Monday, March 17, 2008

Magill: "Absolutely the most improbable"

I went ahead and called Dan Magill myself. Mr. Magill, as you may know, has been a university bat boy, sports information director, national-title-winning tennis coach, author, Georgia Bulldog Club secretary, club chapter(s) founder, historian and guy we name sports complexes, press boxes and mascots after.

He was at the Yale game in 1929, when we dedicated Sanford Stadium. He was 8.

Mr. Magill still lives in Athens and says this past weekend's run to the SEC tournament title is "absolutely is the most improbable athletic achievement that I've known at Georgia."

So there you go. He said the 1929 victory over Yale was probably No. 2, particularly since we'd lost to "little Oglethorpe" two games before.

He said the weather probably helped us that day, as well. Yale is in Connecticut and back then teams didn't have summer and winter uniforms. So Yale showed up in Athens with heavy uniforms on "the hottest day ever been in Athens in October."

Mr. Magill also said his 1985 tennis team, which started the NCAA tournament as a No. 6 seed, beat No. 3 seed Stanford, the No. 2 seed and then No. 1 seed UCLA to win the National Title. And that all happened in three days.

Even that was "nothing" compared to this weekend's basketball tournament, he said.

No comments: