AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > July > 16
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Tech-Irish series has ugly past
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Come Sept. 2, Notre Dame will play its latest holy war in football. Such is always the mind-set for those whenever the Fighting Irish enter their world, particularly south of the Mason-Dixon line. This time, the folks from Touchdown Jesus will travel to Bobby Dodd Stadium in a game as big as the one in 1978.
Hopefully, for the sake of everybody, it won’t be as nasty.
Or smelly. Among other things, the Notre Dame contingent was pounded back then by a combination of dead fish and whiskey bottles before, during and after what eventually was an Irish rout of the Yellow Jackets. So, with the Tech Nation already losing its mind for its home opener by selling out the place in a flash to see a pretty good bunch of Jackets against a consensus top 3 team that has all of those legends and ghosts, you wonder if Tech officials are concerned that Jackets fans might disgrace themselves again.
“The safety of players in any game is always something that you think about and you make arrangements for as you go through the planning for your football season with your game management people,” said Dan Radakovich, in his first year as Tech’s athletics director. “My goodness, that other game happened 28 years ago, so I think that some of the people who may have been involved with [the trash throwing] may be running corporations at this point in time.”
Maybe, but this is for sure: At that point in time, all of those folks should have gone from the stands to the slammer for their ugliness on Nov. 18, 1978, the next-to-the-last time that the Irish had the audacity to come to town.
For some perspective, consider the chat I had this week with an old acquaintance who recalled more than a few explosive trips in high school to battle foes around his native Monongahela, Pa., a hard-scrabble steel town. Not only that, throughout his 15 NFL seasons along the way to four world championships and legendary comebacks, his San Francisco 49ers weren’t exactly the people’s choice, stretching from the Black Hole in Oakland to the intimidating rocking and rolling of old Mile High Stadium to the creatures who often populate the stands in the Meadowlands.
“Even so, I still have to say that Georgia Tech game was it. I mean, that was the worst thing that I ever experienced at a football game,” said Joe Montana, the Hall of Fame quarterback, over the phone from his home in the wine country of northern California. That’s opposed to bourbon country, which provided some of the stuff that once filled the bottles that were hurled at Notre Dame players back then.
The sky over the stadium was filled with even more debris than clouds when it became apparent in the fourth quarter that Notre Dame would smash Tech’s chances of extending its longest winning streak since its Bobby Dodd days from seven to whatever. “They also were a little upset, because they thought we had poured it on the year before [69-14]. Then, when we got down there, they had the same feeling, I guess,” said Montana, whose Irish had a taste (and a smell) of things to come heading to the stadium. “We were driving in on the bus, and they were throwing fish and all kinds of stuff at us. Then we got into the game and it got worse.”
For one, Notre Dame’s bench was within howling (and throwing) distance of Tech’s student body. “You were right there, and at one point, it looked like a rum bottle smashed on the helmet of the guy standing right in front of me,” Montana said. “They were throwing batteries, champagne bottles, everything. It was so crazy that after [former Notre Dame coach Dan] Devine said, ‘We’re outta here,’ they put us on the same sideline as Georgia Tech.”
All Radakovich knows is that, since his arrival in April from LSU, Tech associate athletics director Bobby Robinson has met intermittently with his staff to discuss security matters for the Notre Dame game and beyond. “Certainly their planning will kick into high gear around the beginning of August,” said Radakovich, an expert on crazy environments after watching LSU fans drink themselves silly all day before stumbling into Death Valley to scream themselves hoarse all night.
Said Radakovich, “After Auburn and LSU in 2003, when we clinched a spot in the SEC championship game, some of the students and fans attempted to remove the goalposts. There was a decision that was made that it shouldn’t occur, and we had our security force there, and they held the goalposts, and from that point on, no one has ever gotten on the field.”
That’s encouraging. Just in case, maybe Tech should ban those arriving for the Notre Dame game with scales falling from their pockets.
Permalink | Comments (103) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
