Will Four Million Yearly Change Football in Athens?

To some of us, this means a lot.

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.”

I want to see more.

Will four million a year change football in Athens?? The answer to that question is a BIG NO!!!!!!! The golden age of football in Athens was in the 1940's. The coach was paid a little over 5,ooo a year to take the Dawgs to eight bowl games one NC. Should have been two as the Dawgs were undefeated, but the pollsters picked Notre Dame #1 Army #2 & Georgia #3. You see Notre Dame & Army played to their famous tie in Yankee stadium that year. We played North Carolina in the Sugar Bowl pitting Choo-Choo Charlie Justice against Charlie Trippi. The Dawgs won a close one 21 to 10. So you see Coach Butts had really two NC in his 21 years as head coach of the Dawgs. Wally's record from Sinkwich 1941 to Johnny Rauch senior season was 60-15-2. We will never see another run like that again, at least not in my life time. Players are different, their goals are different, linemen weigh in excess of 300lbs and running backs and some QB weigh more than the linemen of my era. Love to watch Ivy League football now, it just seems to be more like the game I was use to playing & watching. Oh well, time marches on. What else can I say. Dooley was a good coach, but in my mind would have been no match compared to Wally Butts. My two cents worth, take it or leave it. As always, GO DAWGS!!!!!!

DawgDoc I was also a supporter of Wally Butts. My high school coach played for him and of course there was a lot of conversation on the high school practice field about Georgia Football and Coach Butts. He was a man of "spirit", believed in "human tackling dummies".

Being as you are the "Senior Old Fart" on this board, feel sure you remember this episode. Actually there were two episodes.

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Author: James Kirby

Bear Bryant, Wally Butts and the "Scopes Monkey Trial" of 1963

Did Georgia Athletic Director Wally Butts and Alabama head coach Paul "Bear" Bryant conspire to "fix" the 1962 Alabama-Georgia football game? (Won by Alabama 35-0).

This very fine book, written by James Kirby, the Southeastern Conference's official observer at the Butts trial against the Saturday Evening Post, examines all angles and aspects of what was billed, and considered at the time, the most scandalous and sensational sports story since the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

Kirby writes, "No lawsuit had generated such heated emotions (in the South) since the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee. The Post's assault on two southern football heroes was compared to Clarence Darrow's assault on the Genesis account of creation."

Truer words were never written.

Mr. Kirby believes there was more to the story than what came out at the Butts trial, much more, but he appropriately leaves it to the reader to decide what was truth, what was fiction and what was innuendo and supposition.

In the end it may come down to this: Butts talked and Bryant listened. But did Bryant listen in an effort to affect the game (or the point spread) or was he simply listening to an embittered old friend rant?

Butts, of course, won $3 million in the suit against Curtis Publishing Company but settled for far less, a couple of hundred thousand or so, rather than face the prospect of a retrial. Bryant had two suits against the Post but settled for about $250,000. Neither man seemed to want to go to trial again, Bryant for the first time. New information had come to light in the Butts case that could have greatly affected the outcome, and, during discovery for what was to be the Bryant trial, considerable information would contradict Bryant's testimony and that of University President Frank Rose in the Butts trial.

This much is certain, as any freshman journalism student knows, there are two kinds of truth: truth and provable truth, and the Post came nowhere close to proving its version of truth in the Butts trial. Ironically, had all of this happened today, the case most likely would have never made it to court, and quite possibly, never even been filed. New libel rulings issued by the Supreme Court shortly after the Butts trial, though unrelated to that case, would have made it virtually impossible for Butts or Bryant to sue the Post and win, possibly even get to trial.

In summing up his book and the entire saga, Kirby writes, "The Bear Bryant-Wally Butts scandal put three of America's most revered institutions--big-time college football, the law and the press--to the test.

All three fumbled..."

Interesting read about interesting men in an interesting time.

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As you mention DawgDoc, much has changed and continues to change.

Great post Buc... and continues to change.....truth..... college football...life

Go Dawgs

I believe the reason Richt got an $800,000 raise was the brass were embarrassed that UGA head coach was one of the lowest paid in the SEC. He certainly did not deserve it based on performance in the last few years.