You may have heard that Georgia has a new press box.
The old facility gave way to premium seat locations for donors, which has been a trend regarding the media in recent years – something that has taken place in stadium enhancements and enlargements across the country.
I did not take a poll last weekend for the opening game with Tennessee Tech, but I did not hear any major complaints. Change requires adjustment, meaning somebody doesn’t like the new press digs.
Everybody appreciated the fact that the press box now recognizes two UGA icons with different personalities but the same modus operandi — accommodating the media so that its membership has the best opportunity to cover Georgia football on game day without any hitches.
The press box has two levels, one for Dan Magill and one for Claude Felton.
When I arrived on campus in the ’50s, the press box was a three-story cinderblock, jerry-rigged, added-on space with a rooftop for film photographers. It was centrally located just behind the 60th row of the original stadium.
It was adequate but cold in winter. It wasn’t too hot in that the first home game was usually played in late September. In addition, trees surrounding the old press box kept it in the shade most of the football season. Kickoff for games in that era was 2 p.m.
In 1964, I became Magill’s full-time assistant, perhaps the first full-time assistant in the Southeastern Conference. Magill was also the secretary of the Georgia Bulldog Club and tennis coach—one man doing three full-time jobs.
(There were no women’s tennis teams then, and women were not allowed in the press box, except for those who were Western Union teletype operators.)
All writers sent their type-written stories to their papers by Western Union, except the Athens Banner-Herald. When the game was over, the Banner-Herald sports editor went to the offices on Hancock Avenue and wrote his game story, avoiding the cost of Western Union transmission.
The old press box had a Western Union ticker that provided updates on the weather and scores of other games around the country.
In those years, Georgia Tech was still a member of the Southeastern Conference and played Alabama in late November on the same weekend that Georgia always played Auburn.
In 1959, the stadium went wild with celebration after Georgia’s sensational defeat of Auburn on a 13-yard touchdown pass from Fran Tarkenton to Bill Herron.
With the “other” game in Tuscaloosa being played in the Central time zone, the final score came in over the ticker about nightfall, revealing that Alabama, on the way to prominence under second-year coach Bear Bryant, had come from behind to defeat Tech.
Magill jumped up on a bench with the news and shouted, “doubleheader.”
One Saturday, the late Harry Mehre summoned me. Mehre had coached at Georgia and Ole Miss but later became a columnist for the Atlanta Journal.
“Listen! How nice that they still remember the old coach.”
I was puzzled, so he gave me a hint.
“Listen to them calling out my name, Coach Mehre.”
Suddenly, I got the message. The Coca-Cola carriers shouted, “Cokes here, Cokes here.”
There were no colorful stories about Claude Felton, as there were with the remarkable Magill and the clever Mehre. But Felton's name would likely come up if you asked the celebrated writers and broadcasters about who was the best at media relations and accommodations.
It would be the same if you polled his fellow sports information directors nationwide.
When it comes to naming things for people, no institution has ever been more on target than the University of Georgia by appropriately recognizing these two men.
Both are the ultimate when it comes to “Damn Good Dawgs."