After winning three Southeastern Conference championships and making six bowl trips—including the Rose Bowl and two visits to the Orange Bowl—the coming of the fifties was not a sound era for the Georgia Bulldogs.
In 1950, the Bulldogs posted a 6-3-3 record, including playing in the Presidential Cup at College Park, Maryland, where they lost to Texas A&M 40-20. This was the early years of “The Drought,” the eight-year losing streak to Georgia Tech.
In 1954, Butts signed a highly regarded freshman, Bobby Garrard, who was a native of Birmingham. While Butts was considered in his time a master of the passing game, he sought rigid, hard-charging running backs to complement his passing attack. He found one of the best in Garrard, who lettered four years as a fullback (52-53-54-55) in those T-formation days. Garrard was voted captain of the team his senior year.
Garrard was popular with his teammates and with the Georgia fans during a challenging era. One of his biggest promoters was Dan Magill, who appreciated Garrard’s success at running the football in critical situations.
In those days, Magill was sure the Atlanta papers had an anti-Georgia undercurrent with the Atlanta papers. Magill was one of the best ever at finding something positive to trumpet, even in Georgia’s darkest times.
When the Atlanta sportswriters came to cover UGA practices, Magill often had an angle to offer them, which made their job easier; if they took his suggestion, it would mean that something positive would be said about the Bulldogs in the papers the next day.
Magill knew the history of the state. He had traveled Georgia in his days as prep editor of the Atlanta Journal, where he was famous for his insightful knowledge of geography, traditions, and history—everything accented with a colorful and humorous presentation. He also knew about the players and their high school coaches.
On top of that, he was an entertaining and delightful host, taking the writers to Harry’s Tavern in Five Points, Poss’ barbecue on the Atlanta Highway, and the Athens Country Club on Friday nights before home games, the Athens Country Club.
There has never been a more entertaining and gracious host than this colorful UGA personality. He made everybody feel good about his alma mater in the process.
However, as the men's tennis coach, he was a seasoned competitor, and he never backed away from confrontation if he felt that he or his school had been wronged.
If a writer were unfair in any way, Magill would challenge him, pointing out where he was in error. Magill didn’t rant and rave just to be exercising his vocal cords. He pointed out the facts in plain English with an occasional expletive or two.
In later years, I asked Jim Minter, who became editor of the AJC, if Magill was right about a sinister element at the paper that seized on the opportunity to embarrass the University. Minter said that Magill was correct in his assessment.
A classic example of Magill’s antipathy with the AJC bias or shoddy reporting came during the time of the late Bobby Garrard. Throughout the lean years, Magill tried his hardest to bring about good press, and when he did, he would complement the writer.
Likewise, he would offer professional rebuke when some reporter took a shot at the Bulldog program.
Those were the years when newspapers held sway. The Atlanta Journal owned the Atlanta Constitution, but the sports staffs were separate and fought tooth and nail for news and scoops.
One morning in the fall of 1954, Minter’s phone rang, and an irate Magill called him with this terse comment: “Jim, if Captain Bobby Garrard suffered a fatal heart attack at practice today, the headline in the Atlanta papers would read, ‘Garrard quits Georgia.’”
With Garrard’s passing last week, I called Minter, and we reminisced about that long-ago phone conversation, an interesting vignette in the lore of Bulldog football, and a reminder of the love of alma mater that defined the unforgettable Dan Magill.