George Brodnax's son has seen film of his father's glorious gridiron days, and while grainy, the footage shows why the Georgia Tech star was once called a "one-man wrecking crew."
The three-sport high school athlete played offensive and defensive end for the Yellow Jackets from 1945 to 1948. He was a three-year starter and a 1948 All-SEC player. He played nine games for the Detroit Lions, then returned home to Atlanta.
"It was tough to get a lot of footage, but from what I have seen he was a pretty good size for his time," said the son, George Brodnax IV of Lawrenceville. "He was, at the most, 220 pounds and about six-two. He was fast and he played both ways."
George Hamilton Brodnax III died Friday of emphysema and other health issues at his home in Decatur. He was 83. A memorial service was held Wednesday at Oak Grove United Methodist Church. A.S. Turner & Sons of Decatur handled arrangements.
Mr. Brodnax was a stand-out football player at Boys High School before his college years. He's a member of the Georgia Tech Hall of Fame and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
In a 2004 Georgia Trend profile, Gene Asher wrote about the first time he saw Mr. Brodnax play a high school football game.
"With outstretched hands, his body leaning forward at a 45-degree angle, he raced over the mound, pulled in the ball with his fingertips and carried it across the goal line to bring his team back from almost certain defeat to a 13-13 tie with arch-rival Tech High," he wrote.
In that same article, Mr. Asher chronicled the 1947 Tech-Duke contest in which Mr. Brodnax scored the only touchdown of the game. Covering that game, it was sportswriter Furman Bisher who called him a "one-man wrecking crew."
After the NFL, Mr. Brodnax taught algebra and geometry at Georgia Military Academy, now Woodward Academy. He was a regional manager for York Air Conditioning & Heating before he and two Tech alumni bought Tech Steel, a steel fabrication company. Mr. Brodnax was its president for nearly 20 years.
In the late 1970s, he was president of the Atlanta Athletic Club and served on various boards, including the local Campfire Girls, Boy Scouts and the United Methodist Children's Home.
The Tech legend, respected as a great blocker and pass receiver, seldom talked about his playing days. "We had to pull things out of him," his son said.
Additional survivors include his wife of 62 years, Jodale Dewees Brodnax of Decatur; daughters Helen Hall of Columbus and Nellie Hibbard of Cartersville; another son, Peter Brodnax of Knoxville; a sister, Harriet McCrory of Doraville; 10 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
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