Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football
Over the span of 1892–1903, Tech only won 8 games, tied in 5, and lost 32. In 1893, Tech played against the University of Georgia for the first time. Tech defeated Georgia 28–6 for the school's first-ever victory. The angry Georgia fans threw stones and other debris at the Tech players during and after the game. The poor treatment of the Blacksmiths by the Georgia faithful gave birth to the rivalry now known as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.
History of the Georgia Institute of Technology
Tech began its football program with several students forming a loose-knit troop of footballers called the Blacksmiths. The first season saw Tech play three games and lose all three. Discouraged by these results, the Blacksmiths sought a coach to improve their record. Leonard Wood, an army officer who had played football at Harvard and was then stationed in Atlanta and taking graduate courses at the school, volunteered to serve as the team's player-coach. In 1893, Tech played its first game against the University of Georgia (Georgia). Tech defeated Georgia 28–6 for the school's first-ever victory. The angry Georgia fans threw stones and other debris at the Tech players during and after the game. The poor treatment of the Blacksmiths by the Georgia faithful gave birth to the rivalry now known as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.
The words to Georgia Tech's famous fight song, "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech", are said to have come from an early baseball game against rival Georgia. Some sources credit Billy Walthall, a member of the first four-year graduating class, with the lyrics. According to a 1954 article in "Sports Illustrated", "Ramblin' Wreck" was written around 1893 by a Tech football player on his way to an Auburn game. In 1905, Georgia Tech adopted it in roughly the current form as its official fight song, although it had apparently been the unofficial fight song for several years. It was published for the first time in the school's first yearbook, the 1908 "Blue Print", under the heading "What causes Whitlock to Blush." Words such as "hell" and "helluva" were censored in this first printing as "certain words [are] too hot to print." After Michael A. Greenblatt, the first bandmaster of the Georgia Tech Marching Band, heard the band playing the song to the tune of Charles Ives's "A Son of a Gambolier", he wrote a modern musical version. In 1911, Frank Roman succeeded Greenblatt as bandmaster; Roman embellished the song with trumpet flourishes and publicized it. Roman copyrighted the song in 1919.