On Saturday, when the Ramblin’ Wreck leads the Yellow Jackets out onto Grant Field, the team will celebrate the 85 years that Robert Duling, Cls 50, has followed Georgia Tech’s football team. Because of poor health, Duling is no longer able to attend games. Tech will show a video on the scoreboard honoring Duling for his long tenure as a fan. Robert Duling Jr. wrote the following remembrance of his father’s dedication to the Yellow Jackets.
My Dad was a Georgia Tech fan before he was even born and already attending home games at Grant Field. He was born on Feb. 22, 1928, the son of Prof. H. B. Duling, who taught at Georgia Tech from 1922 until he retired in 1952. He was present for Tech’s Championship Seasons in 1928, 1952, and 1990. When he was 11 months old, he attended Tech’s very first Bowl game in California with his parents. In fact, he has seen every Bowl Game that Tech has ever played in, and has the programs to prove it. He has seen every coach that has ever coached Tech.
Sitting with his Dad in the faculty section as a child, afforded him the opportunity to meet several important people. He claims to have met John Heisman when he was about 5 years old, but I cannot find proof of attendance to any games after he left Atlanta in 1919. He also remembers meeting William Alexander and Bobby Dodd, when he was just an assistant coach. Bobby Dodd was my Dad’s favorite coach ever. Most of the stories that I have heard in my 56 years of attending games with my Dad have started, “When Bobby Dodd was coach…” I cannot guarantee my Dad’s attendance as a child, because he and his brother took turns attending games with my grandfather. But, as a student and Alumni, I can guarantee that you can count the number of home games that he has missed since 1946 on one hand. According to my sister Kathey, he missed the season opener in 1963 because he was in the hospital with a broken right leg, broken left arm, several ribs, fingers, and toes from a car accident. The next week Tech was away and the following week my sister says that her and my mother were helping my Dad to climb those 13 steps to his Alumni seat with a makeshift crutch duct taped to his right leg and the other under his left shoulder. They managed to get him in his seat. It has been a matter of pride with him for 67 years.
I remember in 1974 when I was in High School, he had a double hernia operation and had to miss another home game. I had to go and sit in his seat to represent his team. I remember everyone in the section coming and asking me if my Dad had died, because they knew that would be the only way that he would miss a game. I also recall a story my Dad tells involving work. My Dad climbed poles for 4 years in Atlanta for South Central Bell while he attended night school at Tech, that was taught my his father. After he graduated in 1950, he transferred to Decatur, Ala., as an electrical engineer and retired in 1987. During that time, he never missed a game because of work. My Dad told them when he started that he would work any day of the year that they needed him, except the seven home games played on Saturdays in Atlanta each year. He demanded that he get it in writing when he transferred that he would not have to work on a game day. He only had to use that piece of paper one time.
Many years later, I think there was a strike in the 1970s when every engineer was required to come in that Saturday, and Dad refused. His supervisor had no idea that he had it in writing, so he had to have a meeting and explain that everyone would be working this Saturday except Bob Duling. There was a game in the 1970s when Tech played Notre Dame. It was a televised night game, snowing and below zero degree weather. My Dad says there were maybe 50 people in that stadium that night, but he was in his seat. The only other games that he has missed, I think four, have been because of hospital stays these past 10 years after his stroke.
Once, while he was in rehab after his stroke and could not walk, he had his best friend bring the motor home around back and take him to the game. When he returned the next day, the doctor was furious, but Dad reminded him that he had been telling him all week that he was going to the game Saturday. For the past five years I have been bringing him to every game and pushing him to his seat. He has been an inspiration and good luck charm to every fan in Section 204. They are used to him being in his seat, wearing his lucky tie and pulling for his team. I have really enjoyed bringing my Dad these past few years and seeing how everyone depends on his presence and how he really rallies his team.
No one loves Georgia Tech any more than my Dad. So, when he was unable to attend the season opener this year because he was just too weak to get out of bed, it broke my heart. I came to the game without him and sat in his seat wearing his game hat, lucky shirt (that he has requested to be buried in), and his lucky tie. Everyone was so worried that he had died, and I knew I needed to come to tell them that he was yelling at everyone to just get him up and he would crawl to the game.
My sister sat with him that Saturday and cried as he pleaded with her to let him go to the game. It was the first time in 67 years that my Dad had missed a season opener as a Tech Alumni. There is no telling how many years as a fan. I do know that he has been faithful loyal fan for over 85 years. There may be fans who have lived longer, but certainly none more prolific than my Dad. We went to all of the bowl games almost every year. For the past 30 years, we would arrive on a Friday night and come in under the cover of darkness in order to park on the corner of Ferst and Cherry in front of the building that my grandfather taught in for 30 years and where my Dad attended classes as one of his students. He was very adamant about tradition and always insisted on parking in that same spot.
I am going to miss going to games with my father after so many years, but I am starting a new tradition and have been bringing my 13-year-old grandson for the past two years. On Sept. 21, 2013 at the UNC game, my grandson, Robert Lewis Duling IV, and I will be sitting with the President of Georgia Tech G. P “Bud” Peterson in the President’s Suite at a celebration of my Dad’s lifetime as a Tech fan. There will be a 15 sec spot showing our pic and a brief bio explaining his dedication all of these years to Georgia tech. I only hope that I can continue my Dad’d legacy for another 50 years and my grandson will attend Tech and support them for another 50 years. It is fast approaching 100 years since my grandfather started attending games at Grant Field in 1917. Soon, we will be able to say that 5 generations have been supporting Tech for over 100 years.
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