Georgia Tech Men's Basketball Programs and Guides
Collection
Identifier: UP002
This collection brings together all of the published programs, media guides, prospectuses, and other printed material published by Georgia Tech on the men's basketball program at the Institute.
(about 56 volumes, 4 archival document cases, 1 archival folder)
None.
Permission to publish materials from this collection must be obtained from the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
5 Linear Feet
Series 1, Basketball Programs, includes most of the Georgia Tech men's basketball programs for Tech's home games, which were played either at the Omni in downtown Atlanta or the Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the Tech campus. Published in magazines that usually included two or more consecutive home games, the programs typically consist of team schedules; rosters and photographs of the Tech players and coaches, with biographical information; rosters of the opposing teams; schedules for other sports at Tech; lists of donors; scorecards; and feature articles on various Tech sports figures. The programs also often include schedules and photos of the Georgia Tech Lady Jackets basketball team; some from 1994 also include the programs from selected Lady Jackets games. Programs before the 1986 season are missing, with the exception of two programs from 1968. Some programs for home games are also missing from the bound volumes; notes on the missing programs are often bound into the volumes.
The media guides in Series 2 are the yearly informational brochures printed for the media. Each volume typically contains information on Georgia Tech and its administration, team rosters, biographical sketches of the coaches and players, schedules, lyrics to "The Ramblin' Wreck," basketball history at Tech, team records, and other information relevant to the media. Media guides are only available for two seasons from the late 1940s and early 1950s. The collection is more complete beginning with the 1981-1982 season, although there are missing guides for some seasons in the 1980s and 1990s.
The pre-season prospectuses in Series 3 contain information on the upcoming season, including rosters, biographies of key players, essays on projected strengths and weaknesses of the team, names and biographies of the coaches, descriptions and results of the previous season, history and statistics of previous seasons, and schedules for the season to come. Many issues include information on the Alexander-Tharpe Fund, which provides funding for student-athletes at Georgia Tech. Most also include biographical sketches of members of the Tech administration and a brief history of Georgia Tech. Within the date range of this series, prospectuses for two seasons, 1991-1992 and 1999-2000, are missing.
The yearbook publications (Series 4) are very similar to the prospectus publications in Series 3. Like the prospectuses, these yearbooks contain information on the upcoming season, rosters, biographies of key players, essays on projected strengths and weaknesses of the team, names and biographies of the coaches, descriptions and results of the previous season, history and statistics of previous seasons, and schedules for the season to come. The yearbooks also include information on the Alexander-Tharpe Fund.
Series 5 contains a few NCAA Tournament media guides produced by Georgia Tech. These provide a retrospective view of the Georgia Tech basketball team's participation in the tournament for each year. The guides typically include team rosters, articles and statistics on the previous season, photos and articles on the players, reproduced articles from the press on the Tech team, completed brackets from the NCAA Tournament, and a sketch of the history of Georgia Tech.
The final series, Series 6, contains a single book, Lethal Weapons: ACC Champions, NCAA Final Four by Thomas M. Stinson, published in 1990 by the Golden Coast Publishing Company in Savannah and the Georgia Tech Athletic Association. The book covers the 1989-1990 season of the Yellow Jackets, a highly successful season for the team. Sections on the history of Georgia Tech basketball, the 1989-1990 season and players, and coach Bobby Cremins form part of this book. This copy is signed by Bobby Cremins and the author.
The first year that Georgia Tech fielded a men's basketball team was 1906. In the early years, teams were also formed for the 1909, 1913, and 1914 seasons, but it was not until 1920 that basketball teams began to be fielded on an annual basis. As of 2011, the basketball team has been ACC regular-season champions twice (in 1985 and 1996), ACC tournament champions three times (1985, 1990, and 1993), NCAA tournament participants sixteen times, and NIT participants seven times. When the team was a part of the SEC conference (1933-1964), they won one SEC championship (in 1938). The team’s all-time win-loss record as of 2011 was 1,252-1,105.
With the exception of 1906, the first four seasons of basketball were coached by John Heisman, the head football coach. Teams were not formed between 1910 and 1912, or between 1915 and 1919. After Heisman’s departure from Tech in 1919, William Alexander took over for the 1920 and 1922-1924 seasons. In 1922, when Georgia Tech entered the Southern Conference, the basketball team held an 11-6 record, their best to that date. After Harold Hansen served as coach for two seasons (1925 and 1926), Roy Mundorff took over. Mundorff continued for seventeen years (1927 through 1943), leading the team into the Southeastern Conference in 1933 and sending them to the SEC championship in 1938 with an 18-2 record for the season.
Dwight Keith took over the team in 1944 for three seasons, and Roy McArthur served as coach from 1947 through 1951. In 1952, John Hyder (known as “Whack”) began his twenty-two-season career as basketball coach, leading the team to the NCAA tournament in 1960 and to the NIT tournament in 1970 and 1971. Tech left the Southeastern Conference in 1965, during Hyder’s tenure.
After Hyder’s resignation in 1973, Dwane Morrison, who had been Hyder’s assistant before serving as head coach at Mercer University for three seasons, returned to Tech as head basketball coach. Morrison remained in this position for eleven seasons, from 1974 to 1981. During Morrison’s tenure, Tech entered the Metro Conference for a few years (1976-1978) before joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1980.
After a couple of unsuccessful seasons in 1980 and 1981, Georgia Tech hired Bobby Cremins as its basketball coach in 1981. Cremins, who had been a successful head coach at Appalachian State University, continued as head coach at Tech from 1982 to 2000, leading the team to four NIT tournaments; ten NCAA tournaments, including one Final Four in 1990; three ACC tournament championships; and two ACC regular-season championships in 1985 and 1996. Cremins himself received many honors while he was at Tech, including being named ACC Coach of the Year in 1984. Several years after his retirement from Tech in 2000, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue proclaimed March 8 as Bobby Cremins Day at a ceremony at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
Paul Hewitt was hired to replace Cremins for the 2001 season. Hewitt remained at Tech until 2011. Under Hewitt, the Tech men's basketball team was selected for the NCAA tournament five times, including a Final Four appearance in which the team played in the championship game in 2004, and one appearance in the NIT tournament. Nevertheless, Hewitt’s last four seasons resulted in losing records, and the decision to replace him as coach was made in March 2011. Brian Gregory was hired as Georgia Tech’s thirteenth basketball coach in late March, and as of this writing (January 2012) he is in the midst of his first season.
Source: 2011-2012 Men's Basketball Information Guide.
The publications in this collection have been arranged into six 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 men's basketball. 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's Sports Information Office and/or Communications and Marketing. Accession number 2012.005.
(about 56 volumes, 4 archival document cases, 1 archival folder)
The publications in this collection have been cataloged and assigned call numbers. The programs (magazines) in Series 1 are cataloged as GV885.43 .G43 G47x; the media guides (Series 2) have the number GV885.43 .G43 G46x; the prospectuses in Series 3 are cataloged as GV885.43 .G43 G45x. Series 4, yearbooks, have been assigned the number GV885.43 .G43 G471x; Series 5, NCAA Tournament guides, have the number GV885.43 .G43 G48x; and Series 6, Lethal Weapons book, has been cataloged as GV885.43 .G46 S75. Selected volumes from Series 1 through 5 may also be found in the Georgia Tech Library, but the Archives holds the most complete collection for all series.
Christine de Catanzaro processed these records in January 2012.
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Library, Georgia Institute of Technology Repository