not an able administrator and unsuited to be athletic director.
 
What I have learned from this thread is that every president we have had since the mid 60’s has been anti-football. It is amazing we have had any success.
 
ciegetanks said:
Why didn't we join the ACC in 1964? We would've done to them in the sixties and seventies what FSU did to the ACC in the nineties.
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I'm curious about this as well. I've always heard the reasons for us leaving the SEC, and I understand Dodd's position there. Did he think we could be Notre Dame of the South, or did he have issues with the ACC as well?
 
GEETEELEE said:
I don't really know, but I suspect the ACC was at the time considered to be a "lesser" conference (even moreso than now) and Tech wanted to keep its traditional rivals on the schedule. Pretty sure the ACC had a similar scholly limit.
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You are correct, at least in my view. The ACC had a few "good" football teams in some years, but there were no dynasties. We owned Clemson (yes, I know we bought their home contract out every other year for $100k). Duke had some good years in the 50's. Outside of conference records, most ACC teams sucked, IMHO. The ACC was a basketball conference, not a football conference.
 
johncu said:
I'm curious about this as well. I've always heard the reasons for us leaving the SEC, and I understand Dodd's position there. Did he think we could be Notre Dame of the South, or did he have issues with the ACC as well?
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Yes on Notre Dame & their Sunday afternoon national re-broadcast of Saturday's game, plus he had no way of knowing the Braves would show up in '65 or '66, and the Falcons and the Hawks shortly thereafter. Their collective impact on the entertainment dollar distribution in Atlanta was devastating.

When GT left the SEC, the Minor League AA/AAA Atlanta Crackers were the only pro sports team in town. GT went from being the only major game in town to #4 at best & at worst #5 to a resurgent Ugag under Howdy Dooley.

As for the ACC, Duke & Clemson were holdovers from older coaching relationships. Few remember Clemson Memorial didn't always hold 80,000 plus and there was only a conceptual Interstate system until many, many years later.
 
GEETEELEE said:
'tanks, I don't disagree you at all, but I think the decision to go independent needs to be contextualized. Back in the day, there were no limits on scholarships; back in the '50s the SEC voted to limit total number of schollys to 140 and sign up to 45 per year. Well, Bama and the rest of the SEC would sign their full 45 and run off ("process") any players who got hurt or didn't cut the mustard. Dodd would only sign 35 or so and never ran anyone off (one of the reasons his players would run thru walls for him) or pulled their scholarship for any reason.

Dodd disagreed with the practice and correctly felt it gave the rest of the SEC and unfair advantage over Tech, not to mention preying on the student-athlete (at term that was far more true then than now, at least at GT).

It was the right decision at the time, but in the long run did turn into a disaster as Dodd didn't have the skills to navigate the rocky waters of being an independent.

....
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I disagree. History has proven it was the wrong decision. GT should have been signing and processing players like a typical program rather than handicapping itself. The practice did not unfairly give the rest of the SEC an advantage, rather Dodd unfairly penalized the program. Basically Dodd put GT on long term probation and put us on the path to a slow death.
 
ciegetanks said:
Bobby Dodd.

My granfather is also a Tech Alum. He graduated in the late fifties and tells me that Dodd was so embarassed by the Cumberland game that he called games and used substitution to keep scores close.

In the 60's, when the NFL became a more viable career path many recruits avoided Tech because they would not acquire the stats needed to get drafted.

Also Bobby Dodd is the one who left the SEC. For twenty years we were athletically homeless with no automatic avenues to Bowl Games and National Championships.

The majority of the decline in Tech Football took place between 1963 and 1983.

Oh, one last thing: in 1963 when we left the SEC COFH was 27-26-5 in our favor. Since leaving the SEC GT is 14-42 against the Athens Community College.

So, old people who venerate Dodd, remember he was Dodd not God. His idea to go independant is what tanked GT football.
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he also encouraged the other greatest Tech man that ever lived to leave and go coach rival Alabama because GT would never win anything because Dodd destroyed its chances.
 
daBuzz said:
1963, huh?
What else was happening in the US, and more specifically in the South, around that time that just might have affected the landscape of college football?
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I get it, there were civil rights issues big time in 1963. The rest of the SEC came through that ok though didn't they.
 
wait.. we got a head coach doing pushups on the sideline during a 50 point loss and you are reaching back 100 years to point a finger?

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Maybe this was just spun self-promotion, but during my tour of Tech as a prospective student, Tech claims they integrated peacefully in 1963. So on civil rights we were good, or at least better than a lot of other southern universities.

Also, yes the ACC was not a "football" conference in 1963. That is the point. Imagine being the perenial Conference Champion with almost guaranteed appearances in the Peach, Citrus, or Gator bowl each year. That would impress recruits.

We could have been a big fish in a small pond and slowly lent credibity to the ACC. Instead we became also rans in a rapidly changing landscape.

Not to mention that after Dodd stepped down as AD we tried to rejoin the SEC, but were rebuffed (largely thanks to the Athens Daycare Center and Bear Bryant).
 
ciegetanks said:
Bobby Dodd.

My granfather is also a Tech Alum. He graduated in the late fifties and tells me that Dodd was so embarassed by the Cumberland game that he called games and used substitution to keep scores close.

In the 60's, when the NFL became a more viable career path many recruits avoided Tech because they would not acquire the stats needed to get drafted.

Also Bobby Dodd is the one who left the SEC. For twenty years we were athletically homeless with no automatic avenues to Bowl Games and National Championships.

The majority of the decline in Tech Football took place between 1963 and 1983.

Oh, one last thing: in 1963 when we left the SEC COFH was 27-26-5 in our favor. Since leaving the SEC GT is 14-42 against the Athens Community College.

So, old people who venerate Dodd, remember he was Dodd not God. His idea to go independant is what tanked GT football.
Click to expand...
The "tanked" program won the national championship in 1990. And 14-42 since 1963 is due much more to the racial desegregation of all of the schools than Bobby Dodd.
 
I hope the Pres likes Football. Is there another school with such rich history and tradition whose administration shows such open contempt for the Alumni and their requests?
 
daBuzz said:
1963, huh?
What else was happening in the US, and more specifically in the South, around that time that just might have affected the landscape of college football?
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Exactamundo. And not just the landscape of football per se but more importantly the landscape at the more academic institutions.
 
ciegetanks said:
I hope the Pres likes Football. Is there another school with such rich history and tradition whose administration shows such open contempt for the Alumni and their requests?
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Is there another school where the alumni have less influence on the leadership of the school.
 
Yukonwreck said:
The "tanked" program won the national championship in 1990. And 14-42 since 1963 is due much more to the racial desegregation of all of the schools than Bobby Dodd.
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First, I don't think anyone considers the Homer Rice years as a tanked program; Rice did masterful work to rebuild the program and we were in a conference in 1990. Second, desegregation may be a handy excuse for 14-42; but I don't even think you believe that was the reason.
 
DeepSnap said:
There's a lot of truth in all of this, if you're referring to me. I certainly understand the frustations..... and BTW, I am not one of Dodd's Boys, rather a Carson Refugee/Survivor. I post those items because most of you are not on the Letterwinners e-mail chain, so you'd almost never learn of said passings otherwise.

Many on here forget, if they ever knew, Dodd's best AD moves were keeping John O'Neill as the GTAA Business Manager & hiring John McKenna as the senior Asst AD. They kept things afloat financially until Dodd retired as AD & The Hill, by then headed by Joe Petit who wanted no part of D-1 football, brought in Pepper Rodgers' buddy, Doug Weaver (from Southern Illinois - he left us for Michigan State), in 1976 to be AD. Dodd also tried to hire/promote someone other than Bud Carson, but Pres Harrison over-ruled Dodd.

Petit + Weaver = Disaster.

It wouldn't be until Homer Rice replaced Weaver in 1980 that the ship began to be righted a decade later. Petit is his own case study in (mis)management.
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