Tech Must Improve or Drop Sports

Bill Curry developed into good coach and leader of men. He beat Alabama, Clemson, Tennessee, Michigan State and Georgia three years in a row, when we needed it most. And he could recruit, too.

You are wrong on a lot of levels. First, Curry never beat UGA 3 years in a row. Curry beat UGA 35-18 in Athens in 1984 (game wasn't as close as the score), and again in 1985 in Atlanta 20-16 (I think this was the fog game when Gary Lee returned a kickoff for a touchdown). Second Curry was a decent recruiter; but not a great recruiter.

The Tech fans rallied around him, the atmosphere at Grant Field was better, the stands were full of Tech fans for many games, the Hill respected him, and you could at least tell he knew what he was trying to do.

This I remember as true. People bought into the 'Total Person' (Mind, Body, Spirit) program that Curry pushed

Tech was a lot worse off financially than it is now, and there was talk of Tech dropping to a lower division. But, Rice and Curry pulled us through dark days and, four years after he left, we were national champs, in part because Curry made us competitive, had a ranked team, and gave Ross a reason to think he could win a national title here.

I agree with this too.

Alabama came after Curry because he beat them and had the integrity to make them seem serious about academics. Dodd encouraged Curry to go to Bama, because he thought Curry had reached his ceiling at Tech, but that Ross could take us to the top.

Ross taking us to the top had absolutely nothing to do with Dodd encouraging Curry to leave. We didn't know who Rice would get as a Head Coach when Curry left. Dodd for whatever reason was deliberately working against Georgia Tech when he talked Curry into leaving. It is some pretty creative spin to suggest that Dodd had GT's best interest in mind when he talked Curry into leaving.

Curry was 11-0 at Bama and ranked number two, when he lost the first iron bowl ever played in Auburn.

I don't think Curry ever beat Auburn in his coaching career. Not while he was at GT and certainly not while at Alabama.

Do any of you think Collins will ever beat Georgia three years in a row, Bama, Tennessee Clemson, Michigan State, etc and be offered the Alabama job? Be careful, your answer will tell a lot about you.

Well, since Curry never did what you have listed what difference does it make?

But that's not why I included him in this select group. I did this because he conducted himself with integrity, dignity and class. Compare that to some of the people on the GTAA payroll now.

He had some lean seasons, but the Curry respected Tech traditions and never lowered the program down just because it might impress a recruit.

No, instead he quit and went to Alabama because he did not think it was possible to win at Georgia Tech.

We need a guy like Dodd, Ross, O'Leary, Hyder and Cremins as our coaches. But, it would be a giant step up if we got a guy like Rice or Curry as AD.

Curry as the AD would be just as big a disaster as Dodd as AD was. The only thing Dodd had in common with Ross & O'leary as coaches are winning records. I like Homer Rice because he built GT back from the ruins that Dodd left. Stansbury is trying to build us back again, give him a chance.

Most of all, we need a President like Harrison and a GTAA Board of Directors like the ones in place when Dodd was coach.

We most certainly do not need a Board of Directors from the segregation era with yesteryear mentality.

Get those type people in place and the skies the limit. Keep the well intentioned but over their heads group we've got now, and I think you'll wonder why you ignored the handwriting on the wall.

How do you get to the conclusion that hiring someone like Dodd as AD and someone like Curry as a coach makes the "sky the limit"? Curry left GT because Dodd convinced him that 9-2-1 was the limit. If we followed your ideals we would go back to the 1970's debacle created by Dodd.
 
Tech was a lot worse off financially than it is now, and there was talk of Tech dropping to a lower division. But, Rice and Curry pulled us through dark days and, four years after he left, we were national champs, in part because Curry made us competitive, had a ranked team, and gave Ross a reason to think he could win a national title here.
Just wanted to mention, a certain basketball coach had a lot to do with that renaissance as well.
 
My Daddy started taking me to Tech games in 1957, when I was 7 years old. I have been a Tech fan all my life. I do not find any joy in writing this. I am very invested in this program.

Specifically, I do not mean this as a personal criticism of any administrator, coach or anybody else.

However, in my life, I have seen Tech go from a time when people could not buy tickets to a time when you cannot give tickets away. I have seen Tech go from being one of the most respected programs in the nation to being nothing short of a total joke.

We do not have any leadership that has accomplished anything to give me hope. I think our football coach is in way over his head. I do not believe he will recruit much better than past coaches, and I do not think he is a competent head coach. In short, with him running the football program, I think Tech is doomed.

I think our basketball coach is worse than incompetent. The things that have happened under his "watch" should never be tolerated. We would be better off with a student coach with a strong sense of right and wrong than with our present coach. I wish him the best, but I hope it will happen somewhere else. Maybe he was just not paying attention, but that is itself enough reason for him to be fired.

I feel better about baseball and some other sports, but with dismal, hopeless football and basketball regimes, the other sports will not survive.

None of this speaks well of our Athletic Director. He seems like a good man, but his decisions on coaches have been catastrophic. I don't have any confidence in him, either.

So, to keep from continuing to make a mockery of Tech's proud athletic history, we need to either make a ton of changes to rescue our sports program or we need to drop sports. The people in charge of the Institute must make the decision: Fully support this proud program or put it out of its misery. I hate that it has come to this, but it has.

I know the people on this board will ridicule my views and make fun of me for being an old man living in the past. Well, I have about the same level of respect for them and their views as they have for me and mine. I don't think they know what they're talking about. Maybe, if they had more historical perspective, they would at least tolerate and respect my feelings. But, of course, they don't.

By the way, we don't need Paul Johnson. He couldn't get it done. We need people like Bobby Dodd, Bobby Ross, Whack Hyder, Bobby Cremins, Homer Rice, and Bill Curry. We need integrity, leadership and excellence. We need the "A Team."
This is a very interesting post and not without merit
 
I’m guessing that Dodd had a bit of “no one can do it better than me” in him and genuinely thought the days of competing for championships at Tech were in the past. For as good of a coach as he was, Dodd was every bit as bad as an administrator.
My freshmen year at tech, 73, I would pass him walking up the hill, and he really looked like a dead man walking like he was just counting down the days. nice guy, approachable..... but you may be spot on, it was going downhill fast in the 70's, thank goodness we got into the ACC - although it was Weaver not Rice that got us into that conversation.....
 
This. It's so simple but it seems like the most complicated concept to some people here. The only thing worse than Georgia winning, is Tech losing. The only thing worse than Tech losing, is Tech not playing at all.
Given the parameters that govern the two programs, it is not "special" at all that Georgia wins a lot. It is very "special" that Tech wins at all. And, yes, we haven't won a lot in 50 years. But we have won enough to keep most of our fan base engaged. Some very, very big wins against overwhelming odds.
 
I do get the feeling on the board that most would rather older Tech fans either go away or shut up. Perhaps we need to purge the fan base of everyone wh wo is ever unhappy with the program and was alive when Bobby Dodd coached. It may be a necessary step to change the culture.
How about those who were alive when BDS was built??
 
Given the parameters that govern the two programs, it is not "special" at all that Georgia wins a lot. It is very "special" that Tech wins at all. And, yes, we haven't won a lot in 50 years. But we have won enough to keep most of our fan base engaged. Some very, very big wins against overwhelming odds.
I truly wonder if we are going to overcome the odds against us now, it baffles me that Ugag keeps putting up these number 1 or number 2 classes year in and year out. I just dont know what they are selling. This is what we face today, WSB kissing up to them everyday, Channel 46 only talks about the Bulldogs and then we have the academic restrictions. We are at a crossroads and we cannot win a gun battle with a knife. I am an old man and i wonder if i will experience that GREAT feeling of whipping their ass again, i hope so.
 
I truly wonder if we are going to overcome the odds against us now, it baffles me that Ugag keeps putting up these number 1 or number 2 classes year in and year out. I just dont know what they are selling.
uGA panders to the egotistical, off-the-field problem children that others won’t put up with. That’s why they have so many players arrested and can’t win as a team.
 
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I truly wonder if we are going to overcome the odds against us now, it baffles me that Ugag keeps putting up these number 1 or number 2 classes year in and year out. I just dont know what they are selling. This is what we face today, WSB kissing up to them everyday, Channel 46 only talks about the Bulldogs and then we have the academic restrictions. We are at a crossroads and we cannot win a gun battle with a knife. I am an old man and i wonder if i will experience that GREAT feeling of whipping their ass again, i hope so.
Georgia's recruiting is subjective and to be taken with a grain of salt. The recruiting services skew the rankings of individual kids based on who they sign on with. Do Georgia and the bigger programs get better players? Of course, but it is debatable whether the top ten ranked recruiting classes can even be ranked against one another. A kid chooses Florida instead of UCF and he magically becomes a more highly valued recruit. And what they are selling is football, mythical championships, SEC and a path to the NFL. Teenagers and over-zealous parents are gullible.
 
I do get the feeling on the board that most would rather older Tech fans either go away or shut up. Perhaps we need to purge the fan base of everyone who is ever unhappy with the program and was alive when Bobby Dodd coached. It may be a necessary step to change the culture.
Yeah, well those without the all valuable perspective that age allows, don't have viable answers to those who do. History is a much bigger bitch than Ma Tech ever thought about being, if you ignore her. Plus, I hear old Ma is mellowing a lot the past couple of decades.
 
I truly wonder if we are going to overcome the odds against us now, it baffles me that Ugag keeps putting up these number 1 or number 2 classes year in and year out. I just dont know what they are selling. This is what we face today, WSB kissing up to them everyday, Channel 46 only talks about the Bulldogs and then we have the academic restrictions. We are at a crossroads and we cannot win a gun battle with a knife. I am an old man and i wonder if i will experience that GREAT feeling of whipping their ass again, i hope so.
Going 10-2 5 years in a row would help us go 12-0.

worry about the coastal first.
 
Georgia's recruiting is subjective and to be taken with a grain of salt. The recruiting services skew the rankings of individual kids based on who they sign on with. Do Georgia and the bigger programs get better players? Of course, but it is debatable whether the top ten ranked recruiting classes can even be ranked against one another. A kid chooses Florida instead of UCF and he magically becomes a more highly valued recruit. And what they are selling is football, mythical championships, SEC and a path to the NFL. Teenagers and over-zealous parents are gullible.
All of the factories are selling football, all of them have Natl Championships since Jimmy Carter was Prez except UGAG. Go figure
 
Believe the record crowd was 63K against UGAy in '73. Included temp bleachers on the track. Seems like we quoted 58K permanent seating back then.
 
We never had an 80,000 seat stadium, around 60 was the largest.

You are correct. But there was a time that we still had A stadium so large that teams like Clemson and Auburn were willing to play at Grant field as it was called then every year with Tech instead playing at their home fields. Also UGAG would play a second game at Grant Field instead of playing at Sanford stadium because they could not get enough people to come to ATHENS. Yes much has changed since then with the adding of the professional teams and the loosing of GT's academic programs etc. It is a fact we will not ever be as good as we have been in the past but we will be able to be much better than we are now so don't give up hope.
 
You are correct. But there was a time that we still had A stadium so large that teams like Clemson and Auburn were willing to play at Grant field as it was called then every year with Tech instead playing at their home fields. Also UGAG would play a second game at Grant Field instead of playing at Sanford stadium because they could not get enough people to come to ATHENS. Yes much has changed since then with the adding of the professional teams and the loosing of GT's academic programs etc. It is a fact we will not ever be as good as we have been in the past but we will be able to be much better than we are now so don't give up hope.
Methinks you need a refresher on the definition of the word "fact"
 
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