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No Wonder We Were So Good !
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<blockquote data-quote="Old South Stands" data-source="post: 22038" data-attributes="member: 1036"><p>I've been a Tech fan since about '76... By then UGA was already beginning its current domination of the series, but as a young fan, I really couldn't tell. Memories of Dodd were still fresh, and there were probably as many Tech fans out there as Georgia fans, especially among the older generation. News reports seemed fairly balanced, and you still got the feeling (up until about 1980) that Tech had at least a 50-50 chance of beating them on any given day. The talent level was pretty even, too. Things really got skewed Georgia's way after Herschel and the 1980 Championship and never really went back after that. 1981 and '82 UGA was again in the middle of the title hunt. At that time Tech was in the middle of a six-game losing streak to Georgia that began in '78. Tech athletics had built itself a laughing-stock reputation while UGA became the program most native-born Georgians preferred to hang their hat on. Every kid wanted to be a dawg. Kids who wore Tech gear (like me) were laughed to shame.</p><p></p><p>My first week of freshman year in '87, a hall mate from Connecticut pointed out a giant billboard right off the Tech campus stating: "Channel 2 is your Georgia Bulldogs Station". Why did the city of Atlanta root for the Dawgs and not for Tech? Herschel casts a long shadow over the UGA program to this day; there's still a big perception of UGA as winners going back to that time. Many prominent Georgians/Atlantans in news, media, govt and the board of regents were products of UGA, so there's a little bias built in. The fact that Tech lost a lot of games didn't help, either.</p><p></p><p>The Hill is absolutely essential to the success of the athletic program at Tech. Without the Hill's 100% commitment, no coach can do very much. At the time I arrived at Tech, the school had a brand-new president, Patrick Crecine. He was hired to bring big changes to Tech. When he came, the campus didn't look much different to the way it looked when my dad was there in the late '50s. Crecine laid the groundwork for a lot of the stuff that you see on campus today, the foundation President Clough would later build upon during his remarkable tenure at Tech. Many great changes were instituted under Crecine, who wanted to make Tech a top-tier institute of research and learning internationally. But he also had a great passion for sports. In his personal dorm-to-dorm basement speaking tour, it was obvious he loved sports and appreciated Tech's athletic traditions. Within a few short years, the football team would win a national title and the basketball team would go to the Final Four. Tech's campus would also become a future olympic village. Crecine was eventually fired in '94. The bottom line: if you want Tech to have a very successful athletic program, you've got to have excitement coming from the very top.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Old South Stands, post: 22038, member: 1036"] I've been a Tech fan since about '76... By then UGA was already beginning its current domination of the series, but as a young fan, I really couldn't tell. Memories of Dodd were still fresh, and there were probably as many Tech fans out there as Georgia fans, especially among the older generation. News reports seemed fairly balanced, and you still got the feeling (up until about 1980) that Tech had at least a 50-50 chance of beating them on any given day. The talent level was pretty even, too. Things really got skewed Georgia's way after Herschel and the 1980 Championship and never really went back after that. 1981 and '82 UGA was again in the middle of the title hunt. At that time Tech was in the middle of a six-game losing streak to Georgia that began in '78. Tech athletics had built itself a laughing-stock reputation while UGA became the program most native-born Georgians preferred to hang their hat on. Every kid wanted to be a dawg. Kids who wore Tech gear (like me) were laughed to shame. My first week of freshman year in '87, a hall mate from Connecticut pointed out a giant billboard right off the Tech campus stating: "Channel 2 is your Georgia Bulldogs Station". Why did the city of Atlanta root for the Dawgs and not for Tech? Herschel casts a long shadow over the UGA program to this day; there's still a big perception of UGA as winners going back to that time. Many prominent Georgians/Atlantans in news, media, govt and the board of regents were products of UGA, so there's a little bias built in. The fact that Tech lost a lot of games didn't help, either. The Hill is absolutely essential to the success of the athletic program at Tech. Without the Hill's 100% commitment, no coach can do very much. At the time I arrived at Tech, the school had a brand-new president, Patrick Crecine. He was hired to bring big changes to Tech. When he came, the campus didn't look much different to the way it looked when my dad was there in the late '50s. Crecine laid the groundwork for a lot of the stuff that you see on campus today, the foundation President Clough would later build upon during his remarkable tenure at Tech. Many great changes were instituted under Crecine, who wanted to make Tech a top-tier institute of research and learning internationally. But he also had a great passion for sports. In his personal dorm-to-dorm basement speaking tour, it was obvious he loved sports and appreciated Tech's athletic traditions. Within a few short years, the football team would win a national title and the basketball team would go to the Final Four. Tech's campus would also become a future olympic village. Crecine was eventually fired in '94. The bottom line: if you want Tech to have a very successful athletic program, you've got to have excitement coming from the very top. [/QUOTE]
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