DEL.ICIO.USBulldog fan will witness his 64th edition of Tech-Georgia
Alumni has attended every game in rivalry dating back to 1945
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, November 28, 2008
Georgia Tech beat Georgia eight consecutive times from 1949 to 1956. Dan Whitmire knows because he attended every game.
In fact, when he takes his usual seat in Section 130 at Sanford Stadium on Saturday, Whitmire will be preparing to witness in person his 64th consecutive Tech-Georgia football game. It seems nobody has been to as many.
Jason Getz/jgetz@ajc.com
Dan Whitmire, 81, of Tucker, has framed Georgia ticket stubs from games he attended in the 1950s and 60s. Whitmire has attended every Georgia-Georgia Tech football game since he got out of the Navy.
“Yes, sir, that’s true,” said Whitmire, 81, speaking by telephone from his Tucker home this week. “I guess that’s why people think I’m half crazy.”
Well, crazy about his Bulldogs. Whitmore graduated from Georgia in 1950.
But he attended his first Tech-Georgia game as an 18-year-old veteran in 1945.
“I’d just got out of the Navy in October and I went out to Grant Field and managed to get into the game,” said Whitmire, who graduated from Atlanta’s old Tech High. “The second game in ‘46 was in Athens and I saw that one from the railroad tracks. Been in the stadium for every one since.”
Whitmire just happened to get involved during a period in which Tech was enjoying its greatest dominance.
In addition to winning eight straight over the Bulldogs — an era that Georgia fans still call “The Drought” — the Yellow Jackets were rolling under coach Bobby Dodd. They won a national championship (1952), two Southeastern Conference championships (they were in same league as Georgia) and averaged nearly nine wins a year.
During the same period, Georgia was averaging fewer than five wins per season. And not only were the Bulldogs losing to Tech, they were usually losing badly.
“[Tech fans] used to ridicule Georgia all the time,” said Whitmire, a retired insurance executive with the New York Corporation. “They referred to us as coal-miners because of all the Pennsylvania boys we had on the team. Oh, yeah, they were uppity.”
It will come as no surprise, then, to hear that Whitmire said his favorite Tech-Georgia game is the 1957 contest. Theron Sapp — now known as “The Drought Breaker” — scored the winning touchdown for Georgia. The Bulldogs later retired Sapp’s number 40 jersey.
“Without a doubt, that’s my all-time favorite,” Whitmire said. “It was a real cold day in late November at Grant Field. Beat ‘em 7-nothin’. That was the best of all.”
Whitmire has more than a casual relationship with the Bulldogs. Not only is he one of their longtime season-ticket holders, he went door-to-door in Atlanta trying to sell $10 memberships into the Georgia Bulldogs Clubs of America. His son, Brook, is the public-address announcer at Sanford Stadium.
“He’s a great Bulldog,” said Dan Magill, who founded the club in the 1950s. “He used to help us recruit back when the rules allowed you to do that sort of thing. Helped us get a lot of great players out of Atlanta.”
Magill said he knows of no other Georgia fan that has attended more Tech games. Magill said even he has missed a few during his eight-decades-long association with UGA.
Whitmire has missed several Georgia games over the years. Back problems and heart problems and work and family issues have occasionally taken him out of state during the season.
But he has always managed to clear his calendar for Tech week.
“Well I’m a football fan first of all,” he said. “And I just love to see us beat Tech.”
As has been well chronicled this week, Georgia has seven consecutive wins over “The Enemy,” as Whitmire refers to Tech. The Bulldogs have a chance match Tech’s streak, the longest for either side, on Saturday at Sanford Stadium.
Whitmire plans to be there — “at my age you never know” — and he hopes to witness history.
“I would love to see it happen, no doubt,” Whitmire said. “I hope it will. I think if we can do that it will pay back a little bit all those years of suffering. But no matter what I’m going to go out of this world with a winning record against Tech, I’m sure of that.”
Georgia’s ledger against the Yellow Jackets with Whitmire in the stands is 40-23.
“I’m pretty late in the fourth quarter now,” Whitmire said. “I don’t think if they won for a long time in a row they could get out ahead before I die.”
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