Georgia Tech Football Programs and Guides
Collection
Identifier: UP001
This collection brings together all of the published football programs, media guides, prospectuses, and other printed material published by Georgia Tech on the football program at the Institute.
(approximately 110 volumes, 9 archival cases)
None.
Permission to publish materials from this collection must be obtained from the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
18 Linear Feet
The bound and unbound football programs in Series 1 and 2 of this collection provide thorough documentation of the football games played at Georgia Tech from the early 1920s to about 2005. These printed materials contain team photographs, rosters, records, schedules, and lineups for both Georgia Tech and the opposing team, as well as photographs and information on coaches and Tech presidents, texts of Georgia Tech songs and yells, advertisements from local companies, articles, and other information. Several seasons (including 1922, 1931, 1933, and some later years, including 1973) are missing from this series. The first seven annual football yearbooks dating from the 1910s are also missing.
Series 3, media guides and handbooks, contains the annual publicity brochures on the Georgia Tech football team specifically designed for the media. Each volume, which was published from about 1948, contains information on the players and the coaches, including lists of local media outlets, team rosters, schedules, history of the football program and results and statistics from previous seasons, rosters of the freshman and "B" teams, press and radio information, and other information relevant to the media. The Archives holds a complete run of these volumes from 1948 to 2005.
Series 4 consists of pre-season prospectuses, which were printed annually starting in about 1987. These publications contain information on the upcoming football season, including rosters, biographies of key players, essays on strengths of the offense and defense, names and biographies of the coaches, results and descriptions of games of the previous season, and schedules for the season to come. Some years (1990, 1991, 1996, 1998, 2002, and 2003) are apparently missing from this series.
The final series in this collection, Series 5, consists of a single fan guide, published in 2008. This publication includes schedule and ticket information, parking and stadium policies, roster and coach information, schedules for the ACC and 2008 bowl games, and other information for Tech football fans.
The publications in this collection were originally produced by the Georgia Tech Athletic Association or Communications and Marketing (formerly Institute Communications and Public Affairs).
Georgia Tech's first football team was fielded in 1892. In the early days, the team was coached by professors, who volunteered for the position. The first coach, Professor Ernest E. West, a Naval College graduate, coached only for the first season. Mathematics professor Frank O. Spain took over during the 1893 and 1894 seasons. Spain was assisted by Lieutenant Leonard Wood, who was stationed at Fort McPherson at the time. Wood later became the colonel in charge of Roosevelt's Rough Riders, and he served as the Governor General of Cuba. At least four other professors served as volunteer coaches during the later 1890s and early 1900s, until Tech finally hired its first permanent head football coach, John Heisman, in 1904.
John Heisman served as head football coach from 1904 to 1919. During Heisman's tenure, the team was led to its first national title in 1917. The famous game between Cumberland and Georgia Tech, in which Tech defeated Cumberland by a score of 222 to 0, also took place on October 7, 1916. After Heisman left Tech in 1919, William A. Alexander took over, serving twenty-five years as head coach, from 1920 to 1944. Like Heisman's, Coach Alexander's career at Tech was also marked by several achievements, including leading the team to a national title in 1928, followed by the Rose Bowl in 1929; achieving eight conference titles; and being named 1942 National Coach of the Year. Alexander also served as assistant coach under Heisman and as athletics director from 1920 to 1950. Following Alexander was Bobby Dodd, who held the post of head coach for twenty-two years, from 1945 to 1966. Dodd also led the team to a national title in 1952, took the team to thirteen bowl games with a record of 9-4, and sustained a thirty-one game winning streak from 1951 to 1953. Dodd's career at Tech spanned a total of fifty-seven years, including time as assistant coach (1931-1944), athletics director (1950-1976), and alumni association consultant.
The long tenure of Tech's first three professional coaches was followed by several coaches whose careers at Tech were of much shorter duration. They include:
The publications in this collection have been arranged into five series:
A print copy of this finding aid is available in the Georgia Tech Archives reading room.
This is a collection that has been created by the Georgia Tech Archives from all the publications produced by Tech relating to football. The immediate provenance of the publications is unknown, although they were likely to have been deposited in the Library and Archives by the Georgia Tech Athletic Association and/or Communications and Marketing. Accession number 2012.002.
(approximately 110 volumes, 9 archival cases)
The publications in this collection have been cataloged and assigned call numbers. With the exception of one program (for the Car Quest Bowl 1997, cataloged as GV958 .G43 G38 1997) in Series 1, the programs in Series 1 and Series 2 are cataloged as GV958 .G43 G42x; the media guides (Series 3) have the number GV958 .G43 G41x; the prospectuses in Series 4 are cataloged as GV958 .G43 G43x; and the fan guide in Series 5 has been given the number GV958 .G43 G44. Selected volumes of these publications are also available in the Georgia Tech Library, but the Archives has the most complete collection.
Christine de Catanzaro processed these publications in January 2012.
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Library, Georgia Institute of Technology Repository