Former Tech great, Billy Martin

Bogey

Bogey

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dressedcheeseside said:
Isn't that play the reason for the fall out between Dodd and Bryant?
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It was the main reason that alienated Dodd with Bryant. Dood had issues with the SEC, and Bryant, also in limiting scholarships since he honored all his commitments and Alabama did not. The main issue about that play and cause of friction is that Bryant did not discipline Holt. But the next year, a Tech DE stomped on an Auburn player's head while he was on the ground and was promptly kicked off the team by Dodd. I was in Harry's in a booth havin a picher or two after the game, next to a booth with a bunch of players. The DE arrived after meeting with Dodd and told his teamates Dodd had kicked him off the team and he would not be going to our bowl game. That incident did not affect Dodd's relationship with Shug Jordan at all because of how Dodd handled it.

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Supersizethatorder-mutt

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Bogey said:
It was the main reason that alienated Dodd with Bryant. Dood had issues with the SEC, and Bryant, also in limiting scholarships since he honored all his commitments and Alabama did not. The main issue about that play and cause of friction is that Bryant did not discipline Holt. But the next year, a Tech DE stomped on an Auburn player's head while he was on the ground and was promptly kicked off the team by Dodd. I was in Harry's in a booth havin a picher or two after the game, next to a booth with a bunch of players. The DE arrived after meeting with Dodd and told his teamates Dodd had kicked him off the team and he would not be going to our bowl game. That incident did not affect Dodd's relationship with Shug Jordan at all because of how Dodd handled it.

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Not only did Bryant not discipline Holt, he refused to admit that Holt was in the wrong.
 
Bogey

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Supersizethatorder-mutt said:
Not only did Bryant not discipline Holt, he refused to admit that Holt was in the wrong.
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That is true. After the dispute with Dood, Bryant began bragging to his supporters that when he absoluely had to come to Atlanta, he always brought a sandwich so he wouldn't have to eat Atlanta food.

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jsigur

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g0lftime said:
Wasn't he a key player in the Tech win over Alabama. Maybe a 7-6 win. It was before I arrived as a freshman at Tech in 1964 but he was a legend even then. I also played on a Rec League basketball team in the early 70's with Billy Lothridge while I was in graduate school. He had been cut as a punter and was staying in shape at the YMCA gym on Roswell Rd and hoping to get signed by another team. Those two guys were really something in the history of GT football.
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Was just reminiscing my youth and I went to Northside and was at E Rivers when Stanley Gann led Northside to win the State. He went to Tech so I looked him up to see what was there. I was a Huge Tech fan, Al Siraldo, Bobby Dodd and all, and then I looked up Lothridge and then Martin and somehow I found myself here.

I remember that 7 to 6 game, as Bobby Dodd said, you could cut the tension with a knife, for it was the year after some Alabama player had severely injured a Ga Tech player in an unnecessary foul. Perennial powers were a rare commodity back then and Bama was in the early stages of its national dominance. Tech was always good and had some great early 50's teams but lost out the championship, which was voted on back then, to Oklahoma.

As a young guy it pissed me off that Lothridge had taken the quarterback reigns away from Gann but what can you do.

Such an atmospheric change from the world we find today. Back then, you honed your skills in streets or some local playground or some outdoor court with no net. Today, most college recruits are coach's sons or had parents that starred in sports. Back then, we thought it was the ultimate just to get a free education for playing a sport in college. Now, colleges basically have become the minor leagues for the NFL. The times are changing oh so fast!
 
MWT89

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Billy Martin's son accidentally hit my car in Peter's Parking Deck sometime in the late 1980s. He left a note on my windshield with contact info and to apologize. Billy Martin himself dropped off a check at my parents' house in Sandy Springs to cover the cost of the repair. Good folks.
 

takethepoints

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g0lftime said:
Wasn't he a key player in the Tech win over Alabama. Maybe a 7-6 win. It was before I arrived as a freshman at Tech in 1964 but he was a legend even then. I also played on a Rec League basketball team in the early 70's with Billy Lothridge while I was in graduate school. He had been cut as a punter and was staying in shape at the YMCA gym on Roswell Rd and hoping to get signed by another team. Those two guys were really something in the history of GT football.
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He was one of the best one-platoon players in Tech history. His partner, Ted Davis, had my eternal respect for kicking a Bama player in the head while he was down in the game after the Chick Granning incident. Billy, other, had more class then that. Not much more, mind.

I'm sorry to hear he has passed on.
 
Bogey

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Billy was in my class and Chick Graning was my platoon sergeant in Army ROTC. What I was told at the time was Chick was coming off the field after the play was over and had taken his helmet off and Holt threw an elbow into Chick's face. Chick was in the hospital for like a couple weeks as I remember and his face was covered in bandages when he returned to ROTC drills. Dodd was pissed that Bear did nothing to Holt, but the main reasons we left was way more complicated than that incident. That's what I remember but I defer to Chick's story as he wants to remember it.
A year later after the Auburn game, several of us went to Harry's bar and we were in a booth that was next to a booth several players were sitting. They were waiting on Ted Davis who was Billy's bookend mate on the other side of the line who was in a meeting with Dodd. Those days it was single platoon football and players played both ways. Turns out, that Dodd felt Ted intentionally stomped on an Auburn player's helmeted head sending him to the hospital but was not nearly so serious as the Holt incident. Ted showed up later and confirmed Dodd's penalty was that he would not be allowed to go on the bowl trip.
 
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