The Days of Dodd

donsue

donsue

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i posted this in the chat. I am a lifelong Tech fan who grew up in Decatur and noe in North Florida. My idol was, and is, Coach Dodd. I am currently putting together a book about Atlanta and the days of Dodd.

The glorious days of the 50s and 60s on the Flats are my focus. So many wonderful people are helping me and sharing info and stories. From the days of the Dodd/Broyles/Graves teams thru the 66 season are golden. I would love to converse with those who have stories and recollections. Please humor me with any of this....it would be greatly appreciated
 
Welcome to the board! You may not get any responses until tomorrow, and I'm too young to be of help, but we do have some people around here who fit the bill. I'll definitely be reading, love stories from that period.
 
The Jacket said:
Welcome to the board! You may not get any responses until tomorrow, and I'm too young to be of help, but we do have some people around here who fit the bill. I'll definitely be reading, love stories from that period.
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Thanks! Especially love the stories surrounding the 1962 win over Bama. I still think that's the best college football game ever (I am a sucker for defense). I would love to converse with any of Dodd's old players, if possible. One thing that was very interesting to me was my conversations with Coach Bowden regarding Coach Dodd. He held Coach Dodd in higher regard than any other coach of that day and greatly respected how he treated his players.
 
1962_Georgia-Tech_vs_Alabama.jpg
 
donsue said:
Thanks! Especially love the stories surrounding the 1962 win over Bama. I still think that's the best college football game ever (I am a sucker for defense). I would love to converse with any of Dodd's old players, if possible. One thing that was very interesting to me was my conversations with Coach Bowden regarding Coach Dodd. He held Coach Dodd in higher regard than any other coach of that day and greatly respected how he treated his players.
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I remember the call on that game , number 1 in the nation number 2 on Grant Field.
 
coit remembers the Heisman days and the invention of forward pass.
 
atlanta jacket said:
I remember the call on that game , number 1 in the nation number 2 on Grant Field.
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The story from Kim King about going to Bear's hotel room the morning of the game is priceless. Bear was actually scared to death of Dodd's coaching ability. BTW, what ever became of Don Toner?
 
donsue said:
The story from Kim King about going to Bear's hotel room the morning of the game is priceless. Bear was actually scared to death of Dodd's coaching ability. BTW, what ever became of Don Toner?
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Dont know but, those were great days. GT was the only game in town and we got great pub, its surely not that way today.
 
Freshman year(fall '65) two of my neighbors in Glenn dorm were two football players,Tommy Carmichael and Bill Parkhurst.
Tommy was CBD's kicker,and Bill was a redshirt tackle. Tommy lives in Jackson Ga, you might get some good stories out of him about CBD.
 
Fae Pearce and Frank Maier Jr were managers on the team from 56-60 and knew BD well. They could give some good stories. The alumni office could get you in touch with both. Or Lucious at the Letterwinners Club.

Bobby Webb and Wally Johnson (both GT tennis players in the 60s and 70s), knew BD well from tennis at Bitsy and could also give you some good stories too. Lucious could also get their contact info.

Don't forget Homer Rice! He knew Dodd well too.
 
gtyellowjackets said:
Fae Pearce and Frank Maier Jr were managers on the team from 56-60 and knew BD well. They could give some good stories. The alumni office could get you in touch with both. Or Lucious at the Letterwinners Club.
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Thanks! Great ideas guys!
 
Kelly Thompson, BDs grand daughter played tennis at Tech in the 80s. She works and lives in Avondale Estates I believe
 
goldeagle said:
Freshman year(fall '65) two of my neighbors in Glenn dorm were two football players,Tommy Carmichael and Bill Parkhurst.
Tommy was CBD's kicker,and Bill was a redshirt tackle. Tommy lives in Jackson Ga, you might get some good stories out of him about CBD.
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One of my favorite memories involves the 1966 game with Texas A&M. During the summer, their coach, Gene Stallings (Bear's disciple, former Junction Boy, and a Bama coach on the 1962 team that Dodd beat) told Sports Illustrated how Dodd's teams were soft and not tough. Dodd, the ultimate gentleman of a coach never responded to those comments.

Late in the game Tech scored to go up 31-3. With only seconds remaining, Dodd kicked onside and Tech recovered. Larry Good promptly tossed a bomb for a a TD to win 38-3. It is rumored that he told Stallings he was gonna take his "soft" team over to the Varsity to eat after the game.
 
donsue said:
The story from Kim King about going to Bear's hotel room the morning of the game is priceless. Bear was actually scared to death of Dodd's coaching ability. BTW, what ever became of Don Toner?
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Have always hoped we could have a "whatever happened to" section. And I mean for guys even before Toner.
 
donsue said:
i posted this in the chat. I am a lifelong Tech fan who grew up in Decatur and noe in North Florida. My idol was, and is, Coach Dodd. I am currently putting together a book about Atlanta and the days of Dodd.

The glorious days of the 50s and 60s on the Flats are my focus. So many wonderful people are helping me and sharing info and stories. From the days of the Dodd/Broyles/Graves teams thru the 66 season are golden. I would love to converse with those who have stories and recollections. Please humor me with any of this....it would be greatly appreciated
Click to expand...
There's a guy over on the Facebook Football page that has a bunch of paraphanalia. His dad had season tickets for something like 65 years. Rob Duling is his name. I am slowly working through his tape collection. Has a bunch of reel to reels of old radio feeds that I am trying to get a working tape player in order to convert them. If you would like, I'd be glad to hook you up with him.
 
gespacho_the_slender said:
There's a guy over on the Facebook Football page that has a bunch of paraphanalia. His dad had season tickets for something like 65 years. Rob Duling is his name. I am slowly working through his tape collection. Has a bunch of reel to reels of old radio feeds that I am trying to get a working tape player in order to convert them. If you would like, I'd be glad to hook you up with him.
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That would be more than awesome! These are the kinds of things I am looking for. I know there has to be a collection of the old "Bobby Dodd show" editions.
 
donsue said:
That would be more than awesome! These are the kinds of things I am looking for. I know there has to be a collection of the old "Bobby Dodd show" editions.
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Guys, I want to thank everyone who has provided me ideas and info. I don't know exactly why I have made it such a mission, but I want the world, and particularly people in Atlanta and the State of Georgia to realize what Dodd and Tech football were. A good portion of the younger generation only knows UGA, and it wasn't always that way. If you told some of them Dodd beat UGA 8 years in a row, they would think you were crazy. And the cities and towns in Georgia weren't just chock full of Dawg fans like they are today.

But most of all, it is the way he conducted himself in life and on the field, and the innovations he brought to the game that are employed today that I want the world to understand. Every year that passes a little more of this gets lost.

Oh well, I digress..... thanks everyone, and please keep stories and info coming!
 
Here's an article from 1957 Sports Illustrated. Pretty good read.

http://www.si.com/vault/1957/10/21/605519/a-lowpressure-engineer

One of the lesser known stories was about how Dodd had to dance around school administrators and even the governor as regards integrating the team, and even playing against teams that had black players. The book below, starting on Page 80, presents a really fascinating look at Bobby Dodd and Georgia Tech against the backdrop of racist Georgia governor Griffin and the status quo of segregation in the old South.

https://books.google.com/books?id=5nB_ZCd6Kg8C&pg=PA80#v=onepage&q&f=false

I think Google lets you read about a dozen pages before it blocks off, but you can get a pretty good idea of what Georgia was like in those days.

It is too bad that Dodd was unable to be a part of bringing integration to GT football as a coach.
 
Lucious Sanford at the GTAA Letterman's Club knows (and has contact info) for most/many of the old Dodd players. I've sat with a bunch of them in the Letterman's section at Grant Field. He would be the first person I would contact.
 
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