Georgia Tech Buzz Magazine - Fall, 2011

A TRADITION LIKE NO OTHER

THEY’VE COME A LONG WAY

Fall 2011

Ramblin’ Wreck is one of college football’s greatest traditions

www.ramblinwreck.com

Fall 2011 • Volume 5, Number 1 EDITOR

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Dean Buchan

David Johnson, Danny Karnik and Sam Morgan

WRITERS

DESIGN & LAYOUT

Simit Shah Jack Wilkinson Adam Van Brimmer Matt Winkeljohn

Summit Athletic Media www.summitathletics.com

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2011

In This Issue 4 6

BUILDING SOMETHING SPECIAL

Olympic medal-winning coach Courtney Hart’s competitive fire is rubbing off on the Yellow Jacket swimming and diving teams.

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THE TURF DOCTOR

Former high school English teacher Jon Dewitt’s green thumb has Tech’s grass surfaces looking immaculate.

A CHIP ON THEIR SHOULDERS

Georgia Tech has no shortage of motivation in 2011 – modest preseason projections from the media and an urgency to prove last year’s 6-7 record was a fluke.

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THEY’VE COME A LONG WAY

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A TRADITION LIKE NO OTHER

From humble beginnings, women’s sports at Georgia Tech are now thriving.

Entering its 50th year at Tech football games, the Ramblin’ Wreck is one of college football’s greatest traditions.

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TECH TIES NEVER BROKEN

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PROBLEM SOLVER

Former Yellow Jacket Steve Davenport, along with four Tech men as assistants, try to put Savannah State on a successful path.

Attending an engineering school helped prepare Ken Whisenhunt for the mental part of being a coach in the National Football League.

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SD swimming & Diving

BUILDING SOMETHING SPECIAL Olympic medal-winning coach Courtney Hart’s competitive fire is rubbing off on the Yellow Jacket swimming and diving teams

F

By Adam Van Brimmer

Fifteen-year-old Courtney Shealy needed a summer job.

A teenager, she had limited options. A teenager with a hectic swim practice schedule, she had two options: lifeguard or swim coach.

Shealy preferred being in the pool to sitting beside it, so she signed up to coach a league team.

“It was a job,” Shealy said.

“More than anything, it freed me up to practice. I coached in the morning and practiced in the afternoon. I really enjoyed it but never thought much about it as a career.”

Her career focus revolved around her afternoon activities.

By the time she took up summer

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The Buzz

coaching, she was four years removed from announcing her aspirations to be an Olympic swimmer.

Technically, swim coaching was her first job. But competitive swimming was to be her career.

And at age 23, she swam in the Sydney Olympics, winning two gold medals in relay events.

A year later, with her medals secure in a safe, a sports studies degree from the University of Georgia in her hand and not a clue what to do with the rest of her life, Shealy did what all elite athletes do when they’re not so elite anymore.

She packed up her Honda Accord, pulled a few grand out of the bank and moved to Southern California to … play professional beach

volleyball.

“I coached some lessons while I was out there, too,” Shealy said. “I still had the competitive fire in me.

The outlet was volleyball.”

Her savings ran out inside a year, however, and she knew she needed to channel that “competitive fire” into something with a steady paycheck. Only then did she decide her old summer job might make a decent career after all.

Georgia Tech’s swim program is better because of that decision.

Shealy – now Courtney Hart – begins her third season as the Yellow Jackets head coach and her fifth overall with the program this October. The men’s and women’s teams have achieved unprecedented success during her tenure, competing in NCAA Championship meets.

And Hart and her staff signed the school’s best ever recruiting class on the men’s side this May. “I think we’re really close to being competitive on the national level,” team captain Heidi Hatteberg said. “It takes a lot to get a team to that level. But coach’s attitude is really pushing us to keep improving.”

Hatteberg describes Hart as

“very dominant.” The drive that led Hart to the Olympic medal stand, waving to family alongside relay teammates Dara Torres and Jenny Thompson, is now prodding Georgia Tech toward college swimming’s pinnacle.

“When she wants something, she lets us know,” Hatteberg said.

“She goes for it and wants us to go for it also.”

Hart wears her passion on her swimsuit strap. Associate Athletic Director Theresa Wenzel recognized it during Hart’s interview for an assistant coach’s job in 2007.

Afterward, she told Dan Radakovich, Tech’s athletic director, Hart was going to make a great head coach someday.

Those dubious of the Yellow Jackets programs reaching Hart’s long-term expectations – top-10 in the NCAAs “both in the classroom and in the pool” – might want to reconsider. Georgia hadn’t won a Southeastern Conference title or an NCAA championship prior to Hart’s arrival in 1996. The Bulldogs won conference and national titles in 1999 and 2000.

Plus, Georgia Tech has the resources no other school does: An Olympic venue to practice and

compete in, and two Olympians win. You have to make a lot of saccoaching from the pool deck. Asrifices. She knows where the top sistant coach Robert Pinter swam level is and how to get us there.” for Romania in the 1992 Barcelona Hart has embraced coaching Olympics. as her career. She can express her Hart uses the Olympic ties in competitiveness through strategizrecruiting. She explains her backing and pushing her team toward ground in the recruiting letters goals. She doesn’t even swim and wows prospective studentHart is one of just two females athletes with the who serve as head coach of both Aquatic Center, the swim venue men’s and women’s swimming at for the 1996 Ata Division I school. Arizona State’s lanta Olympics, Dorsey Tierney-Walker, who during visits.

She shows off gained her position after Hart was her world chamhired at Georgia Tech, is the other. pionship medals in her office at Georgia Tech and breaks out the competitively much anymore, only Olympic gold, which she keeps in a issuing challenges when “I know I vault in her home, every so often. can win.”

“What she’s accomplished in Coaching, once just a summer competitive swimming is inspirajob, now defines Hart. tional,” Hatteberg said. “It shows “And I wouldn’t want to be dous that she knows what it takes to ing anything else.” ■ www.ramblinwreck.com

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fb football

Tevin Washington gained valuable experience in 2010 when he started the last four games of the season.

A CHIP ON THEIR SHOULDERS

Georgia Tech has no shortage of motivation in 2011 – modest preseason projections from the media and an urgency to prove last year’s 6-7 record was a fluke

A

By Simit Shah

As Paul Johnson prepares for his fourth season at Georgia Tech, it’s reminiscent of his first.

He boasts a roster with good talent across the board, but it’s also full of inexperience and question marks. It’s no surprise that prognosticators are once again assuming the Yellow Jackets won’t be a factor in the ACC title chase. Such was the case in 2008, Johnson’s inaugural season, when Tech finished one league win shy of playing in the ACC title game.

Coming off a 6-7 season, the Jackets have plenty to prove, but that suits Johnson just fine.

“I think there was a sense of complacency to a degree,” said Johnson, assessing the 2010 campaign. “When you win nine games the first year and then you win 11 games, I think some guys just think, ‘Well, this is going to happen again.’ It doesn’t work like that.”

Very little was working for the Jackets towards the end of last season.

After losing five of their last six games, there was plenty of team-wide

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introspection during the offseason.

Johnson has been encouraged by what’s he’s seen over the summer, and senior Roddy Jones was among the leaders in addressing the team’s deficiencies.

“We are very excited,” the A-back said. “Especially coming off a season like last year, that was very disappointing but a very humbling experience. We are very hungry to get back out there and show that last year’s team was not the Georgia Tech team that we want to be seen as. We have been working hard in the off-season and are ready to see an opposite-colored jersey.”

There will be plenty of new faces in the lineup, as the team attempts to replace 11 starters. There are just 10 scholarship seniors on the roster, so the team’s success hinges greatly on second and third-year players stepping up.

“We need to take better care of the ball, that’s a start,” Johnson said.

“We need to be better in the kicking game. We need to be more efficient throwing the ball, and we need to play better on defense.

Other than that, we’re right where we need to be.”

Here’s a look at some of those key questions facing the Jackets as they prepare for their season opener against Western Carolina on September 1.

Who will play quarterback?

This is the first year that Johnson will start the season without Joshua Nesbitt under center. His injury against Virginia Tech in early November pressed backup Tevin Washington into action.

The redshirt sophomore had his moments, averaging more than 100 rushing yards per game, but victories were scarce. Entering his fourth year in the program, Washington (now a junior) is the team’s leading candidate to start despite offseason knee surgery.

However, his job security is not as open-and-shut as Nesbitt. Redshirt freshman Synjyn Days played well during the spring game, and he provides a viable second option.

The wildcard is true freshman Vad Lee, who steps onto campus amid much fanfare. Johnson isn’t hesitant to play a first-year player, but with repetition and execution critical to offensive success, Lee will have his work cut out for him in order to see the field.

“We’re going to play the guy who gives us the best chance to win,” Johnson said. “Sometimes winning the game is not losing it, being able to manage and do those kind of things.”

38 percent. More often than not, attempts to pass the ball resulted in poor throws, drops or sacks.

Granted, the Jackets’ 323.3 rushing yards per game last season led the nation and set an ACC single-season mark, but opponents need to respect the ability to move the ball through the air in order to replicate the Jackets’ success in 2009 Senior Tyler Melton and junior Stephen Hill hope to rebound from a rocky season, and the addition of Chris Jackson or Jeremy Moore could offer the Jackets a third option at the position.

There’s not a lot of depth, so one or more true freshmen could have a chance to make an impact.

Can the passing game be a factor?

Will the Jackets make strides in their second year of the 3-4 defense?

Without Demaryius Thomas, the aerial attack was not up to Johnson’s standards in 2010.

The team averaged just under 84 passing yards per game with a dismal completion percentage of

The Jackets will admit they were lost at times during their first year in defensive coordinator Al Groh’s 3-4 scheme.

With a full season and two springs under their belt, the defense should be better prepared in 2011. There is more depth among the front seven, led by linebackers Julian Burnett, Jeremiah Attaochu and Steven Sylvester.

“Every defense has to eventually decide what they want to become known for, what their identity is going to be. That’s half of the deal,” Groh said. “The other half is the learning and execution of the schemes. We put an emphasis on both those areas in the spring and we think we moved down the road in both cases.”

The entire secondary is being rebuilt, but again there is depth and talent. Sophomore Isaiah Johnson could become the program’s next star defensive back, and the others in the mix have already seen significant action during their careers.

“The biggest improvement is the communication,” defensive lineman Logan Walls said. “Last season we weren’t communicating like we should have been.

Junior guard Omoregie Uzzi was named to the preseason All-ACC team and is on the watch list for the Outland Trophy.

www.ramblinwreck.com

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Junior inside linebacker Julian Burnett led the Yellow Jackets in tackles last season.

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Years Ago: Georgia Tech won the ACC’s Coastal Division and played in the conference championship game Years Ago: Calvin Johnson was an All-American and won the Biletnikoff Award Years Ago: Tech’s Sept. 15th game vs. Florida State was moved to Dec. 1 because of 9/11 Years Ago: Bill Curry’s final season at Georgia Tech Years Ago: Tech went just 1-10, but the win was a season-opening victory at No. 4 Alabama Years Ago: Tech went 9-2, lost to Florida in Orange Bowl, finished 8th in polls, beat No. 8 Tennessee Years Ago: The Jackets opened the season on the road with a 27-7 win at No. 9 Southern Cal Years Ago: Tech went 9-1-1, beat No. 11 Pitt in the Sugar Bowl and beat Georgia, 21-3 Years Ago: Tech won the SEC title, clobbered UGA 48-6 and beat Baylor in the Orange Bowl Years Ago: William Alexander was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame Years Ago: The Yellow Jackets went 9-2, including a win over St. Mary’s in the Oil Bowl Years Ago: Tech played its first night game, whipping Presbyterian 55-0 Years Ago: In William Alexander’s second season, Tech went 8-1 with the only loss coming to Penn State Years Ago: Tech went undefeated, posting a 4-0-1 record

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This year everyone knows what they need to say and when to communicate from the back to the front, and I am excited about that. Everyone wasn’t on the same page. You’d have a guy rushing that shouldn’t be rushing and that would open up a flat route. Being on the same page will cut huge gaps in the pass rush and even the running game.”

The Jackets surrendered 25 points per game last season, and that has to improve.

Will special teams once again be special?

There’s definitely an emphasis on improving on the 2010 campaign, which saw the Jackets struggle in kicking, coverage and returns. They ranked near the bottom in all of college football in coverage and returns.

The team has to replace kicker Scott Blair, and there’s a wideopen competition for both placekicking and punting duties.

Punters Chandler Anderson and Sean Poole are both back, and there will be a host of players auditioning as returners.

“We do kicking every day and started (first fall) practice today with punt and punt return,” said Johnson. “We work on it every single day. It’s big this fall as we need to get much better in that area.”

Preseason Predictions

The media projects Georgia Tech to finish fourth in the ACC’s Coastal Division. That’s also similar to 2008 when one national publication picked the Jackets to win just three games.

When a writer asked Johnson if he was surprised one member of the media projected Tech to win the Coastal Division, Johnson summed it up nicely.

“I would agree,” Johnson said.

“I think we’ve got a chance to be pretty good.” ■

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Women’s sports at Georgia Tech reached a major milestone in 2007 when the Yellow Jackets celebrated an NCAA championship.

THEY’VE COME A LONG WAY From humble beginnings, women’s sports at Georgia Tech are now thriving

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By Matt Winkeljohn

In the warm glow of a national team tennis championship and an individual NCAA title, five straight record-setting seasons and coinciding NCAA Tournament berths by the basketball team, and three straight regular season ACC titles and 10 straight NCAA appearances by the softball team all in recent years, it’s tough to recall Georgia Tech women’s sports out in the cold.

Yet they were most definitely there.

Women’s track and cross country coach Alan Drosky, who competed for the men’s teams at Tech as the women’s cross country squad came into being in ’85 and the track & field team was born in ‘86, remembers – if not warmly.

“When I started in 1990, my first season as a track assistant, we struggled to get 14 women on a bus. You need to have 14 to compete,” said Drosky, who also coaches men’s cross country. “We would put ads in the student newspaper to solicit student involvement. Now, we have a roster that is 36-38 strong.”

The ’11-’12 school year will mark the 25th anniversary of the women’s

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The Buzz

basketball team’s first winning season, the 30th anniversary of that team first having a full-time head coach (Bernadette McGlade), and the fifth anniversary of the school’s first NCAA team title (women’s tennis).

Where there has been an undeniably meteoric rise in women’s sports on the Flats, it wasn’t all that long ago -- when measured as a part of Tech’s long history dating back to 1888 -- that they were merely a tick or two above a flat-line.

Part of that was unavoidable. Tech didn’t admit a female student until 1917, and young women were not admitted to all programs at Tech until 1968. In the mid-‘80s, about one in five Tech undergraduate students was female.

The school was much different then than in ’04-’05 when Tech’s Chaunte Howard won three combined national high jump titles.

Today, a Tech-record 40 percent of the incoming freshman class is female.

There is more to the Jackets’ recent run-up than growing ratios in the study body.

Women’s basketball coach MaChelle Joseph attributes much of the women’s rise to the advocacy of associate athletic director-senior women’s administrator (SWA), Theresa Wenzel.

“This is going to be my 11th year here [including two as an assistant],” Joseph said. “I’ve seen tremendous growth. We’ve had a major overhaul in commitment, and not just in facilities. Before Theresa I don’t know that there was really anyone behind the scenes pushing.”

In addition to overseeing the women’s teams, Wenzel also works with men’s tennis, cross country, golf and track teams. She moved into the position shortly after athletics director Dan Radakovich was hired in spring of 2006.

“When coaches see us aggressively going after things, they know we have their backs,” Wenzel said. “When MaChelle recruits, she sells academics.

“For her [wish list] it was making sure she could get an academic coach . . . who travels with her team, tutors from first week of classes to exams. It was not, ‘Can we get it?’ It was, ‘That’s what we need.’ “ Joseph, whose first three teams had losing records before the Jackets went on a streak that has seen them set or tie the school record for wins in five consecutive seasons since, actually has requested more than that.

From simple requests -- like a cold pool in the locker room so her athletes didn’t have to trudge to another building after practice to cool down -- to the complex, Wenzel said, “no coach pushes me harder to step it up, step it up,” than Joseph.

Joseph looks out for her athletes with the knowledge that all those bells and whistles help in recruiting, and the idea that her athletes will work harder upon being looked after by coaches and administrators. “The kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care,” Joseph said.

Wenzel brings singular perspective to her job.

She played basketball at Marquette, coached golf at Siena, and assisted as a basketball coach at Canisius in addition to serving in administration at Siena. She’s been there and done that as a player and as a coach. Earlier this year, she was named Women’s Basketball Coaches Association administrator of the year.

“She can relate to the challenges we face every day,” Joseph said. “The very first thing she did was ask me if I could change two things what would they be and what would be the impact? Both things, she changed. There’s nothing like feeling like your administration supports you.

“I told her how important I felt charter flights were. It was hard on our student-athletes to get up at 4 to catch a 6 a.m. [commercial] flight and get to class. It’s a competitive edge that Maryland, Duke and North Carolina already had. In the academic area, I felt like we needed more support. Not better support, but more tutoring, academic coaching.”

Volleyball coach Tonya Johnson’s wish list included improvements to O’Keefe Gym where the team plays, and video review capabilities surpassing those that were in place before she was hired in 2008. She’s got ‘em now.

The softball team – which transitioned to fast-pitch in ’87 -- moved into one of the nation’s premier stadiums in ’09 and added a state-of-the-art locker room facility this past year.

The men’s and women’s basketball home is being renovated; the $48 million McCamish Pavilion will open for the 2012-’13 season. The Zelnak practice facility opened in ‘09.

While Wenzel deserves her share of the credit, she is quick to deflect any praise in the direction of former athletic director Dave Braine and Radakovich.

“Dave laid the groundwork for women’s sports to be successful at Tech,” Wenzel said, “and Dan has taken it to an entirely new level – a level where our teams have an opportunity to compete for conference and national championships.”

And Wenzel isn’t just warming-up to her former and current bosses.

Radakovich, now in his sixth year on the Flats, has hired three female head coaches – softball coach Sharon Perkins, volleyball coach Tonya Johnson and swimming coach Courntey Hart. In fact, Hart is one of just two females who coach both the men’s and women’s swimming programs at a Division I school.

“Dan has not only hired great coaches, as evident by their teams’ suc-

The 1981-82 women’s basketball team featured the first full-time coach (Bernadette McGlade) in the program’s history.

cesses, but he hired people of great character and integrity,” Wenzel said.

“Our coaches prioritize academics as much as they do winning.”

Under Radakovich’s watch, Georgia Tech owns the highest Title IX rating in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

“Sometimes I get credit internally,” Wenzel said, “but Dan empowered me to maximize our resources in order for our coaches to maximize their resources.”

There was a time, a long time, when women’s collegiate sports were about affording females the same opportunities as males. The coming of Title IX in 1972 mandated as much.

Wenzel said the days of being content to merely grant females an opportunity to compete has passed, at least at Tech, thanks in part to coach Bryan Shelton and the tennis team winning the national title in ’07.

That squad still does not have a fancy home although a new complex is being planned and final funds are being raised as you read. Yet they won it all – even though Shelton suspended a key player a month before the end of the season.

“You’re able to say this isn’t just about an opportunity, this is about achieving success. We’ve given you the money to travel, to recruit, and beyond that you have the opportunity to sell one of the top 10 educations in the country,” Wenzel said. “Our women’s sports are very strong academically.

“The girls that are being brought in here are over-achievers; they want more than the norm. It was, ‘Hey, if tennis can do it . . . ‘ Bryan is easily one of the best if not the best tennis coach in the country. They don’t have the nicest facility, but he motivated and taught them to strive for something they couldn’t see.

“What that did for other sports was say, ‘Hey, we can do it.’ Kristi Miller got through Georgia Tech with a perfect 4.0. For all the other teams, more than anything else, it sent a message if you bring all your talents together, we can have success. The sum is better than the parts. We’ve raised the bar.”

There continues to be evolution on several levels.

When Wenzel began working at Tech in the fall of ’05, Joseph was the only female head coach on campus. She’s joined now by softball’s Perkins, volleyball’s Johnson and swimming and diving’s Hart (featured in this edition of Buzz Magazine). Most of the women’s teams have a former Tech student-athlete on staff.

“From a scholarship standpoint, we’re fully funded [to maximums as allowed by the NCAA per team],” Wenzel said. “It’s not our desire to live up to other people’s standards; its’ to create new benchmarks. We don’t want to be top 10 nationally just in academics.” www.ramblinwreck.com

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Years Ago: Women’s tennis won the first NCAA team championship in school history; coach Bryan Shelton was named USTA/ITA National Coach of the Year.

Years Ago: Women’s Basketball won its first NCAA Tournament game.

Years Ago: Softball won a then-school record 54 games.

Years Ago: Shantia Moss won the national championship in the 60-meter hurdles.

Years Ago: Women’s swimming embarked on its first season as a varsity sport at Tech.

Years Ago: Women’s tennis coach Bryan Shelton won his first ACC Coach of the Year award.

Years Ago: Softball won its first ACC Tournament title and earned its first NCAA Tournament appearance.

Years Ago: Women’s track won its first ever indoor ACC championship.

Over the last five years, Georgia Tech has been the dominant softball team in the ACC.

Drosky said differences are impossible to miss.

“Funding-wise we have an opportunity to travel to meets all over the country. All of our budgets have grown dramatically,” he said.

“Certainly, in strength and conditioning, the athletic training staff, sports medicine, facilities . . . over the years all those departments are bigger, more well-staffed.

“That’s a function of the growth of all the programs, but certainly a big part of that has been the growth of the women’s programs over the years. You have more student-athletes. A lot of that increase has been female student-athletes.”

That increase is likely to continue. As Tech’s female enrollment continues to climb, steps will have to be taken to keep the Institute in Title IX compliance. Radakovich said that a women’s golf team may

become reality in the future.

“That’s something we have understood,” he said. “We’re working through it. We have some opportunity to think logically as to how we want to move ahead.”

Those two words are likely to remain at the core of women’s sports at Tech: move ahead. It starts with a commitment that flows from The Hill.

Remember that tale about the track team having to advertise in the student newspaper to solicit athletes?

Times have changed dramatically, and the promise for more of the same is strong.

Wenzel, Radakovich and Tech President Bud Peterson traveled with the women’s basketball team to the NCAA Tournament in March although Radakovich and Peterson had to return to Atlanta after a first-

Since arriving at Tech, head coach Tonya Johnson has made the volleyball team a contender in the ACC.

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Years Ago: Women’s track coach Alan Drosky was named ACC Indoor Coach of the Year (men’s coach Grover Hinsdale won the same honor on the men’s side).

Years Ago: Kisha Ford became just the second Jacket to earn first team All-ACC honors and the first to be named All-ACC four years. Ford also becomes the first Jacket drafted in the WNBA when she is taken by the New York Liberty.

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Years Ago: Laura Williams became the first softball All-American in school history.

Years Ago: Women’s basketball advanced to the ACC Tournament title game as the No. 7 seed, then went on to win the WNIT. Years Ago: Natasha Alleyne won the NCAA championship in the high jump – the first ever women’s track athlete to be named a national champion.

Years Ago: Women’s basketball beat a ranked opponent for the first time and went on to post its first winning season.

Years Ago: Softball began its first year as a varsity sport.

Years Ago: Kathy Harrison swept ACC MVP honors at both the ACC Indoor and Outdoor track championships.

round win over Bowling Green.

“When we came back from the NCAAs (around mid-morning)… one person was waiting for us at campus, and that was President” Joseph said. “And Dan (Radakov-

ich) would have been there, too, but he was in an important facilities meeting. To me, that showed incredible support from the top.

It’s going to get better; we’re just hitting our stride.” ■

Alan Drosky began his Tech career as an assistant track coach in 1990.

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14

The Buzz

A TRADITION LIKE NO OTHER Entering its 50th year at Tech football games, the Ramblin’ Wreck is one of college football’s greatest traditions

C

By Adam Van Brimmer

College football fans often debate the coolest entrance in the game.

Clemson players rubbing Howard’s Rock and charging down a hill is a popular choice. The Miami Hurricanes’ appearance through the fog is a favorite. And the Midwestern teams that trail large animals – a longhorn steer, a buffalo, a team of wagon-pulling horses – onto their fields get votes.

But when it comes to the team making the classiest entrance, there is no argument: Georgia Tech and the Ramblin’ Wreck have held that standard for 50 years.

“It’s surreal, running out behind the Wreck,” senior football player Tyler Melton said. “You come through the smoke and the tunnel of students and there are 50,000 fans screaming for you.

You have the Atlanta skyline as a backdrop. Nothing beats it. It’s

pretty great.”

The 1930 Ford Model A Sport Coupe’s charge from beneath the north stands, under a canopy of gold and white balloons, through a paper banner and onto the Grant Field turf has thrilled fans at every home game since the start of the 1961 season. With pom-pon shaking cheerleaders clinging to the sideboards, the Wreck can move the spirits of the Georgia Tech faithful with machine-like precision.

“Being a mechanical mascot, the Wreck is uniquely tied to Georgia Tech and its history,” said Michael Warwick, a member of the Ramblin’ Reck Club, the car’s caretakers, between 2007 and 2009. “That makes it different, and in my opinion better, than any other entrance out there.”

Making of a tradition The Wreck made its debut in the 1961 home opener, predating Buzz the mascot, the Budweiser bob and many of the other traditions that make fall Saturday afternoons special on The Flats.

The history of the Wreck dates back another half-century and originated in the South American jungles, not at the corner of Techwood and Bobby Dodd Way. The rainforest is where Tech-educated engineers cobbled together spare parts into motorized vehicles to navigate the landscape. The contraptions – and their creators – were nicknamed “Ramblin’ Recks.”

The legend evolved from there.

Dean Floyd Field is credited with bringing the concept to campus in

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the form of a 1916 Ford Model T. It was one of the first cars on campus, and Field tasked those working in the Tech machine shop with keeping it on the road.

The car quickly became a moving campus landmark and was beloved by the students. By 1926, the Techies had dubbed it the “Ramblin’ Reck.” It was said the Ford “had a thousand rattles, and more thousands of miles on it.”

An article in a 1929 edition of The Technique, the student newspaper, summed up the affection the undergrads felt toward the vehicle: “The car itself was a stimulus to (flagging) spirits,” the story read. “What persistence lay in its performance, as year in and year out it hauled the Dean to and from school. Of course its body was not in keeping with the latest styles, or its color one to excite an artist, but what can be more beautiful that faithfulness, who can ask more of machinery other than to have it run.’

But Field’s car eventually succumbed to the test of 150,000-plus miles. He abandoned it in favor of a 1928 model at about the same time mechanical contraptions became a campus fixture with the creation of what would become the Ramblin’ Wreck Parade. The parade didn’t start as procession – it was originally a race, sponsored by The Technique. Safety concerns led to its conversion into a parade in 1932. Students created their own contraptions for the event, and it

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became a highlight of homecoming weekend. The notion of Ramblin’ Wreck went from campus fixture to campus symbol.

The parade ensured the student fascination with classic cars would endure for decades. And in 1957, Jim Dull came to Georgia Tech as assistant dean of students.

Dull recognized the affection the student body had for classic cars and quietly began searching for pre-World War II Ford to serve as a symbol of student pride.

He found the Wreck right outside the door of his dormitory one day in 1960. A Delta Airlines pilot, Capt. Ted Johnson, had parked the black and gold 1930 Ford Model A Sport Coupe outside Towers Dorm while on campus for a track meet.

Dull left a note on the car and inquired about purchasing it. The pilot was reluctant – he and his son had salvaged the car from a junkyard and restored it together – but agreed to sell it to Dull the following May for $1,000. Head coach Bobby Dodd put up the money and the Ford, vehicle identification number A2688569, became a mechanical mascot.

Dodd had the car repainted– old gold and white – and it rolled across the Grant Field grass for the first time on Sept. 30, 1961. Dekle Rountree, the student council president, was behind the wheel and Don Gentry, president of the Ramblin’ Reck Club and the car’s first mechanic, explained the story behind the car to the crowd. The

Yellow Jackets won the game 24-0, and a new tradition was born.

The ultimate driving experience The half century since has tested the Wreck’s caretakers.

The car has been mechanically temperamental from the start.

Capt. Johnson and his son replaced every part in restoring it in the late-1950s, but they didn’t modernize the systems. Neither has anybody since.

The Wreck lacks power steering and power brakes. The three-speed manual transmission and the gears aren’t synchronized. The driver has to double clutch to shift from second to third.

One of the qualifications for Wreck driver, an elected position within the Ramblin’ Reck Club, the group charged with fostering and growing the spirit and traditions of Georgia Tech, is mechanical prowess.

“You don’t necessarily have to be able to fix it yourself, but you have to be able to tell when something is wrong and have an idea where the source of the problem might be,” said the current driver, Mike MacMillan.

Several Wreck drivers have proven to be Mr. Goodwrench – or Miss Goodwrench. The Wreck’s first female driver, Lisa Volmar, once fixed a balky engine with a butter knife. She was driving the

Wreck along fraternity row during homecoming weekend 1984 when the car died.

“I got picked on,” Volmar said, “but I also got cheers.”

Another constant concern for the driver and the other members of the Ramblin’ Reck Club is opposing fans. A group of Tennessee hooligans doused the Wreck in orange paint during a 1963 visit to Knoxville. Fourteen years later, in one of the Wreck’s rare appearances in Athens for the rivalry game against Georgia, a security guard had to brandish his firearm to disperse an overzealous mob of Bulldog fans surrounding the car.

Then there are the accidental mishaps. Driver Phillip Kelley and several other club members were transporting the Wreck to Denver for the 1990 Final Four when the trailer hitch broke off the truck as they drove through St. Louis. The emergency chains kept the trailer from coming loose, and after a quick weld job, the Wreck made it to Denver.

More recently, the Wreck suffered serious damage when a tractor trailer hauling the car to Savannah for an appearance, jack-knifed and rolled on the interstate. If not for some major and hasty repairs, the Wreck would have missed the 2007 home opener against Samford.

“The greatest fear of every driver is that the car will get damaged on his or her watch and the streak of leading the team onto the field for every home game will be snapped,” MacMillan said. “It makes me nervous just talking about it.”

Caring for the Wreck isn’t all work and no fun, though. Wreck drivers struggle to describe the emotions they feel in leading the team onto the field or cruising the campus on a festive Friday night.

Many consider serving as driver or being a part of the Reck Club among the great privileges of their lives.

“Being the Wreck driver made me a part of Tech,” Kelley, the driver in 1989 and 1990, told an interviewer for the Georgia Tech Living History project. “I will always feel -- and the school doesn’t have to saying anything to me -- that I played a small, tiny role in Tech history.” ■

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THE TURF DOCTOR

Former high school English teacher Jon Dewitt’s green thumb has Tech’s grass surfaces looking immaculate

J

By Adam Van Brimmer

Jon DeWitt makes the admission reluctantly, almost sheepishly.

“I watch sports to check out the field,” DeWitt said. “There, I said it. Hope that doesn’t get me in trouble.”

DeWitt may be one of the few Georgia Tech Athletic Association employees who can take more satisfaction in the success of the field than success on the field and

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The Buzz

get away with it. DeWitt is Georgia Tech’s Athletics Field Manager, so his bosses actually approve of his desire to watch the grass grow.

The emerald carpets of Bobby Dodd Stadium, Russ Chandler Stadium, Rose Bowl Field, Mewborn Field and the Griffin Track & Field Facility glow as well as grow. The work of DeWitt and his staff is a point of pride for the school, regu-

larly drawing praise from rivals.

“In my eyes, (Dodd’s turf) doesn’t look as good as any other turf, it looks better,” said DeWitt’s boss, Shawn Teske, the director of facilities. Turf “is one area I know I don’t have to be concerned about because he is here.”

This summer was supposed to test DeWitt. The construction of the John and Mary Brock Football

Practice Facility forced Georgia Tech to re-sod both Grant Field and Rose Bowl Field. Rose Bowl was home to heavy equipment – graders and bulldozers, not blocking sleds – used in erecting the indoor field, which forced the football team to utilize Grant for winter conditioning drills and spring practice. The wear and tear ruined both surfaces.

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Major work on the indoor facility didn’t wrap up until June. That meant the new sod went down in the middle of one of the hottest summers in recent memory.

Yet both surfaces met DeWitt’s standards in August. Rose Bowl, sodded in early June, was ready for the start of preseason camp, and Grant Field’s new grass had linked and taken root in time for the first scrimmage.

“I love our stadium; I think our field is one of the best in the country,” football coach Paul Johnson said. “Other teams comment on it a lot. And

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that’s the ultimate compliment.”

DeWitt’s skill comes naturally; he was born with a green thumb in his mouth. His father made a living as a facilities manager and groundskeeper, first at Pensacola Christian College in the Florida Panhandle and later in leading his own landscaping company in Birmingham, Ala. DeWitt started turning shovels and driving mowers for his dad at age 5.

But the senior DeWitt didn’t raise his son to be the next Carl Spackler.

He encouraged Jon to pursue something other than agriculture in college. Jon settled on English and worked toward his degree, but it was his

after-school job in landscaping that truly captivated him. Upon graduation, he took a job at Wesleyan, a private K-12 school in Gwinnett County, as a middle school English teacher and groundskeeper.

“I taught for a year and then became the full-time groundskeeper,” DeWitt said. “Teaching didn’t suit me.”

Groundskeeping did, though.

DeWitt showed his father’s knack for ornamental landscaping and also maintained the school’s athletic fields. His reputation spread quickly around Atlanta and he came into contact with Kris Harris, then Georgia Tech’s Athletics Field Manager. When Harris left Georgia Tech to take a job at Southern Methodist University in 2007, he encouraged DeWitt to apply for the position.

DeWitt was the lone serious candidate without college experience. But one visit to Wesleyan was enough to convince Teske and other leaders in facilities management of DeWitt’s bloom.

“The job he did at Wesleyan was excellent,” Teske said. “His passion was very evident when he interviewed.”

Green grass “is what gets me up in the morning,” DeWitt said, a necessary attitude given Atlanta’s ever-changing weather. He started

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The Buzz

at Tech during the unprecedented drought of 2007, and counts Russ Chandler Stadium being named as “Field of the Year” by the Sports Turf Management Association as one of the highlights of his professional career.

DeWitt also believes in protecting his turf. He’s been known to politely shoo photo-craving fans off the end zone grass at Grant Field and steer media and other interlopers toward the dirt warning tracks at Russ Chandler.

“You walking on it won’t kill it, but heavy volume can do it in,” DeWitt said. “What people don’t understand is grass is a living thing. If something stepped on you all day every day, you’d die. Same goes for the grass.”

DeWitt practices what he preaches. On the way into his neighborhood restaurant – perhaps to watch the grass at Heinz Field during a Monday night football game or the Yankee Stadium turf on a Saturday afternoon – he sticks to the sidewalk.

“I’ll be walking in and see the area where all the smokers stand when they come out for a cigarette and I cringe,” he said. “I’m not going to contribute to the problem.” ■

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TECH TIES NEVER BROKEN

Former Yellow Jacket Steve Davenport, along with four Tech men as assistants, try to put Savannah State on a successful path

By Adam Van Brimmer

B

Bill Curry gives in and chuckles out loud.

Asked about one of his former Georgia Tech players, Steve Davenport, taking over arguably the most dysfunctional Division I football program in American -- and then Davenport convincing four more former Yellow Jacket stars to join his new staff -- Curry can’t help himself.

“One thing about Tech people, all of us think we’re smarter than everybody else,” Curry said.

“We’re not, of course, but the fact that we think we are means we’ll try anything. And we know how to work and we know how to think. Savannah State is wise to get them all together.”

Davenport became Savannah State’s coach in January. The Tigers program, which moved from Division II to Division I-AA a decade ago, hasn’t posted a winning season since 1998, spent the second half of the last decade on NCAA probation, and is shrouded in controversy over the firing of a coach who is suing the school for racial discrimination.

Davenport is Savannah State’s sixth head coach in nine years, and he doesn’t have a direct supervisor – the school’s president fired the athletic director this summer and has yet to hire a successor.

“When I was on a plane headed to Savannah for the interview, there was no way I thought I’d leave Alabama-Birmingham to take the job,” said Davenport, who was UAB’s running backs coach. “But the vision I saw was onward and

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The Buzz

upward. And I like a challenge.”

He knew others who felt the same. Inside of a month of his hiring at Savannah State, Davenport added former Yellow Jacket teammates Greg Lester and Thomas Balkcom. He also brought in another Tech man, William Bell, who Davenport had coached while a graduate assistant with the Jackets. Two months later, Davenport, named Saeed Khalif, known as Kyle Ambrose during his Georgia Tech playing days, as defensive coordinator.

The quintet will try to do at Savannah State this fall what they did at Georgia Tech almost three decades ago – put the program on track for success. Khalif was a member of the Curry teams that featured the “Black Watch defense” and reestablished football’s place at Georgia Tech in the early- and mid-1980s.

Davenport, Lester and Balkcom played on Bobby Ross’ early teams. Lester, Balkcom and Bell starred on the 1990 national championship team.

“The relationships I formed in my years at Tech have never been broken,” Davenport said.

“I didn’t hire all these men because they were Tech guys. I chose them because they are professional people and good coaches, and I know they know what it takes to get this program going.”

Tech ties strong Davenport, along with much of his staff, came to Savannah State’s reclamation project from unusual backgrounds.

Davenport’s coaching aspirations were at the high school level. As a junior and senior at Southwest Dekalb, he flirted with winning state championships. He played for Georgia high school coaching legend Buck Gottfried, and was a local celebrity before he arrived on the Flats.

He returned to his alma mater after earning his master’s degree from Georgia Tech.

Southwest Dekalb won that state title in 1995, with Davenport as offensive coordinator, and he became a head coach two years later. He led programs at Redan and Decatur, earning Class AA Coach of the Year honors in 2003, before stepping back into a coordinator’s role in 2005.

“I was happy as I could be coaching high school football,” Davenport said. “Then coach Callaway, who I had a relationship with from his time at Georgia with Mark Richt, called and said he’d gotten the job at UAB. He asked, ‘Are you coming?’”

Davenport spent four seasons with Neil Callaway, formerly Georgia’s offensive line coach, in Birmingham.

Davenport worked with Lester, Khalif and Balkcom during his high school coaching days.

Lester was the head coach at Lakeside when

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William Bell

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Saeed Khalif

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Steve Davenport

Greg Lester

Davenport got the Savannah State job, and Khalif had just left coaching to get into the family business when Davenport called.

Balkcom, who worked under Davenport at Decatur and Redan, left University High School in Orlando to join the Savannah State staff.

“Truth be told, I’d always wanted to work with him again if I got the chance,” said Balkcom. “He’s a great manager of people, staff and situations. Some guys are great motivators or schemers or what have you. Davenport manages things, sees the big picture and knows how everything fits together. And he’s got fire.”

He’s got what it takes Curry noticed Davenport’s coaching qualities when he came to play for Curry at Georgia Tech. Davenport had a maturity about him, Curry said, that allowed him to handle the demands of Georgia Tech with ease and relate well to others.

Teammates dubbed him “Stevie D” before the end of his first preseason camp. Davenport remained upbeat even when Ross went with a youth movement upon his arrival during Davenport’s junior year. He mentored young players, like Lester.

“Teams will mirror the head coach,” Curry said. “Something tells me because Steve is cheerful, upbeat and ready to go to work, his team will be, too.”

For all the murkiness of Savannah State’s recent past, the future looks promising. Davenport and his staff have a new stadium, an almost-full complement of scholarships, and an affiliation with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference to work with. Given time to add talent, Davenport is confident he can make the Tigers competitive – if not contenders – in the MEAC. “This place is a gold mine; you just have to put in the work to get it out of the ground,” Balkcom said. “It’s the same thing as when I went to Tech. And Davenport is the guy to get it done, same as coach Ross was back in the day.” ■

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Thomas Balkcom

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PROBLEM SOLVER

Attending an engineering school helped prepare Ken Whisenhunt for the mental part of being a coach in the National Football League

W

By Simit Shah

When Ken Whisenhunt accepted the Total Person Alumni Award this past spring at the annual Yellow Jacket Celebration, it marked almost exactly 31 years since he first visited campus.

It was the spring of 1980, and Whisenhunt was a senior at Richmond Academy in Augusta (Ga.). He had emerged as a highly-regarded football recruit as a junior, but an injury had dropped him off the radar of most major programs.

His offers had dwindled down to a partial scholarship at UT-Chattanooga when his high school coach encouraged him to attend a Georgia Tech spring practice session.

“I vividly remember that day,” he said. “I had a chip on my shoulder. No question about it.”

Bill Curry, who was preparing for his first season at the helm of the football program, also recalls that spring afternoon.

“We stood there for a while, and we had this conversation,” said Curry, now coaching at Georgia State. “Our interest in him was very sincere. When it was all over, I was very anxious to know what he was thinking. He had gotten quiet while watching practice, walking around the field watching the offense, defense and special teams. I came back to him and said, ‘Well, son, what do you think?’

“He said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you this, coach. If I decide to come here, I can sure help you guys.’

It was true, and I thought that we had to have this guy,” remembered Curry, laughing.

“When I saw them practice, I felt like I could play there,” Whisenhunt explained. “You have to have confidence in your ability, no matter what you’re doing. The one thing I remember from that practice was how Coach Curry treated me like I was a prized recruit, not some guy who was a potential walk-on. He took the time to talk to me and explain things. I was very impressed with that.

“I remember what an impact Coach Curry had on me. Where I am today is in large part because of Coach Curry and Dr. (Homer) Rice,” he continued. “I think as role models, those were two very good ones. The impact they had on an impressionable young college studentathlete was immeasurable.”

On the field, Whisenhunt was a jack-ofall-trades, manning just about every position except offensive and defensive line during his five-year collegiate career. Most fans remember his heroics against top-ranked Notre Dame in 1980.

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Ken Whisenhunt

In the midst of a season that would end with only one victory, the Jackets lost their firstand second-string quarterbacks during the game, forcing the true freshman under center.

Whisenhunt had taken just a handful of snaps in practice, but he was able to lead the offense on a scoring drive that resulted in a field goal.

The game ended in a 3-3 tie and endures as one of the memorable moments at Grant Field.

“It does come up quite often,” Whisenhunt said. “It’s amazing how many people remember that game, even though it was over 30 years ago. That’s a part of Tech history, and I’m proud to be part of it.”

He would go on to finish his career at Tech as an All-ACC tight end and ranked second in both career receptions (82) and receiving yards (1,264). The Falcons drafted him in 1984, and he enjoyed a nine-year career with the Falcons, Redskins and Jets.

Armed with a civil engineering degree, Whisenhunt had plenty of post-football options, but he found his calling in coaching.

He moved up the ranks quickly and garnered plenty of praise as the Steelers’ offensive coordinator during the title run in 2005.

The Arizona Cardinals tapped him to be their head coach in 2007, and he led the fran-

chise to their first Super Bowl in just his second season.

“When you think about it, it’s shocking that an engineer is a coach,” he said. “How does that happen? Logically, what it takes to get through an engineering school is that you have to solve problems. That’s a lot of what being a coach is. You work all week to prepare for an opponent, and you study everything they do.

You get in a game, and they’ll do something different. You have to adjust. That’s what being an engineer is all about too. You have certain criteria, standards and guidelines, but you’ll always face problems.

“I remember during one summer working on a nuclear power plant construction and doing field work,” he continued. “Change requests would always come up. Even though the work was structured, there was always something that came up. You had to find the solution for it. That’s what has really served me well as a player and a coach. You have to figure out ways to prepare, adjust and adapt.”

The life of an NFL player and coach can be nomadic, but Whisenhunt has always maintained close ties to the school throughout the years. He traces a lot of that back to his late father-in-law John O’Neill, who played football

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Ken Whisenhunt

under Bobby Dodd and was a longtime administrator in the athletic department.

“We all knew him as the athletic department’s business manager, and Mr. O’Neill was very rigid and strict in his principles and beliefs,” said Whisenhunt. “I met his daughter Alice when I was in my fifth year. She was at West Georgia and would come and visit him.

When we first started dating, it was tough. Mr. O’Neill was an old school guy.

“As we spent more time together, I really got to appreciate how much he loved Georgia Tech,” he added. “He had played there and worked there for many years. In a lot of ways, he had given his life to Georgia Tech, and I had great respect for that. I miss him. He was my father-in-law, but what I really respected was his love of Georgia Tech and what it meant to him.”

O’Neill was very much on Whisenhunt’s mind when he accepted the Total Person Alumni

Award in April, and he hoped that the current crop of studentathletes would appreciate their time at Georgia Tech as much as he does.

“I was honored to even be considered for the award,” he said.

“When I first walked on campus there, Dr. Rice had just started the Total Person Program. If you look at what that program means, it’s more than just the athletics or what sport you play. It’s about taking care of school and graduating, but it’s also about giving back and being involved with your community.

“It was exciting to see these young men and women in person and share what Georgia Tech meant to me. I got a great deal out of that experience. The challenges you face as a student-athlete and being able to overcome them train you to be successful in life. There’s a tremendous amount of value in that.” ■

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