Rivals' annual debate heats up

Two taps of the same typewriter key warped the history of a great college football rivalry.

Fifty-six years ago, Georgia's publicity director typed asterisks in the school's publicity brochure beside the Bulldogs' losses to Georgia Tech in 1943 and 1944.

Those marks erased those games forever, at least for Georgia fans.

"The reason was the fact that those were not true Georgia Tech teams," said Dan Magill, the man behind the typewriter.

World War II was under way, and both teams lost men to the military. But Georgia Tech had an advantage: a naval officers training program that drew talented players from other colleges to the Atlanta school.

Those asterisks hang over Saturday's game between the Bulldogs and the Yellow Jackets.

For Georgia Tech, it's the 100th meeting. For Georgia, it's No. 98.

Georgia has 56 wins in the series, while Georgia Tech claims 38 victories. There have been five ties.

The debate over the discrepancy has raged quietly for more than a half-century.

The 'unfairness' of war

Imperial Japan pulled the United States into World War II like Georgia's Herschel Walker would one day drag Georgia Tech tacklers into an end zone.

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and by the summer of 1943, the military draft extended onto college campuses.

Nearly every young American male healthy enough to pass a physical had joined the fights in Europe and the Pacific.

That left pimply-faced freshmen and "4Fs" - those who failed the military physical - to fill the rosters of most college football teams.

Not at Georgia Tech.

The school was one of a handful across the country designated as a training center for military officers. Georgia Tech got the Navy's V-12 program - and with it several fine football players from other schools.

Magill insists Georgia Tech's 1943 and 1944 rosters included football captains from Alabama and Vanderbilt.

School history books don't support his claim, but Georgia Tech did get Vanderbilt star John Steber and Alabama-bound players Phil Tinsley and Bill Chambers because of the V-12 program.

The Yellow Jackets' roster also featured Mal Stamper, who played at Michigan. Stamper suffered injuries before both the 1943 and 1944 seasons and didn't start.

"If you had the Navy V-12, you got a lot of boys," Bobby Dodd, then an assistant coach under Georgia Tech's William Alexander, told his biographer for the book Dodd's Luck.

"They sent them in from other schools. We got some good boys from Alabama and some from Clemson. And we had good football teams, those of us who had the Navy V-12."

The military wasn't feeding the Bulldogs the same way. Georgia wasn't among the officer training schools.

George Mathews, a freshman on Georgia Tech's 1944 team, recalls a conversation with Georgia's Wally Butts when the Bulldogs coach was recruiting him out of high school.

"He told me I had to play with 17 and 18s and 4Fs," said Mathews, now 79 and an Atlanta resident. "That's all they had."

Even with a dearth of talent, Georgia posted season records of 6-4 in 1943 and 7-3 in 1944. But the Bulldogs weren't the power they could have been if Frank Sinkwich, Charlie Trippi and the other returning members from the 1942 national championship team had not joined the military.

Advantage exaggerated?

That 1942 Georgia team denied Georgia Tech a perfect season and a Rose Bowl bid with a 34-0 victory. The Yellow Jackets played the game without injured star Clint Castleberry as well as coach Alexander, who suffered a heart attack earlier that week.

The running joke among surviving Yellow Jacket players from the 1943 and 1944 teams is since Georgia doesn't count those two wins, Georgia Tech shouldn't count the 1942 loss on account of Castleberry and Alexander's absences.

"I would not say we didn't have a material advantage in players and I don't blame Georgia for claiming foul and trying to take it out of record books," Mathews said. "But at other times, Georgia had better material and beat the heck out of Tech. So I don't think its fair for Georgia to want to take that out of the record books."

One of Mathews' teammates said Georgia Tech's talent advantage in 1943 and 1944 is exaggerated. The Yellow Jackets started three freshman in 1944, including Mathews, and several others saw significant playing time.

Bob Davis, a tackle, was among the youngsters.

"I was 17 years old and a freshman and I played most of the Georgia game, so I don't think we were an Army-Navy team like Georgia claims," said Davis, who now lives in Gastonia, N.C. "We did have some V-12s, but we lost some midway through the season."

Georgia Tech stars Frank Broyles, Eddie Prokop and Mathews were not V-12s from other schools. Broyles, who later became a coaching legend at Arkansas, quarterbacked Georgia Tech to both victories.

Prokop and Mathews starred in the 1943 and 1944 games, respectively.

"It's been a mean rivalry at times, and this is just one example," Davis said. "Trippi came back in '45 and they beat us. They beat us again the next year."

And both those games counted.

Debate rages on

Claude Felton and Allison George answer questions about the discrepancy in the series record before every Georgia-Georgia Tech game.

"It always comes up with the TV network folks," said Felton, who succeeded Magill as the Bulldogs' sports information director in 1979. "It's kind of puzzling to them. I've become pretty good at explaining it over the years."

So has George, Felton's counterpart at Georgia Tech. The two have never talked about resolving the discrepancy, though. Felton is still close with Magill, who has an office on campus.

"And from my perspective, those games have been on our books for a long time," George said. "Who am I to change it?"

Felton points out the Georgia-Georgia Tech series record isn't the only disputed mark in either schools' records. Florida claims one fewer loss to both Georgia and Georgia Tech.

Florida doesn't acknowledge games played in 1904, when the school was located in Ocala, Fla., before moving to Gainesville, Fla., two years later.

"That's where Florida was back then. We can't help it if they got run out of Ocala," Magill said.

Magill isn't quite so glib when it comes to the Georgia-Georgia Tech series.

He acknowledges the decision to change the record was his idea. Butts, nor anyone else at Georgia, pushed for the asterisks.

And he stands behind his two marks - vehemently - to this day.

"There's no question about it; there's no way they are true Georgia-Georgia Tech games," Magill said. "There's no question about that. We had a freshman team.

"We still carry the scores, we just have the asterisks to explain the facts."

Reach Adam Van Brimmer at (404) 589-8424 or adam.vanbrimmer@morris.com.

ON TV - 8 p.m. Saturday: Georgia at Georgia Tech (ABC-Ch. 6)