'Kid' Woodruff did what?

by chrisvilledawg on Mar 12, 2010 8:50 PM EST

You may know that George ‘Kid’ Woodruff coached the Dawgs from 1923-27 for $1 per year – as a successful business man from Columbus he didn’t need the money. He compiled a 30-16-1 record as a coach.

However I wonder if you knew the following story – as reported in ‘Daily Devotions for Die-Hard Fans: Georgia Bulldogs’ www.die-hardfans.com

In 1911 at Sewanee, Woodruff pulled a stunt that I can’t decide if should be lauded or lamented, but it bears repeating. As the fog rolled in on the field, Woodruff dropped back to pass. He took off his helmet and threw it downfield. In the fog the Sewanee players thought the helmet was the ball and converged on the receiver. However Woodruff still had the ball and handed it off to the halfback still in the backfield and he ran untouched for a score. The dogs went on to win 12-3.

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That's one of the many great anecdotes . . .

. . . related in John Stegeman’s The Ghosts of Herty Field, which every Georgia fan should read. George Cecil Woodruff was the second “Kid” Woodruff to play quarterback for the Red and Black. His older brother, Harry, preceded him at the position.

When George was coaching the team that by then was called the Bulldogs, Harry drove from Columbus to see the team play. He was killed in a car wreck on his way to Athens. The following year, Woodruff Hall was christened in Harry’s honor. A plaque on the steps leading up to the Psychology-Journalism Building from Baldwin Street marks where Woodruff Hall once stood.

I’m pretty sure we lost that 1910 Sewanee game 15-12, though. The trickery produced the touchdown that allowed the Athenians to pull within three of the mighty Purple Tigers, but the combination of fog and darkness caused the game to be called. Don’t quote me on that, though.

Go 'Dawgs!

by T Kyle King on Mar 12, 2010 9:00 PM EST reply actions

Woodruff Hall

… The only venue in the conference where wind speed and direction had to be accounted for in basketball games. Kyle, you would get a kick out of my dad’s recollections of the campus and UGA sports from when he was in school, which covers most of the 1950s (all of the ‘50s, if you include his years at Athens High). There are resources out there, of course, for what things were like at various times (Dean Tate’s Strolls Around Athens, Reed’s History of the University of Georgia, Coulter’s College Life in the Old South, When Men Were Boys: An Informal Portrait of Dean William Tate (which, I’m proud to say, includes a couple of memories contributed by Dad), etc.). I suppose there may not be much of a commercial market for yet another, but I sure wish my father would write his stuff down. Dad, you reading this? A blog? Occasional (doesn’t have to be periodic) contributions to a forum like this?

by NCT on Mar 13, 2010 11:39 AM EST up reply actions