GT related, from the rant

takethepoints

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Well, I guess it's about time for me to 'fess up: I played at THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH known to so may as Sewanee back in the '60s. That was a fun time for us. We won 9 of 10 games in my freshman year, largely because we ran a single wing (which the opposing DCs ahad no idea about how to stop) and because our TB was a) bigger, 6' 3", 225, and b) faster then many D players we faced. (Fun fact: he had a heart murmur and we'd wait tell him to go to the sidelines when it became loud enough to hear.) We were considered for the Grantland Rice Bowl that year, but were turned down. Some of my teammates are ticked about that. Not me; we would have played the Teneesee State A&I team that had Eldridge Dickey at QB and (God help us) Claude Humphrey at DE. I.e. I was sane.

Sewanee was a charter member of the old Southern Conference that both the SEC and the ACC later emerged from. The University has two members to the College Football Hall of Fame, Henry Disbrow Phillips (generally referred as the "Blond Giant" at 6'4" 210 ) who played DT until the team got inside the 15 and then moved to FB, and Frank Juhan, who was probably the first LB in college football. I knew Juhan while I was up there and his story about how he decided to play LB is interesting. Sewanee was playing Auburn and Frank, a DT, was getting tired of being in a three point stance. So he stood up and made the next three tackles - "I could see where they were going.". Then he got back in a three point stance until the coaches yelled at him to get back behind the line. and the rest is history. Both became Anglican bishops (that has to be a first) in later life.

Sewanee left the SEC because the U decide they didn't want to have a full scholarship program. That did not mean we didn't get good athletes; when I was there most of the players with were originally recruited by ACC/SEC programs and found out they were a trifle too slow or too small to compete at that level. Our coach, Shirley Majors (yes, that Majors) had contacts. The U found "academic scholarship" programs for most of them and we rolled.

Well, enough with the old days.
 

augustabuzz

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3,412
takethepoints said:
Well, I guess it's about time for me to 'fess up: I played at THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH known to so may as Sewanee back in the '60s. That was a fun time for us. We won 9 of 10 games in my freshman year, largely because we ran a single wing (which the opposing DCs ahad no idea about how to stop) and because our TB was a) bigger, 6' 3", 225, and b) faster then many D players we faced. (Fun fact: he had a heart murmur and we'd wait tell him to go to the sidelines when it became loud enough to hear.) We were considered for the Grantland Rice Bowl that year, but were turned down. Some of my teammates are ticked about that. Not me; we would have played the Teneesee State A&I team that had Eldridge Dickey at QB and (God help us) Claude Humphrey at DE. I.e. I was sane.

Sewanee was a charter member of the old Southern Conference that both the SEC and the ACC later emerged from. The University has two members to the College Football Hall of Fame, Henry Disbrow Phillips (generally referred as the "Blond Giant" at 6'4" 210 ) who played DT until the team got inside the 15 and then moved to FB, and Frank Juhan, who was probably the first LB in college football. I knew Juhan while I was up there and his story about how he decided to play LB is interesting. Sewanee was playing Auburn and Frank, a DT, was getting tired of being in a three point stance. So he stood up and made the next three tackles - "I could see where they were going.". Then he got back in a three point stance until the coaches yelled at him to get back behind the line. and the rest is history. Both became Anglican bishops (that has to be a first) in later life.

Sewanee left the SEC because the U decide they didn't want to have a full scholarship program. That did not mean we didn't get good athletes; when I was there most of the players with were originally recruited by ACC/SEC programs and found out they were a trifle too slow or too small to compete at that level. Our coach, Shirley Majors (yes, that Majors) had contacts. The U found "academic scholarship" programs for most of them and we rolled.

Well, enough with the old days.
Click to expand...
Then you're probably aware of that crazy Sewanee schedule one year when they played 3 0r 4 teams in a week. And won! I came along a little after you , but they still had a strong academic reputation.
 
bobongo

bobongo

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7,580
takethepoints said:
Well, I guess it's about time for me to 'fess up: I played at THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH known to so may as Sewanee back in the '60s. That was a fun time for us. We won 9 of 10 games in my freshman year, largely because we ran a single wing (which the opposing DCs ahad no idea about how to stop) and because our TB was a) bigger, 6' 3", 225, and b) faster then many D players we faced. (Fun fact: he had a heart murmur and we'd wait tell him to go to the sidelines when it became loud enough to hear.) We were considered for the Grantland Rice Bowl that year, but were turned down. Some of my teammates are ticked about that. Not me; we would have played the Teneesee State A&I team that had Eldridge Dickey at QB and (God help us) Claude Humphrey at DE. I.e. I was sane.

Sewanee was a charter member of the old Southern Conference that both the SEC and the ACC later emerged from. The University has two members to the College Football Hall of Fame, Henry Disbrow Phillips (generally referred as the "Blond Giant" at 6'4" 210 ) who played DT until the team got inside the 15 and then moved to FB, and Frank Juhan, who was probably the first LB in college football. I knew Juhan while I was up there and his story about how he decided to play LB is interesting. Sewanee was playing Auburn and Frank, a DT, was getting tired of being in a three point stance. So he stood up and made the next three tackles - "I could see where they were going.". Then he got back in a three point stance until the coaches yelled at him to get back behind the line. and the rest is history. Both became Anglican bishops (that has to be a first) in later life.

Sewanee left the SEC because the U decide they didn't want to have a full scholarship program. That did not mean we didn't get good athletes; when I was there most of the players with were originally recruited by ACC/SEC programs and found out they were a trifle too slow or too small to compete at that level. Our coach, Shirley Majors (yes, that Majors) had contacts. The U found "academic scholarship" programs for most of them and we rolled.

Well, enough with the old days.
Click to expand...
I know somebody who was a student there and visited that beautiful campus in a snowstorm. The place is idyllic.
 

takethepoints

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,096
bobongo said:
I know somebody who was a student there and visited that beautiful campus in a snowstorm. The place is idyllic.
Click to expand...
Ah. Unless you happen to be playing football when a fog bank rolls in. That happened in one of our games the year before I got there. Visibility was so poor by the second quarter that the refs were reduced to running over to the sidelines to bring the chains out on the field on every play so they could get the yardage right. No passing, of course. Finally the refs quit calling an official timeout when they brought in the chains and the game went by quickly. By the last of the fourth quarter, it had cleared up enough for us to actually run a few outside plays!

We won by a TD, if I remember right.
 

takethepoints

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,096
augustabuzz said:
Then you're probably aware of that crazy Sewanee schedule one year when they played 3 0r 4 teams in a week. And won! I came along a little after you , but they still had a strong academic reputation.
Click to expand...
That would be the 1899 team. All the people who played on that team were gone by the time I got there. They went 12 - 0 and only one team - John Heisman's Auburn - scored on them.
 
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