Success Breeds Success in All Sports
The Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine is an outstanding publication. Thank you. The article on Peter Rhee was magnificent. What I’m writing about, a reflection on Tech leaving the Southeastern Conference, seems trivial by comparison. However, my impression is that the story needs to be further fleshed out.
I was captain of the Tech track team in 1964 and 1965 and am a member of the Sports Hall of Fame. My impression is that our competing in the SEC track and field conference championship in late May of 1964 may have been the last time a Tech team competed in the SEC. What football found out later other sports found out immediately. It was tough being an independent. We lost ground in recruiting and competition.
In my opinion, to be consistently successful in the long run, football has to be part of an overall successful athletic program. Success breeds success in all sports. It took us a while to get into a conference that feels like a match.
During the independent years and time spent in the Metro Conference, all our teams lost traction. Ironically, the NCAA put a scholarship limit on all schools, thus taking away the original argument for our leaving the SEC.
As the article on Peter Rhee reminded us, there are things going on in this world that are more important than athletic competition. That last SEC track championship meet was in Birmingham. Another Atlantan was in Birmingham that weekend. Dr. King was there focusing the nation’s attention on much-needed civil rights legislation. In my opinion, while our leaving the SEC might be an interesting asterisk in a sports history book, other events have more than overshadowed it.
The Rev. Jim (Joe) Watkins, IM 65
Decatur, Ga.
Tech Had Recruiting Disadvantage
As a former member of the Georgia Tech athletic board, I read with interest your article The Day Tech Sports Changed Forever. Being the editor of the Technique, I was honored to serve as a student member of the board during the 1961-62 school year.
The Holt-Graning incident referred to in the article did result in the decision to cease scheduling athletic events with the University of Alabama; most sporting events were canceled immediately, but since the football schedule was legally contracted, it was continued until the contract expired.
Finances were becoming a major issue. An upper deck was approved for the eastern side of Grant Field, and it was clear that the “home and home” schedule with several smaller members of the SEC did not generate close to the revenue received from at-home games, which at the time were always sold out. In addition, it was only a matter of time before Atlanta, as a major metropolitan market, would be targeted for a franchise by the NFL. (This actually did occur in 1965.) Since Tech was the only game in town in 1962, pro football was likely to hurt the “gate.” Also, operating as an independent would enable scheduling seven or eight home games rather than the usual five or six.
While I do not recall in-depth discussions of the 140 Rule, there is no doubt that Tech was at a disadvantage in recruiting compared with many of the other schools in the SEC. As a technological institution, high entrance standards were maintained, and there were no physical education or other less demanding programs to herd athletes into. Also, the integrity of the Tech athletic program demanded that injured athletes be allowed to keep their grant-in-aid for the balance of their academic careers. (As a grant-in-aid recipient myself in track and field, I shared the training table with a number of such student athletes.)
Although I was not on the athletic board in 1963, in my view, the confluence of these issues ultimately led to the decision to leave the SEC. The 140 Rule was merely the vehicle. As Dr. Harrison is quoted in your article, “Our action … acknowledges a uniqueness of our situation.”
Ernest R. Maddox, APsy 62
Clayton, Mo.
Dome Once Was Rocking Place
“Beyond sad,” an alumnus and former basketball star said in describing the demise of Alexander Memorial Coliseum. My sentiments exactly, since my entire involvement with Tech roughly parallels the life of the Thrillerdome.
As one of the original group of Boy Scout ushers at Grant Field, and having later served in the president’s box the year Dr. Paul Weber was acting, I was probably hooked on enrolling at Tech before the coliseum was completed. Four of my senior classmates at Jonesboro High School and I applied for admission after talking to a Tech recruiter at a college night in the fall of 1957. Thankfully, in those days there was an emphasis on producing homegrown, all-American engineers and business leaders, and all five of us were accepted.
The admissions office invited our “fabulous five” group to visit the campus, and we accepted with growing excitement. On that visit, after being taken on a tour around the campus (which at that time did not take long) and given all of the standard sales pitches by the admissions people, the ultimate salesman was revealed to us. We were taken up to Dean George Griffin’s office.
After recovering from his growled “whatta-ya-want, boys” greeting, we had a brief visit. He then opened a desk drawer and took out a stack of tickets. “Can you boys stay for the basketball game tonight?” Could we ever! That was our first of many glorious evenings in “the dome,” and the joint was rocking! We were sold completely on being a part of that raucous bunch, our college education having commenced when we entered the place. All five of us somehow survived four years and graduated.
I do not remember who Tech played that fateful night, but I think that team featured Bud Blemker, Terry Randall, Roger Kaiser and Dave Denton. The tip-off was delayed for a short time due to a ruckus outside. It seems that one of our star players had been nabbed while trying to sell his game tickets. The culprit showed up late in the first half after having been taken “downtown” and then “sprung” by some school official, Dean Griffin probably.
I am sure the reformed dome will also build millions of memories over its useful life. But I hope there are enough “old school” Tech people involved to see that it retains much of the atmosphere of the unique facility that served us so well. I pray no “ego beavers” come along wanting to buy their names onto the Tech Tower.
Al Camp, IM 62
Fayetteville, Ga.
Get It Straight: Alumnus, Alumna
With the American public school system no longer teaching Latin in most high schools, the word “alumni” has taken on many incorrect variations. As a former “professional alumnor,” as the AAC taught me to perceive myself in 1953 when I was a lowly alumni association field director at the University of Illinois at Urbana, I am amazed at how otherwise well-educated college graduates today now murder the word.
I received an email from a Tech alumnus seeking my advice and counsel on approaching a Tech faculty member who had sounded off carelessly in the local media about a current civic issue. My friend proclaimed that he was “an alumni” of Georgia Tech, as were many of his contemporaries also “Tech alumni.”
The facts as I remember them are:
• Individually, I am an “alumnus,” the masculine singular, of my institution.
• Collectively, we are all “alumni” — men and women alike, plural.
• The female singular of a graduate is an “alumna.”
• Fellow female graduates without any male members in the group are “alumnae.”
Graduates of liberal arts programs and institutions are much more likely to use the terminology appropriately, and in elitist circles, these nuances are telling. Imagine the amazement, mirth and barely disguised smiles behind his back at a Washington, D.C., or Upper East Side cocktail party should one of our brilliant Techies, perhaps a multimillionaire from an invention, dare to refer to himself as “an alumni” of Georgia Tech.
As chapter counselor for Sig Ep at Georgia Tech since 1986, I hear age group after age group making the same mistakes, and they are some of the brightest America has produced.
Richard Rodgers
Georgia Tech College of Architecture visiting associate professor
Global Warming No Hoax
I did not intend to debate global warming in letters to the editor, but James Bell’s letter is too egregious to go without response. The comment that CO2 is “only 385 parts per million” and fossil fuels contribute “only 12 ppm” tries to imply that human contribution is trivial and that CO2 in total is too small to affect climate.
He goes on to say that CO2 is necessary for life and ask, “Why would you want to remove CO2 from the atmosphere?” No one has suggested removing CO2; it is vital to a livable planet. In addition, I do not know where he got the figure that human contribution is only 12 ppm. The CO2 level was 290 ppm in 1890, which is considered the start of the Industrial Age. It is currently 390 ppm, an increase of 100 ppm or 34 percent.
The physics of why this “small” amount of CO2 contributes significantly to global warming is well understood; it is not new science. It was first proposed as early as 1824 when Joseph Fourier calculated that the Earth would be far colder if it lacked an atmosphere. In 1896, Svante Arrhenius published the first calculation of global warming from human emissions of CO2. That calculation has proven remarkably accurate. See 20 classic papers on climate science, starting with Fourier 1824. It can be accessed at: wiki.nsdl.org/index.php/PALE:ClassicArticles/GlobalWarming.
I also recommend the book The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart. It gives the complete history of major scientific evidence related to global warming.
As the planet warms, the ocean is also warming. A significant amount of the additional CO2 entering the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, increasing their acidity. A recent study published in Nature reported a 40 percent drop in phytoplankton since 1950. Plankton are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world’s oxygen and suck up carbon dioxide. Half the world’s oxygen! I don’t know why that fact alone does not send shudders through the population.
Mr. Bell suggested that I look at the Global Warming Petition project, reportedly signed by 31,000 scientists and engineers. I had looked at this petition before his suggestion. However, I am more interested in the opinions of climate scientists than of self-proclaimed experts. The conclusion that recent global warming is being caused by human emissions of CO2 was reviewed and endorsed by the National Science Academies of every major nation from the United States to China.
If indeed global warming is a hoax as Mr. Bell claims, it may be the largest ever perpetrated. It is kept going by thousands of scientists, speaking dozens of languages, by scores of universities and government agencies, and it has been going on for decades. In addition, they have been able to create physical evidence to support the hoax such as record-hot decades, melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, declining ocean life and rising sea level.
Jon Parker, ME 60
Houston
Keep Your Pants On
In regard to the Jacket jesters’ No Pants Day celebration [March/April], apparently aesthetics has taken a distant backseat to stupidity. If my daughter and I were riding that train, I’d hate to have to explain to her why a fine institute such as Georgia Tech deems crudeness to be humor. As for the comment that “a good prank … needs to be original,” copying a worldwide event is not.
George Rezac, AMath 69, MS InfoSci 70
Lakeland, Fla.
Ring Returned After 40 Years
Several months ago I began attempts to locate the descendants of a graduate of Georgia Tech’s class of 1927 whose class ring was found on a Florida beach by a family friend in 1972. The initials etched inside the ring belonged to Thomas Jared Irwin.
Apparently, while vacationing in Florida, Mr. Irwin had misplaced the ring for it was found by my friend’s father, who managed the Silver Sands Motel in Cocoa Beach. He kept it for nearly 40 years, until his son offered me the challenge of locating Mr. Irwin’s family in order to return the ring.
After months of searching, I finally located Mr. Irwin’s son, and after he correctly identified his father’s photograph, I mounted the ring in a shadow box next to Mr. Irwin’s photo and returned the ring to its rightful place with his family.
Mr. Irwin’s son shared an interesting story with me: Upon graduating, his father could not afford a class ring, so his best friend and classmate, Herb Reed, gave him his own ring as a gift. When Mr. Irwin passed away some years ago, his good friend, Mr. Reed, once again offered up his own class ring, a replacement for the one that was lost. Mr. Irwin wore that ring to his grave.
Steve Enyeart
Austin, Texas
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