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March 29, 2006

Infamous Moments in UGA History: Nov. 4, 1893


This UGA football team ran into the 19th Century Version of Bill Brasky

On Nov. 4, 1893, UGA and GT played their first game against each other in Athens. On that day, Leonard Wood ran wild over the Georgia players in route to a big Tech blowout win. The Atlanta Journal reported the following in the next day's paper:
Nov. 5, 1893: "The University of Georgia was defeated...but it was not by the Technical School that they were beaten. They team that opposed them was a heterogeneous collection of Atlanta residents -- a United States Army surgeon, a medical student, a lawyer, and an insurance agent among them, with here and there a student from Georgia's School of Technology thrown in to give the mixture a Technological flavor. Wood is believed to be Captain Leonard Wood of the US Army."
In fact, Tech's star player was Captain Leonard Wood. John F. Stegeman wrote in his book "The Ghosts of Herty Field" (1966):
"Thirty-three years old, fair-haired and blue-eyed, [Leonard Wood] was a man amidst boys.

During the game, Wood was "struck just over his right eye opening a gash about three inches long across his forehead. In a few moments he was bleeding freely. That...didn't bother Wood one minute. He would just reach up his hand, wipe his bleeding brow and then plaster the face of some Georgia player with a handful of blood...He seemed to delight in grabbing two Georgia boys and bumping their heads together. He just ran roughshod over everybody in front of him."

After graduating Harvard, "Wood had volunteered for Army duty with the provision that he be sent where the action was. The Army took him at his word and sent him to the Arizona-Mexico border to the infantry command that was then in pursuit of Geronimo and the fugitive Apaches. Wood was largely instrumental in the final capture of Geronimo and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor."
In other words, SEVEN YEARS after capturing Geronimo, Tech snuck one of the great American badasses of the 19th Century into Athens to use as a hellfire halfback RINGER against the 18 year old kids from Georgia.


Geronimo seen here before Wood as his 5,000 buddies caught him

Five years after the game, Wood commanded the First Volunteer Cavalry in the Spanish-American War. His group was known as The Rough Riders, and his second in command was a man whose face is now on Mount Rushmore. Nine years after the game, Wood was named Governor General of Cuba. He later served in the same capacity in the Philippines. He retired as a Major General.

Why Tech? Well, he was stationed at Fort McPherson in 1893, got bored and went over to GT to play football. He ended up teaching their boys the game. But in true Tech fashion of playing with ineligible men, he put on a Tech colors and started himself in the game.

Nov. 4, 1893: A moment which set into motion a Georgia Tech tradition of lying and cheating that has become the cornerstone of the Georgia Tech program.


Lest the Techies get all in a tizzy about such a Giant being a Tech man....no he was a Harvard man. He was just in town and wanted to play some football.

pwd

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, now I see where the practice of playing ineligible players began. Do you think the NCAA will revoke that "win" also? I hope. Bunch of cheaters!!!

Anonymous said...

This is the kind of quality information you can't get just anywhere. I'd love to see how they react to this on the Hive PBM.

I bow to your scholarship, PWD. Not even a GTU hater with credentials like mine knew this sordid tale. Looks like they have the slogan for next football season right here:

"GTU Football; Lying and Cheating Since 1983"

Anonymous said...

whoops. I could use a proofreader.

that should be:

"GTU Football: Lying and Cheating Since 1893"

Of course, since 1983 is when they acquired the services of a fine young scholar named Tyrone Sorrells, that works, too. Any word on how the Reverend Bill Curry's master plan to "bring the cheaters to their knees" worked out? By any chance, was he the guy who recommended Bill Lewis for the job over there after Ross fled?

Anonymous said...

lying and cheating. whatever. all that matters is on the national scale. 4 nc's to uga's 2! also the latest national championship. i'll take one win in 20 seasons to uga if it means that the one win was a national championship season. keep trying though uga you'll get that thrid national cham. soon......well hopefully anyways!

Dan said...

Actually the biggest thing that pisses me off about this article is that we were apparently better cheaters 100+ years ago than we are now.

As an engineer, I'm just upset about the lack of innovation shown.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work there Westerdawg.

As for our anonymous nerd friend, counselor, I think the case is closed and he is hereby sentenced to life as a fan of the NATS with no hope for parole. Good work in your presentation of the facts, sir.

Dan said...

See Kyle, if we had a play-off than all of that wouldn't have to have been typed up.

Unknown said...

Kyle - flame on brother. Flame on.

BTW -- There is a trash can directly below your posts. If you ever have typos that you want to edit out (but I say why bother), you can click on that and start over.

pwd

Nathan said...

I have no clue how I missed this the first time around ... but since I was doing a Leonard Wood piece for this weekend, PWD shot it to me.

To clear it up, Wood was actually enrolled as a Tech student taking classes and was thus qualified to play. We weren't "cheating" - though obviously his previous college education would preclude him in modern times.

All in all, Wood is one of the most interesting Americans of the post Civil War era - he was involved in almost every important conflict from 1885 until 1920 and his time as Army Chief of Staff was quite visionary (including starting the ROTC program).

 
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