LORAN SMITH: Minor sports over, football has begun

Georgia plays Missouri on Sept. 17 — the third weekend of football season. Nothing unusual about that, but a half century ago that would have been opening day for college football.

In another era, the players didn’t report until the Labor Day weekend, all of which spawns considerable reminiscing. Fifty years ago, players were expected to work out on their own with the publicists at various schools writing summer pieces about the interesting jobs the players had landed.

Most sought jobs like construction, outdoor labor in the sun, which usually paid well and was a sure fire way to get in shape for the forthcoming season. Picture day took place in Sanford Stadium, mostly for the press. There were no tape recorders visible—notepads and pens only. Fans were allowed to move onto the field, but not more than a dozen, perhaps two dozen, showed up, a very few with a Brownie.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent three or four writers and a couple of photographers. Athens was usually represented by a photographer and the sports editor. Writers and sometimes a photographer from somewhere like Macon or Augusta might be on hand, but for the most part, those outlets used the Associated Press for their coverage and the AP account that was a rewrite of what the AJC had reported. You were more likely to find weeklies in the surrounding area eager to corner a hometown player for a feature profile.

Jesse Outlar, the sage of Omega and Constitution sports editor, was always there along with the college editor of the Journal, Jim Minter. Harley Bowers, the doting sports editor of the Macon Telegraph never missed picture day.

The main attraction was the beer and barbecue party, hosted by Magill in his side yard on Woodlawn Drive down by a no name creek. The long time mayor of Athens, Upshaw Bentley, would eventually take care of that by officially naming the creek, “Magill Creek.” Not sure if the city maps reflect that citation by the mayor, but he did make it official much to the pleasure of one of the greatest of Bulldog personalities ever. There is a photo somewhere which confirms the mayor’s edict.

Long after the out-of-town press had departed, Magill regaled the remainder with colorful stories. When darkness finally enveloped the premises, the party broke up.

Magill, who excelled at sports like ping pong and tennis was always an advocate of what was generally referred to as “minor sports” in those days, but he had the deepest of affection for the signature sport of football. As picture day approached, we would always repair to Harry’s Drive-In Restaurant in Five Points in late August. As he began to wax eagerly and emotionally about the team’s prospects, he would always say, “Ah, King Football.”

This advocate of all sports, nonetheless, had a deep and abiding love for football, having grown up in Athens and covering all sports, while in grade school, for the Athens Banner Herald, whose pages were edited by his father. The Bulldog life, for this colorful and unforgettable character, was the good life.

Football today is a colossus, which makes it the most popular sport in America, unless I have missed something lately. It has become a year round exercise with a passion that seems to intensify each season.

While it has a greater intensity today, its importance has always been significant. All you have to do is recall the episode with Forrest “Spec” Towns who entered Georgia on football scholarship but ran the high hurdles with such alacrity and efficiency that he won the Olympic gold medal at Berlin in August of 1936.

Following the Olympic games Towns participated in an exhibition tour for a couple of additional weeks which placed him in Oslo, Norway in late August. Towns shocked the track world by running the 110-yard high hurdles in 13.7 seconds, a sensational time which stood for 14 years.

The Bulldog football coach was Harry Mehre who had something else in mind for Towns, who played end for the Bulldogs: “Minor sports are over, football practice has begun,” he advised Spec.