Left: An early outbuilding on Georgia Tech’s campus painted with the phrase now well-known to Tech fans as “The Good Word.” Right: The Georgia School of Technology’s 1893 football team poses for a group photograph.
excitement over the great football match,” the Constitution reported. Tech took an early lead, outscoring Georgia 18-0 by the end of the first half. The fans of the Athens team began to grow restless as Tech’s score grew. They claimed that the game was rigged because the umpire, named Nourse, was the brother of Georgia Tech trainer Ernest Nourse and favored the Tech team. An account of the unrest in the Atlanta Constitution describes a chant breaking out in the stands. “After three or four decisions, which they deemed unfair, about 140 students bunched and gave the following cry whenever his decisions struck them as being unfair: “Well, well, well, “Who can tell, “The Tech’s umpire has cheated like —” The Georgia fans grew riotous as the Tech team dominated the field. In the second half, chaos took over the stands as Georgia fans began to throw rocks and mud onto the field. By the end of the game, the Tech team had demolished the University of Georgia team by a final tally of 28-6. Despite logging their first-ever victory, the Techs did not stick around to celebrate. They left the field right away, dodging their angry opponents so they could catch their 7 p.m. train back to Atlanta. Once aboard and bound for home, the train was supposed to have the right-of-way to speed through railroad crossings. But many blame the train’s hasty departure for confusion on the rails
fight song (which was adapted from an old English drinking song called A Son of a Gambolier). The fight song, Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech, appeared in print for the first time in Tech’s first yearbook, the 1908 Blueprint. GEORGE P. BURDELL Even George P. Burdell, Georgia Tech’s most legendary student, has a link to the first Georgia Tech-Georgia rivalry football game. The name of the fictional student was a practical joke played on George P. Butler, a high-school headmaster from Augusta, Ga., who was an alumnus and ardent supporter of
and what happened next. As they neared Lawrenceville, the locomotive collided with a freight train that hadn’t seen the signal to clear the track. Two of the special train’s cars were badly damaged, as was the train’s engine. Luckily, none of the 151 passengers from Tech was seriously injured. Alas, with their train out of order, the stranded group boarded a coal boxcar in the very same freight train they had just collided with to complete the journey back to Atlanta. Though their journey should have only taken about two hours, the beleaguered group didn’t arrive back at Union Station until after midnight. What a night it must have been for those wrecks rambling back to Tech. THOUGH ELATED BY THEIR VICTORY, Tech’s football players and students were very upset by the poor display of sportsmanship in Athens. “The treatment the Techs received was not what they expected,” the manager of Tech’s team told the Atlanta Constitution on Nov. 5. “Rocking the players, and threatening them was something never before witnessed on a football gridiron.” To this day, “To Hell With Georgia” remains a mantra for all who count themselves among Tech’s loyal alumni and fans. As for the legacy of the train wreck—though the recorded history of the age is quite fuzzy—many consider it to be the start of the Ramblin’ Wrecks from Georgia Tech.
the University of Georgia known for deriding Georgia Tech and advising his pupils against attending the school. Butler’s animus for Tech partially derived from the fact that he was the captain of the University of Georgia football team that lost to Georgia Tech during the two schools’ contentious first game in 1893. TO HELL WITH GEORGIA Ask a Tech student “What’s The Good Word?” and he or she will surely respond, “To Hell with Georgia!” Commonly shortened to THWG (or THWg by Tech students who love
to further demean their rival school with the lower-case spelling), this hatred for the University of Georgia stems directly from the first meeting of the two schools on the football field on Nov. 4, 1893. The words “To Hell with Georgia” are official lyrics of the Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech fight song. And the feeling is mutual—Georgia fans sing “To Hell with Georgia Tech!” in their own song, Glory, Glory to Old Georgia. With few exceptions, the two teams have met every November for the rivalry football game that’s become known as “Clean, OldFashioned Hate.”
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