So Many Old Dawgs: The 1966 UGA Football SEC Championship Team Reunion

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Once more they gathered between the hedges to remember and celebrate that momentous 1966 year when the University of Georgia Bulldogs reached the pinnacle of the Southeastern Conference, the SEC Championship, and left an indelible mark in the history of college football.

 

 

One Old Dawg has grieved Georgia’s loss to those Rocky Top bandits in the last four seconds of the game on Saturday, but despite that, it was still a great weekend.

It began on Friday evening with an event celebrating the 1946, 1966, and 1976 Southeastern Conference Championships.

 

The lone attendee from the 1946 team and perhaps the greatest college football player of all time was the legendary Charley Trippi.

Jerry Varnado with Charley Trippi

 

After leaving UGA, Trippi played pro ball for the Chicago Cardinals. Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as well as the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he is the only professional inducted with 1000 yards rushing, 1000 yards receiving, and 1000 yards passing. An honor to be with him.

Jerry Varnado and Barbara Dooley

 

Here at One Old Dawg, we’d like to know how Barbara Dooley, Coach Dooley's wife, never gets any older. She is ever an amazing, beautiful woman and such a joy.





That evening, there were just so many Old Dawgs to see from the 1966 team. Here are a few. 



Jerry Varnado, Steve Neuhaus, George Patton, Larry Kohn
 

Jerry Varnado, Tommy Lawhorne

Jerry Varnado, Jack Davis, Bill McWhorter, Happy Dicks

Varnado, Brad Johnson, Paul Handmacher

Varnados, Handmachers, Gaines, Dennards

Varnado and Nelson Bowers
 

 

Wayne Ingle and Jack Davis

When the program began, One Old Dawg gave the invocation.

 

The Celebration of the 1966 team included remarks from the defensive captain George Patton and offensive captain, Jack Davis.

A video presentation about the team was curated by Georgia football Archivist, Mark Maxwell, long time friend of One Old Dawg going all the way back to their days coaching YMCA youth league football together.

Mark Maxwell and Jerry Varnado

The evening concluded with remarks by Coach Vince Dooley who pointed out that in the long and storied history of Georgia football, there have been only twelve Southeastern Conference Championship teams.

Varnados and Vince Dooley

 

On Saturday, a special celebration during halftime recognized these same teams. From the 1966 team, twenty-two players gathered in the middle of the field once more with their beloved Coach, Vince Dooley, to be recognized for their part in sustaining and continuing a tradition of sports excellence at the University of Georgia.

Yes, despite the loss, it was a great day.

Later, we found the Varsity in Athens had posted a picture of One Old Dawg on their Facebook page. Such fun.

 

And now about the upcoming game against South Carolina, One Old Dawg says, “Any loss is tough; a loss to Tennessee is doubly tough. However, we played nose to nose with the team favored to win the SEC east. We had it won, fair and square, but a miracle play snatched it away. Our guys played their hearts out and never gave up. Ninety-three thousand attendees and millions in TV land got more than their money’s worth in one of the most exciting games I’ve seen in while. Therefore, I refuse to hang my head and be sad because they got three more points than we did. Good game Dawgs, shake it off and move on, we’ve got some South Carolina chickens to fry.

"I’ve been reminded this week of something Jesus said in Luke 18:1: 'Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.' Yes, pray about football. Ask God to help our team deal with this adversity and not get discouraged. There’s still a lot of football to play and we’re getting better each week. We can still have a great season and post season, if we forget what’s behind, keep focused, move forward and take care of business.

"Well we have the Gamecocks this week and we’re playing in their chicken coop, if Hurricane Matthew doesn’t force some changes. They’ve had a rough year so far, they are 2-3, 1-3 SEC but they’ve been in every ball game. They have a tough Georgia boy and former Dawg at the helm and he will have them ready for a good old-fashioned fight. We can’t take these chickens for granted but I’m convinced we will have them plucked by the fourth quarter. Get the frying pan ready. Gooo… Dawgs, Sic ‘em."

 

We'll be here again next week at One Old Dawg talking about homecoming games against Kentucky in 1966 and against Vanderbilit between the hedges this year. Join us again for more mostly true Bulldog lore.

                                                                                       

 

One Old Dawg: Pressing on and Sending Old Smokey back to Rocky Top

After his beloved Bulldogs fell prey to the Ole Miss Rebels last Saturday, One Old Dawg remained positive. “In Philippians 3:13-14 the Apostle Paul told us how he dealt with past failures. ‘But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize . . . ’  Forget Ole Miss and press on! We’ve got them right where we want them,” he declared. “They have all written us off as contenders, so now we can slip up on them. All we have to do is win our next six games and we are in the Dome on December 3.”

 

 

Now, that’s the way to put a positive spin on a situation.

 

And when it comes to the Bulldogs, One Old Dawg aims to do just that.

 

Back in 1966, the Bulldogs faced Miami the fifth game of the season. Hopes were high, as the team boarded the two Southern Airways planes, a Martin 404 and a DC3 to head to Florida. In fact, the Atlanta Constitution ran an article entitled, “Bulldogs Roar into Miami.”

 

But in paragraph three, sportswriter Bill Clark wrote what turned out to be a foreshadowing of things to come, “Odds makers say it should be a fifth straight triumph for Georgia and a third loss in four games for Charlie Tate’s Hurricanes. But with that scent of oranges in Bulldogs nostrils, there is the threat that Georgia is ripe for upset.”

And that’s exactly what happened as Georgia suffered a 7-6 defeat.

 

One Old Dawg remembers, “The paper declared the temperature to be 80 degrees that night, but it felt more like 100. It was so muggy; breathing was like trying to suck a thick milk shake through a straw. We had stopped keeping oxygen on the sidelines at home games, because we hardly ever used it, but there was a tank on our bench at the Orange Bowl that night. We sucked it dry. It was one of those games where nothing seemed to go right, we just couldn’t get the ball into the end zone and had to settle for two field goals. A third field goal attempt was thwarted by a bobbled snap.

“Our defense had played well until their scoring drive late in the third quarter. They got the ball on their forty-nine and drove down to the goal.  We held inside the five and they went for it on fourth down.

“I had nightmares about that play for weeks. A man came in motion toward me, so I had to drop off the line into pass coverage. In that situation I was to holler “off” so the tackle would know to move a step to the outside to contain any running play around the end.

“The noise was so loud the tackle didn’t hear me, so he was a sitting duck to be blocked. The runner came outside and turned the corner. As soon as I saw it was a run, I dropped pass coverage and came up along with the linebacker, Tommy Lawhorne, and we hit him hard right on the goal line but he fell into the end zone for what turned out to be the winning score. It turned out to be the only blemish on our record that year, and I felt it was my fault we didn’t go undefeated, but that’s football."

Athens Banner Herald

The players returned from Miami in a heavy rain at Ben Epps airport  to the applause of what the Athens paper called “the largest crowd assembled this year, even though it was the team’s first loss.” Some things never change, and that’s the faithfulness of Bulldog fans. 

 

"We were really encouraged to see those fans standing in the rain at the Athens Airport; they believed in us. So we all forgot about Miami and pressed on to win the prize, a great season and the SEC championship.”

 

The fiftieth anniversary celebration for the 1966 SEC Championship team is coming up this weekend with an event Friday night and during halftime on Saturday, the team will be recognized along with the 1946 and 1976 SEC championship teams. A big weekend. Nothing would be better than for Georgia to beat those Tennessee Volunteers. 

 

One Old Dawg says, “It’s all on the line this Saturday and will be for the next six games. We have six straight SEC games, and we can’t afford to lose another. Tennessee is 4-0 and flying high after a big come-from-behind win over Florida last Saturday. I mean ‘flying high’ as in they had 320 yards passing and another 178 rushing. 498 yards of offense is scary.

 

"As I mentioned last week, turnover margin is critical when playing against a high-octane offense. Turnovers stop drives and usually improve field position; we need a plus four margin this week. Come on Dawgs, we’ve got them where we want them― riding high, and that means ripe for upset, and we’ve got them between the hedges. Send Old Smokey back to Rocky Top Tennessee with his tail tucked between his legs. Gooo... Dawgs, Sic ‘em!"

 

We'll be right back here next week with more of One Old Dawg's mostly true Bulldog lore on the 1966 Kentucky game as well as his thoughts on the matchup between this year's Bulldogs and South Carolina.

 

 

One Old Dawg on a Big Ten Win and Barbecued Chicken

The Bulldogs face South Carolina this Saturday, but in 1965, South Carolina was not on the UGA schedule and not even in the SEC. For the third game of the season, they faced Michigan. Anyone who knows One Old Dawg can testify to his story-telling prowess. And at times, he can embellish with the best of them, but the tale of how the 1965 University of Georgia football team beat Michigan, one of the Big Ten, on their home turf in Ann Arbor needs no embellishment. It is the stuff of legend.

 

Here’s One Old Dawg’s story told as only he can tell it:

“After dispatching Vanderbilt 24-10 we were to travel to Ann Arbor to play mighty Michigan in the Big House. Michigan’s stadium seated over 100,000, the largest in the country and still one the largest sports venues in the world. We were excited only because we were too young or too dumb to be intimidated. In 1964, they had won the Big Ten Championship, The Rose Bowl and were ranked number four in the nation.

 

“I was reading an account of the game that stated Michigan outweighed us fifteen pounds per man. I don’t know what scale that writer was using but every player but one on their starting offensive outweighed me by at least 25 pounds, many of them by 40 pounds.

 

“My biggest hope was their All-American tailback, Bill Yearby, who was 6’ 2” and weighed 220 lbs, would take a bit more time to recover from his knee injury and miss the game. When he was in there, they liked to run the power sweep, which routes right over the defensive end position. He didn’t start the game but he came in the middle of the first quarter. Sure enough, it was pro-set to my side, which sent the power sweep my way. The quarterback pitched the ball to that big tailback who was led by the fullback, a pulling guard and the quarterback. That was over 900 pounds of human flesh about to attack my puny 185-pound frame. I felt like I was trapped in an old west cattle stampede. God bless Dickie Phillips and or the late Jimmy Cooley.

One of them shot through the hole left by that pulling guard and cut down that tailback to stop the play before one person hit me. Whew! Close call, I thought I was about to meet my Maker.

 

"We hung in there with those big guys and came home a 15-7 winner. We were really riding high! The most amazing thing happened later that evening.

 

“We flew back to Athens right after the game. I was dozing in my seat when I heard someone tell me to look out the window as we flew over downtown Athens.  We thought it strange that at such a late hour, we could see car lights lined up for miles on one of the roads leading out of Athens. We were worried that it might have been a bad wreck that backed up traffic. Upon landing, we learned the truth.

“So many people had come to the airport to welcome us home the parking lot filled and backed up traffic all the all the way to downtown Athens. Over ten thousand people were there, cheering like crazy. I don’t think my feet touched the ground; two guys picked me up on their shoulders and carried me to the bus. You would have thought we had won the national championship; it was quite a day.”

 

News accounts laud kicker Bob Etter (Atlanta Falcons, Memphis Southmen) for three field goals, as well as offensive players, Preston Ridlehuber (Atlanta Falcons, Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills, New York Jets) , Bob Taylor, Ron Jenkins, Pat Hodgson (All SEC, Washington Redskins, Coach at San Diego Chargers, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets) , and safety Lynn Hughes (All SEC, All American).

Outstanding defenders were noted as George Patton (All SEC, All American, Atlanta Falcons) , Jiggy Smaha (BC Lions, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, Jacksonville Sharks) , Doug McFalls (All SEC, Chicago Bears) , and Tommy Lawhorne.

One Old Dawg ponders the greater implications of this story. “I was again living a spiritual truth I wouldn’t realize until much later. Isaiah 40:6 says, ‘A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.”’  All of us are pretty much on the same footing. As my high school coach, Wright Bazemore used to tell us when we were playing a highly favored opponent: “They put their britches on just like you do, one leg at the time.” The glory of mighty Michigan wilted that fateful day in 1965; they were just like us, mortal men who sometimes fail.”

 

As for the matchup between the Dogs and the Gamecocks this Saturday between the hedges, well, everyone at One Old Dawg’s house pauses a moment in front of the picture in the den of him sacking then Florida quarterback Steve Spurrier. It’s always an encouragement.

One Old Dawg prognosticates, “From all appearances, they do not have as good a team as in past years; but they’ve only played two games. They won a close one against a very respectable North Carolina team and lost to Kentucky last week.

"The bottom line is the Gamecocks are licking their wounds and working up a good mad. They lost their tussle with the Cats and they will be trying to take it out on the Dawgs. Regardless of what kind of team Spurrier has, they always seem to play their best game against us. Spurrier really hates Georgia, because of how we treated him when he was a player at Florida, but more about that in October and next season.

 

“The Gamecocks will give us fits as they usually do, but at the end of the day the Dawgs will have a mouth full of feathers, barbecued chicken for supper, and another W on their schedule.  Sick ‘em Dawgs.”

And that wraps it up for this week’s One Old Dawg.  Be sure, you can always count on us here for “mostly true Bulldog lore.”