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November 22, 2005

Georgia Tech Parade Honors 15th Year Anniversary of National Relevance

Written by Paul Westerdawg
Farks by NoleDawg

On Sunday, November 20, 2005, Georgia Tech hosted a special parade through downtown Atlanta. The parade honored the 15th Anniversary of Tech's 1990 co-National Championship.

The parade route started on Peachtree Street before eventually making its way to North Avenue. The parade consisted of the "Yellow" Jacket marching band, the famous Ramblin Wreck hooptie, players from the 1990 team, clowns, storm troopers, gnomes, ewoks, hobbits, and "men" dressed as super heroes and other oddities.


[Photo: Techies in full parade mode. Click to Enlarge]

"Georgia Tech is a school that can host a good parade every 40 or so years, but it can't do that consistently," said Dave Braine, Georgia Tech Athletic Director and Ticket Salesman. "This parade marks a celebration of unexpected relevance, a fond look back at what was, what could've been and the attempt to get to that level via cheating and malfeasance."

The loudest ovation of the day was reserved for the parade grand marshal, a Tech student in Klingon costume standing in for Tom Osborne. Osborne is widely credited as the "man who made the 1990 Mythical National Championship possible" by leaving Colorado entirely off his coaches' poll ballot in protest of Colorado's 5th down, enabling the middling Georgia Tech team to split with Colorado.

In doing so, Osborne made the impossible possible--vaulting a team playing in the humble Citrus Bowl into a national title.


[Photo: Klingon's for Osborne]

"This day honors the achievements of Coach Osborne," said Braine. "He's never been properly thanked for what he did for our floundering program. He postponed our move to Division I-AA by at least 20 years."

Bobby Ross, former head coach of the "Yellow" Jackets was on hand at the Parade. He said, "The 1990 team was special. Back then we didn't have progress towards graduation rules and the NCAA wasn't breathing down our backs all the time so we could 'make things work' academically."

[Photo: Bobby Ross pre-quitting/retiring/coming back]

A surprisingly large crowd of over 100 turned out for the Parade. "We really caught a break on the weather," said Braine. "It was going to rain, but we had sunny skies all day. I guess you could say 'The Force was with us.' Now if we could just bribe these folks into the stadium."


UGA_Law_Dawg contributed to this article.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

All I can say is thanks. After listening to a friend of mine try to defend Tech playing their felon to help them win vs Miami all freaking day yesterday, that jus made me laugh out loud. There's nothing quite like making fun of Tech.

Hunker Down said...

Keep bringing it!!!!!!! Three more days to Gameday.

Go Dawgs.

Nathan said...

I think I should be scared we think alike ... we're breaking a story on UGA's celebration on my site as we speak: LINK

Dan said...

Props to NoleDawg on the stormtroopers. That's a nice looking Fark right there.

Nathan said...

The Stormtroopers are freaking badass.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely hysterical. Something tells me that if I was working in Peachtree Center and looked out my window and saw yellow stormtroopers, after a moment of thinking "WTF???" I'd come to my senses... "Oh! Of course! Georgia Tech!"

 
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