Q&A wi th men ’s bAske tbA l l coAch PAu l hewi t t

fall 2010 www.ramblinwreck.com

ENGINEEr

Senior quarterback JoShua neSbitt and the Yellow JacketS readY to make run at another acc title

20th year reunion of the 1990 football national championship

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fall 2010 • Volume 4, number 1

editor

Dean Buchan

writerS

Simit ShahJack Wilkinson

Adam Van BrimmerMatt Winkeljohn

Coley harvey

PhotoGraPherS

David Johnson, Sam Morgan and Barry Williams

deSiGn & laYout

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In This Issue22 the GolD StANDARD

tech embarks on initiative to promote better sportsmanship

26 All IN the fAMIlyMonique Mead’s father, sister have helped her emerge as one of college volleyball’s top players

30 foWleR AND teCh MAke A PeRfeCt MARRIAGeAthletics attracted fowler to the flats, where he graduated with high honors in 1988

4 20 QUeStIoNS:Georgia tech And ACC football

6 fRoM GReeNe CoUNty to NoRth AVeNUeJoshua Nesbitt’s toughness and competitiveness came from early days in rural Georgia

31 CoMPlIANCe CoRNeR

GRoh-ING DeeP oN DefeNSeNew coordinator and scheme bring confidence to Jackets10

Q&A WIth PAUl heWIttVeteran coach interested in more than just hoops14

UNDeNIABle. UNBeAtABle. UNBelIeVABle.20 years after winning the national championship, Georgia tech’s reunion of the 1990 team will be special, indeed

16

www.ramblinwreck.com 3

20 QuesTIons: GeorGIa Tech and acc FooTball

IIt seems college football has

reached a point in our sporting nation where the season lasts four months, but it spends almost the entire calendar year near the center of attention. No better example of that than this past summer when the movement of four schools started a near avalanche of change on the col-lege football landscape. Nebraska, Colorado, Utah and Boise State are headed for new conferences next fall, but the tremors of expansion and realignment were felt nationwide.

Those moves next fall could shift some of the power among confer-ences around the country, and one of the leagues which could rise or fall is the ACC. It puts a bigger empha-sis on the conference this fall than maybe at any time since the addition of Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College.

With that in mind, here are 10 questions each about the defending ACC champions and the conference as a whole:

1. whose shoes are bigger to fill, Jona-than dwyer or derrick morgan?

Jonathan Dwyer posted exactly 1,395 yards rushing in each of the last two years and he scored 26 touchdowns. But I still think Mor-gan’s presence will be tougher to fill. His 12.5 sacks last season were impressive, but he had a lot of big plays at key times during games. Of course, he made the 4th down play on Kyle Parker in the ACC title game, but he tripped up Wake’s Riley Skinner on a big play in that game. He also commanded double-teams from the opposing offense, which let others guys step in to make plays as well. Dwyer made big, explosive plays for the offense, but the transition to Anthony Allen and others at B-Back, won’t be as drastic as the one for Tech’s next great pass rusher.

2. can Stephen hill be the next great receiver at Georgia tech?

I have been asked this question

more over the off-season than about replacing Dwyer or Morgan. Stephen Hill showed flashes last fall, but he needs to be more consistent and grow from his rookie experience. He caught only six passes last year, and just three of those in the last nine games. Physically, Hill is off the charts. While Demaryius Thomas became a physical presence at re-ceiver, Hill has a gear that Thomas doesn’t have. Combine that with a strong August camp and he’ll be on track for a solid 2010.

3. was there an off-season “hangover” from winning the acc last year?

Not as long as the head coach is the same. One trip to a spring prac-tice and you knew that. Paul Johnson has strong expectations for this program. His two-year worksheet at Georgia Tech is impressive, and he wants more from his team in 2010. The team will put their goals togeth-er before the regular season starts, but one would think that getting

back to the BCS would be one, along with winning a post-season game for the first time since 2005.

4. are you going to call him “Joshua” (nesbitt)?

Yes I am, but I’ve already begged for some forgiveness if I slip up. I re-spect Joshua’s decision and request, but if he does something really excit-ing, I might slip and call him “Josh”. But I’m trying to be good…promise.

5. what players benefit from the change to a 3-4 defensive scheme?

The general feeling is that by moving to a 3-4 look on defense, linebackers will take on an even bigger role for the Jackets. Statisti-cally that is probably true, but there is a former defensive end who should thrive in his new roles as “outside linebacker”. Anthony “A.T.” Barnes is one player who seemed much more comfortable in the Jackets’ new alignment. While inside line-

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backer Brad Jefferson has been a steady player for the Jackets the last two years, he also seemed to be more flexible with another insider playing with him. Tech made a subtle change in the spring, moving veteran Domi-nique Reese from safety to corner and Jerrard Tarrant from safety to corner. It’ll be interesting to see how much progress they make when the season starts.

6. what new faces could emerge on defense for the Jackets?

Two players come to mind. Red-shirt freshman Brandon Watts pass-es the “eye test”. At 6’2, 237, Watts looks like a guy who can help Tech at any of the four linebacking spots on defense. He’s got excellent speed and seems to have solid instincts for such a young player. Safety Isaiah Johnson entered school in January, thus making him eligible for spring practice. He didn’t waste any time making a name for himself. He was a “top 20” prospect in the state and showed glimpses in the spring of being able to make big plays and be steady in the Jackets new defensive sets.

7. what positions will have the most competition in the fall camp?

More than once in the off-season, head coach Paul Johnson cited the offensive line having more depth than either one of his previous two Tech teams. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that would be one of the areas where competition could be stiff in August. The other area where there is solid depth is at A-Back. Roddy Jones, Marcus Wright, Embry Peeples and Orwin Smith are all battling for time there, and those are just the veteran guys. There are several underclassmen who could step in too.

8. what should i know about South carolina State?

The Bulldogs of coach Buddy Pough have won 20 of their last 25 games, including 19 straight in the MEAC. This fall they return 14 start-ers from a 10-2 team. Senior Will Ford had 1,032 yards last season and led the MEAC in rushing. Junior Malcolm Long returns at QB after throwing for a league best 20 touch-downs. SCSU led the conference in scoring offense (30.4) and scoring defense (15.6) last year. Junior line-backer David Erby was the third-best tackler in the MEAC last fall. The Bulldogs’ only losses last year were a 38-14 loss at South Carolina (the game was tied 10-10 at half), and by a 20-13 score to Appalachian State in the FCS playoffs, when the Moun-taineers returned a fumble in the 4th quarter for the game winner.

9. what should i know about kansas?Everything is new for KU. The

Jayhawks hired Turner Gill as their new head coach after his fine work the last two years at Buffalo. Kansas lost their all-time passing leader Todd Reesing (11,194 yds.) and their all-time leading receiver Dezmon Briscoe (3,240 yds.) to graduation. The Jayhawks’ number two receiver, Kerry Meier, caught 103 passes, but finished with 352 yards less than Briscoe. Meier was a 5th-round draft pick of the Atlanta Falcons. Sopho-more Kale Pick looks to have won the QB job in spring, but the run game will be keyed by 240-pound sophomore Toben Opurum. Six starters return on defense. Carl Tor-bush is Gill’s defensive coordinator. He was in the same role at Missis-sippi State last year when the Jackets won a 42-31 shootout.

10.what should i know about middle tennessee State?

Middle Tennessee State went 10-3 last year and defeated Southern Miss in the New Orleans Bowl (42-32). The Blue Raiders return 14 starters including one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in major college foot-ball, Dwight Dasher. In their bowl win, he rushed for 201 yards, passed for 162 yards and accounted for four touchdowns. MTSU lost at Clemson to open 2009, but has beaten Mary-land each of the last two years. This is the first of three straight meetings with the Blue Raiders. The Jackets travel to Murfreesboro next fall.

10 questions about the acc…1. how big is the opening weekend for the “national image” of the acc?

It is my opinion that the ACC cannot afford to have Virginia Tech, North Carolina and possibly Mary-land lose in the first weekend of the regular season. First, if those three lose, then it makes Florida State’s trip to Oklahoma and Miami’s visit to Ohio State the next weekend abso-lute “must wins” for the ACC. There are other games that will factor in as well (Clemson at Auburn, Georgia Tech at Kansas, Wake Forest at Stan-ford), but a third straight bad start by the ACC on a national stage on the heels of summer expansion and realignment would not be good.

2. what’s the most important non-conference game for the acc?

Without question, Labor Day night when Virginia Tech plays Boise State at FedEx Field. A win by the Hokies does two things. It puts the ACC in good shape nationally and it would be a huge blow to the Broncos’

possible BCS title hopes. The Hok-ies are the highest rated ACC team in the pre-season polls, and need to hold up the conference rep against the Broncos. The other 11 schools need the Hokies to win that night as much as the Hokies want to win.

3. who is the best player in the acc that doesn’t get a lot of recognition nationally?

Florida State guard Rodney Hudson is arguably the top linemen in the nation. He won the Jacobs Blocking Trophy in the ACC, but of the last de-cade he’s one of the best line-men in the conference. The reigning “Rookie of the Year”, BC linebacker Luke Kuechly had 158 tackles last year, which was the 2nd best number in all of FBS football.

4. bc linebacker mark herzlich returns to football this year after missing 2009. is he a difference maker?

Herzlich’s battle against cancer last fall is one of the most inspiring ACC stories since Jim Valvano nearly 20 years ago. Herzlich was the 2008 ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and has 30 career starts. With Kue-chly and Mike Morrissey along side, he could be the key in the Eagles returning to the ACC title game.

5. kyle Parker turned down a reported $2.4 million from the colorado rockies to keep playing football. Good idea?

I admire Parker’s passion for foot-ball, but I’m sure his decision might have been based on having four starters back in the offensive line too. The Tigers lost game changers C.J. Spiller and Jacoby Ford, but should be steady with Andre Elling-ton (7.2 yards per carry). The Tigers have six starters back on defense, including three of four starters on the line.

6. Georgia tech plays clemson, Virginia tech and miami in a four-week span. who has the toughest stretch in the acc schedule?

The Jackets might have the tough-est three-game stretch, but the Hokies play Georgia Tech, Carolina and Miami in a row, all in November, which could be a critical month for

several conference teams. Miami plays at Ohio State in Week Two, then after an open date, goes to Pitt, travels to Clemson, then hosts FSU.

7. most bizarre schedule quirks?Five days after playing Boise

State, Virginia Tech is hosting James Madison in Blacksburg. They should win, but it’s a fast turnaround. Wake

Forest is playing Stanford in Palo Alto on September

18. Kickoff is 11:05 p.m. eastern time.

The follow-ing week the

Deacons go to Florida State. The Deacons will have to manage their prac-tice work carefully during

those two weeks.

8. what are the biggest, most

impactful acc games outside of ones involving

Georgia tech?Here is one for each month: Sep-

tember 25, Virginia Tech at Boston College. October 9, Florida State at Miami. November 20, Virginia Tech at Miami. “Darkhorse Game”: Octo-ber 23: Carolina at Miami.

9. what rule change this year will im-pact the game most?

Last year, the NFL went to a maximum 3-man wedge on kickoff returns. This year, the college game does the same. The difference in the NFL was marginal from the year before. The change in the college game could be bigger simply because there are wider gaps of special teams play in the college game. Don’t be surprised if return yardage is down the first month because of the new rule.

10. is charlotte the best spot for the acc title game?

Of the three locations the ACC has used in its first six years of a title game, Charlotte is the most central by far. The fact that the Meineke Car Care Bowl has done well since its inception helps as well. But the real reason the game has the best chance in that market is because it is drive-able for most of the conference membership. Only Boston College and Miami have more than a 6-hour trip to Charlotte from their campus.

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FroM Greene counTY To norTh aVenueJoshua Nesbitt’s toughNess aNd competitiveNess came from early days iN rural georgia

I It all starts on Hensley Road.A curving, wooded thoroughfare

that connects the northern reaches of what could be considered “subur-ban” Greensboro, Ga. to Highway 77 and its pathway to all parts of Northeast, Middle and South Geor-gia, the road was the place where Joshua Nesbitt’s football instincts were born.

For years, on this patch of rural pavement, which also dips into a corner of the Oconee National For-est, the young man who eventually would be dubbed “The Warrior,” got his gridiron baptism by fire.

Two-hand touch, full on tackle, for kids living in the backwoods of the east side of the Peach State it didn’t matter how the game was played, all they cared about was hav-ing fun. And they truly only seemed to care about the type of tough, hard-nosed, intense, chest hair-growing fun that only adolescent boys can understand.

“Growing up on Hensley Road, that’s all that is. It’s just what we did,” said the now 22-year-old Nesbitt, recalling days of his even younger youth. “We were outside all day, and just played in the road playing football.

“We were just tough kids.”

Now that same gritty toughness the pee wee ver-sion of himself once showed on a regular afternoon basis has trans-lated all the way to the college game, where “The War-rior” — an often quiet, unassuming yet doggedly determined competitor — has led his tribe to a virtual foot-

ball Promised Land, and is anxious to get back.

Georgia Tech’s starting quar-terback, Nesbitt is mere months away from having willed the Yellow Jackets to an 11-3 season, a confer-ence championship and a first-ever BCS bowl berth. The gritty signal-caller who it seems has never found a patch of grass he didn’t know how to get up from, was even named this preseason to the Davey O’Brien watch list, and has been dubbed by columnists and analysts alike as the lone quarterback in the country who could completely carry his team to victory.

Watching him wriggle free on a gutsy, ultimately game-winning fourth-and-one conversion inside the five-yard line in overtime against Wake Forest last season helped con-vince them of that. Not to mention, there was that time when it looked like his running back had turned

the ball over to a Florida State defender, but yet somehow, Nesbitt flung his hands into the player and snatched the ball right back in the sort of brazen robbery that got him highlighted on football shows for weeks.

It was that sort of never-say-die, never-say-quit focus and leader-ship that earned him the unofficial nickname “War-rior” last fall, and which got his teammates standing behind

his every rallying cry. And to think, after building up such an extensive resume a year ago, he might be poised to shatter those marks with

even more impressive moments this coming season.

“It’ll be his best year,” junior A-back Roddy Jones said about Nesbitt’s 2010. “I don’t know if he’ll rush for as many yards or if he’ll pass for as many yards, but he’ll definitely run the offense better and we’ll be more efficient. He’s going to make the best decisions he’s ever made.

“He’s just going to be better in every phase of the game; managing the offense, managing the guys. That just comes with experience. As long as we’ve got him, we’ve got a chance to win.”

As a junior, Nesbitt etched his name into the Georgia Tech history books by becoming the first quarter-back at the school to rush for 1,000 yards and pass for 1,000 in the same season (he was just the 49th player in NCAA history to accomplish that dual feat). Along with B-back Jonathan Dwyer, he also formed the most prolific two-man rushing com-bination in Jackets lore, as the pair dashed for a record book-best 2,432 yards in 2009. That is the most yards

gained in a season by any duo in school history.

Sure, it helps that Nesbitt runs head coach Paul Johnson’s run-based spread option scheme. And sure, it helped that he had a first-round draft pick in Demaryius Thomas hauling in passes at receiver to push him over the 1,000-yard passing plateau. But consider that in this offense, Nesbitt must make mul-tiple reads and decisions with every snap, and his rushing attempts in one game can approach 30. The fact that he can routinely get up instantly after being thrown to the ground by 300-pound defensive linemen is astonishing in and of itself.

“In a way it’s kind of good being in this system,” Nesbitt said of John-son’s unique offense. “You have to prove yourself every time you go out on the field. And that’s good because you know you have to be able to stay on your Ps and Qs.

“You have to prove yourself be-cause you’re not doing what a nor-mal quarterback would do when he’s playing football; you’re having to do

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“ You have to prove yourself because you’re not doing what a normal quarterback would do when he’s play-ing football; you’re having to do more. You have to do more running. And it just benefits you all over.”

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more. You have to do more running. And it just benefits you all over.”

Apparently, it benefits the team, too. With a quarterback with the ex-pansive skill set of a guy like Nesbitt, the Jackets’ offense can operate at a high level of fluidity, Jones argues.

“We’ll be more efficient just be-cause his knowledge of the offense is so much better,” Jones said.

As strange as it sounds, much of that was aided by offseason surgery Nesbitt elected to have, Jones said. After doctors went in to clean up and re-patch one of Nesbitt’s bum ankles last January, the quarterback be-came part professor, part pupil.

Even a protective boot cast and a red no-contact jersey couldn’t prevent him from being a part of the action when official offseason workouts began in March. Although he was standing on the side of the field, Nesbitt was often directing traffic, Jones said, as if he never left the huddle.

“In the spring, when he wasn’t practicing, he was taking mental reps every time he got the chance, or watching 7-on-7s, or correcting guys,” Jones said. “He was help-ing guys out in the option or other aspects of practicing. He was very involved the whole way through.”

Perhaps his thorough involve-ment should come as no surprise. To hear other Jackets tell it, Nesbitt’s drive to succeed and to help them succeed has always been great.

When interviewed for this story, several of Nesbitt’s teammates were asked about the moment they first realized he was the team’s true lead-er. While most picked fairly recent on-field moments, receiver Tyler Melton went back the furthest.

“I’d say when he first stepped on the campus in 2007 over the sum-mer. That’s when I saw it,” Melton said. “It was just the presence about him. He makes you feel welcome, all around. He made everyone all around him feel welcome. And at the same time, he had that leadership; that eye-of-the-tiger that just looked to be about just business.”

A year later, while given full con-trol of Johnson’s offense during the coach’s first year on the Flats, Nes-bitt gave Jones his moment.

It was at Boston College, early in the 2008 campaign, when few believed the Jackets could compete on the national level, let alone in the ACC. That afternoon, with Nesbitt and Dwyer propelling Georgia Tech to a key early-season win – the first ACC game under Johnson -- Jones said he knew his quarterback was the focal point of the team.

That led to last season and the moment other players most com-monly named Nesbitt’s time of crowning glory.

Playing conference rival Clemson at home during a nationally televised contest, Nesbitt winced briefly as he saw his team lose an early lead. Fall-ing behind 27-24 with less than 12 minutes to play, he could have cow-ered to the anxiety of the moment and lost his poise. Instead, he did something he rarely does.

He smiled.“He came up to us in the huddle

and he was just like, ‘Alright, guys, let’s calm down and just play foot-ball, let’s just have some fun.’ And he smiled,” running back Anthony Allen said. “Usually, if you know Joshua, you know he doesn’t smile during games. But he smiled, and

I just said, ‘Yeah, this guy, he’s got it right here.’ He just knew. He just knew what was going to go on. He was very comfortable. That made me feel comfortable.”

While the Georgia Tech offense didn’t score a touchdown the re-

mainder of the game, the unit did progress far enough downfield to put place-kicker Scott Blair in prime position to sink a pair of field goals from inside 40 yards that propelled the Jackets to the big early-season victory.

That never-say-die, never-say-quit focus and leadership was born into Nesbitt a long time ago.

It was born into him on Hensley Road.

Now, those years of nicks and cuts and scrapes from playing in the street have manifested to the point that pain and sacrifice truly find no refuge in his lean, yet bulky body. It is for those reasons alone that 2010 may just be the year the quarterback not only takes his team back to a championship game, but wins it and wins the game to follow.

“I’ve prepared for this to be my best year,” Nesbitt said. “I feel like I’m just in the best shape of my life; physically and mentally. After my surgery, it’s just about me knowing where I have to get to, what I have to do and just being willing to sacrifice a lot.” ■

coley harvey writes for the macon telegraph.

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8 the buzz

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Groh-InG deep on deFenseNew coordiNator aNd scheme briNg coNfideNce to Jackets

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IIt was a day like many in the gray of winter, which is say dull on the outside.

Yet inside, Ben Anderson was alight. His nerve endings tingled.He had missed the Orange Bowl some 10 days earlier, but like many inside

and out of the Georgia Tech program he knew well that the defense for which he started the first 12 games at defensive tackle before wrenching a knee was about to be wrenched as well.

The Yellow Jackets won the ACC title, but needed an overhaul. They’d been pushed around too easily, scored upon too often. Al Groh, known to wield a shovel before players, was hired on Jan. 15 to help the Tech defense to dig itself out of trouble.

“I was excited because I knew of him, and a little worried too, because I didn’t know whether I was going to be inside or outside,” Anderson said. “I was assuming that I would play end, but I may play both.”

Tech defenders needed to be made nervous and excited. Versatility will be a word often associated with Groh’s 3-4 defense, and it

will go beyond the flexibility afforded by having one more linebacker and one less lineman.

Confidence is critical, too, even more so than scheme.Tech defenders the past couple seasons seemed troubled by a crisis of con-

fidence. A shortage of faith in their formula may have kept them from execut-ing to their peak abilities.

Enter Groh, 66, who will run across the practice field to get in your face to make a point, or slow practice if it strikes him as a more effective method of letting something sink in.

With 13 years of NFL experience, including a year spent as head coach of the Jets (who trained just miles from his childhood home of Manhasset, N.Y., on the north shore of Long Island), and 29 in the college ranks, he’s been around, seen a few things.

He knows after spending the past nine seasons as head coach at Virginia, and from serving as head coach at Wake Forest from 1981-’86 that he needs players to believe.

“I think it’s ultimately important,” said head coach Paul Johnson, who hired Groh just days after he had interviewed with four-time previous boss Bill Parcells for the Miami Dolphins’ defensive coordinator position. “If

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[players] don’t believe in what you’re doing, it’s not going to be very suc-cessful.

“I don’t think you can survive if they don’t believe you’ve got a chance to do it. I want to make sure we don’t push all that off on Dave Wommack because Dave was a good guy, and a good coach. It wasn’t all Dave’s fault. We had issues. It wasn’t that what he was doing wasn’t sound . . . I think the kids had lost some confidence.”

Groh seems at least from a dis-tance to be reveling as a coordina-tor, un-burdened of many oversight responsibilities. He said as much last winter, at a signing day party in the Tech football.

“I am just being me,” he said. “I am trying to coach the same way that I have always coached.

That covers a lot of coaching. “As defensive coordinator, I am

often asked to be the spokesman for the defense and I understand that, but it’s important to understand that (defensive line coach and recruit-ing coordinator) Andy McCollum, (linebackers coach) Joe Speed and (secondary coach) Charles Kelly work extremely hard as defensive coaches.”

After one year as a high school as-sistant, he met Parcells and worked with him as a fellow assistant at Army. He later worked with Parcells at Air Force, and with the Giants (winning a Super Bowl title), Patri-ots and Jets.

If there is another coach with such depth of background, he’s well hidden.

Groh’s calling cards are those numbers, 3 and 4, and a drip-drip-drip steady approach to so much of what he does.

The 3-4 is the defense into which he recruited and coached outside linebacker Lawrence Taylor at North

Carolina and with the Giants.Tech will favor a two-gap system

that asks linemen like Anderson to usually line head-up over offensive linemen and be responsible for gaps on either side.

Some practitioners of the 3-4, like Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips, prefer a one-gap system and gamble more out of it.

Sack numbers might be higher that way, but big plays should be re-duced with Groh’s two-gap approach as it tends to free linebackers to react a tad quicker.

“It may look different pre-snap, but once the play happens it looks largely the same,” said safety Cooper Taylor. “I think we’re going to have an answer for everything. Having one more skill guy instead of a defen-sive lineman . . . you’re always going to have more versatility. What we sort of lacked that last year.”

Legendary former Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson is considered by many the forefather of the 3-4, although as with many conventions in football, roots can be traced sev-eral directions.

“All of us grew up on the same principles,” Groh said of 3-4 coach-es. “There’s a lot of movement in-volved in this defense, other fronts, other alignments. We’re not in this the whole time, but our core stems from defeating blocks.

“The fastest way the team scores points is big plays. The elimination of big plays is right on the top of the list of things that we have to get ac-complished. That is ingrained in our philosophy.”

Testimonials suggest that it would be imprudent to misgauge Groh by his senior status. Players speak of seeing him working out at various hours.

“If you mess up, he’ll run up there,” said inside linebacker Brad

Jefferson. “When he’s describing how to take on a block, he might run up and really hit you.”

Outside linebacker Anthony Eg-buniwe explained that Groh will “get on your butt” if necessary, or “give you encouragement if you need it.”

Linebackers -- whom Groh helps coach -- have the closest view.

Anderson said Tech’s new defen-sive coordinator “spends a lot of time trying to make sure everybody gets everything. He’s real good at slowing things down. He’s definitely different, especially from coach (Jon) Tenuta because everybody knows how intense he is.

“They’re all great, just different.”Groh is different in his steadfast

refusal to either beat his chest in triumph nor brood in defeat.

He led Virginia to five bowl games in his first seven seasons as head coach, but the Cavaliers struggled the past two seasons. He was fired following the season.

Soon, Johnson called, and “I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ He

said, ‘I want to stay in coaching. So I thought if I make a change, that’s somebody I ought to talk to. I like the 3-4, but that wasn’t the deter-mining factor.

“We ran the 3-4 at Navy, and at Georgia Southern, but it was differ-ent version.”

Groh’s breadth of experience was the determining factor a couple months later when he was hired at Tech. It is the fourth ACC school and eighth college at which he’s worked in addition to stints with the NFL’s Falcons, Giants, Browns, Patriots and Jets.

The man is a coach in full. He does not resort to either a scorched-earth or kid gloves approach unilat-erally. Rather, he fears neither and uses measures of each.

In 2008, he fired his offensive co-ordinator at Virginia. Son Mike had also played quarterback for the Cavs, but Dad sent him packing. Mike is now coaching at Louisville.

By contrast, the Patriots were struggling in ’94, when Groh was

Outside linebacker Anthony Egbuniwe is one of the players who could benefit by the switch to the 3-4 defense.

11www.ramblinwreck.com

their defensive coordinator. Saddled with a 3-6 record, he and son Mat-thew, then 12, went through the garage looking for a shovel.

They found the tool, and Groh plowed it into the earth in front of his defenders. “We’ve got to dig ourselves out of this hole,” he told the professionals, according to a New York Times story.

The Patriots won their final seven games with improved defense.

‘’The shovel took on a celebrity of its own,” Matthew Groh told the New York Times. “I have T-shirts with the shovel on it.’’

Coach is plowing again, on The Flats.

“We are in a routine and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, we just keep grinding our way forward,” he said of building Tech’s new de-fense. “We meet, install, go to prac-tice, come back at night, make cor-rections, go to bed, meet and install, practice, make corrections, go to bed, one foot in front of the other.”

Johnson, a well-known golfer, was asked what he’s seen of his new co-ordinator’s hobbies, whether he hits the links. The Boss offered nothing. Seven months, and here’s what Paul Johnson has seen: “I don’t know what he has other than football; that’s all I’ve seen.”

Lest one believe that Groh can be typecast as something so simple as a ball coach, consider his appraisal

of himself. Moments after a season-ending loss to Virginia Tech and before his firing last fall, it became a little easier to take measure of the man.

After the humbling loss to the Hokies, he read aloud a poem titled, “The Guy in the Glass.”

The poem by the late Dale Wim-brow, which all of us might do well to Google, is about setting and striving to meet one’s own standard of ac-countability. Here is an excerpt:

For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,

Whose judgment you must pass.

The feller whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the guy staring back from the glass.

Groh, who had already read the poem to his players, was comfortable with what he saw in the mirror. He told reporters this:

“When I visited the guy in the glass, I saw that he’s a guy of com-mitment, of integrity, of dependabil-ity and accountability. He’s loyal, his spirit is indomitable and he’s caring and loving. I’m sure I will always call the guy in the glass a friend.” ■

Senior inside linebacker Brad Jefferson is a veteran and vocal leader of the defense.

12 the buzz

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Q&a wITh paul hewITTBKbAsketbAll

TJust a few weeks removed from a

month and a half traveling while as-sisting the U.S. 18-and-under basket-ball squad that won a gold medal in the FIBA Americas championships in San Antonio and then recruiting for Georgia Tech, men’s basketball coach Paul Hewitt was recently trav-eling again. Buzz Magazine caught up with him when he was on the West Coast on vacation with his fam-ily. In a couple months, Hewitt will begin his 11th season as head coach of the Yellow Jackets, but there’s more to his life than hoops.

q: it seems like a modern trend in these sports journalism interviews to ask what’s on your bucket list. do you have one?

A: Not right now. With my time away from basketball, I love spend-ing time with my family, traveling with my family. We went to a wed-ding in Washington D.C. Memorial Day weekend. It was [the wedding of] a childhood friend of mine. I love to travel with my kids [daughters Olivia, Danielle and Kayla]. We just did the Pacific Coast Highway. Usually, we do something in the islands. We’ve gone to London, and shown them where their mother [wife Dawnette] grew up. We’ve been to Geneva, Switzerland, to see Dawnette’s aunt. Maybe one day, when everything slows down [he’ll assemble a list].

q: what else have you done with your family in california?

A: We started in San Francisco. I caught a Giants-Dodgers game there. We drove down the Pacific Coast Highway. In L.A., I went to Del Mar with my dad and got to see Zenyatta, one of the greatest horses ever, run. That was a privilege. The kids love spending time with their uncle in L.A.

q: You the type to dive into a book on a road trip?

A: I wouldn’t call myself a big reader, but when I get onto a book that I really like, I’ll jump in. I’ve just started, ‘Training Camp,’ [by Jon Gordon]. [Cleveland State head coach] Gary Waters recommended it. When it comes to reading, I’m still a fan of newspapers. When I travel, one of my favorite things to do is get the paper and read. I have some favorite writers, [Mike] Lupica

[of the New York Daily News], [Bill Plaschke [of the L.A. Times], [Peter] Vescey is sometimes controversial but has great information for the New York Post. [Michael] Wilbon [of the Washington Post], John Small-wood [of the Philadelphia Daily News]. I guess instead of reading books, I love reading newspapers.

q: when you’re not traveling, do you make a special effort to find your fa-vorite writers on the internet?

A: Pretty much every day I go on ussportspages.com.

q: as you’ve chosen these writers over the years, as you choose writers to fol-low now, what criteria do you have?

A: I get good information from them. Another very good writer, and a good friend for years, is Gwen Knapp. She writes for the San Fran-cisco Chronicle. I had dinner with her the other day, and had a chance the next day to read her story or column. It was about a rookie of-fensive lineman in the San Francisco 49ers’ training camp. It had insight about the position he’s playing, the type of person he was, the things going on inside camp. I enjoy read-ing columns like that where I learn something instead of a reading a prediction or a post mortem. I love sports.

One little nugget she threw in there was that he attacked [in pass protection]. If you reach out [as an offensive lineman], you get beat. I thought about that; I didn’t know. She wrote about how he deflects things, like if he is being compli-mented. This is what I think is miss-ing . . . I search around the country looking for writers.

q: what have you learned through par-enting your children that you are able to apply to your job?

A: That it doesn’t matter where kids come from, they’re going to be different. My kids are very different from each other. I look at players, and regardless of how I talk to them, in back of my mind I’m thinking that they’re going to process it dif-ferently.

q: what if anything can you take from your job and apply to parenting?

A: That I think kids react better, and they’re more productive when

you set standards. Leniency will lead to sloppiness and laziness. I think structure leads to more consistently high levels of achievement.

q: what’s on tV?A: CNN or ESPN.

q: any shows that your family watches that you do not tolerate?

A: Any reality TV. If I see any of those, ‘Real Housewives of . . . ’ whatever on the TV, I’m going to say, ‘No, you’re not watching that.’ The only [reality type] shows I’ll tol-erate are Food Network and the like.

q: is cooking a passion?A: I wouldn’t call it a passion, but

when I do have time, I like to cook, especially on the grill. I like to try different seasonings, different spices . . . usually Mediterranean.

q: two or three examples: what might you be doing now if you hadn’t chosen coaching as a profession?

A: Definitely teaching. I love history. I could have seen myself as a history teacher. Writing . . . and sports. I don’t care if it’s horse racing, basketball, baseball . . . I love sports. Maybe counseling in a school.

q: do you have any superstitions that relate to your job or otherwise?

A: Not really. If I see a heads-up penny, I’m picking it up.

q: it’s no secret that you love the new York Yankees, which makes some sense given that you grew up in west-bury, n.Y. how did that passion come about?

A: I started watching them around 1970, especially 1972, and they weren’t very good with players like Gene “Stick” Michael and Horace Clarke in the middle infield. Thur-man Munson had been [AL] Rookie of the Year [in ‘70], and Ron Blom-berg (formerly of Druid Hills High School) had been the first designated hitter [in ‘73]. Getting to meet him was one of my great thrills. George Steinbrenner buys them [in ‘73], and they were playing at Shea Stadium in 1974 [and ‘75] while they were renovating Yankee Stadium. Elliott Maddox was having a great year until he stepped on a drain [and sued the Yankees, the Mets and the city of New York over a knee injury]. They lose to the Reds [in the ’76 World Series], then get Reggie Jackson and win with the great year in [’77 over the Dodgers].

I think honestly because my dad was a Mets fan I went the other way. He’s Mets-Rangers-Jets, and I’m Yankees-Islanders-Giants. It’s made for some great dinner time conversation. At the end of the day . . . one of my big sports thrills is I remember watching the Rangers win the Stanley Cup [in ’94, breaking a 54-year championship drought]. I was in Philadelphia at the time, and I watched while Dawnette was in the other room; she could not care less about hockey. And called my dad

bY matt winkelJohn

Spending time with his wife, Dawnette, and his daughters, Danielle, Olivia and Kayla, is Hewitt’s favorite thing to do.

14 the buzz

and said, ‘You finally got one,’ after my Islanders had won four straight [from ’80-‘83]. It was a really cool moment watching the Garden erupt.

q: we’ll stay with the new York vibe. alex rodriguez of the Yankees recently became the youngest player to hit 600 career home runs yet . . . is a-rod under-appreciated?

A: I actually think he’s appreci-ated about right. I think given the steroids stuff and some of the things he said before he got to New York . . . I just think there have been some things where people can say, ‘What’s up with this guy?’ He’s a great player, a great player, but I think the steroid thing is going to be hanging over him for a long time.

q: even with the steroid haze, do you think that a-rod would be looked at differently by the public at large if he had never left Seattle as a player?

A: No question about it. There’s no question about it. There’s some-thing in sports where if you’re loyal to the end and try to win it where you started, people will be more favor-able toward you.

q: Similarly, did lebron James create extra pressure or change the kind of pressure he’ll be under by cherry pick-ing a great team in joining dwyane wade and [former hewitt recruit and tech standout] chris bosh in miami rather than staying with his “home-town” cleveland cavaliers?

A: It will be interesting to see what happens with LeBron. He will be viewed differently than if he had stayed in Cleveland. In some ways, he’s really ratcheted up the pres-sure on himself. It’s a lot different than Chris Bosh. A lot of people realize Chris gave it his all [with the Toronto Raptors]. [The Cavs] had the best record, and I think some people think [James] ducked out on the verge of something big that was about to happen.

LeBron did what he had to do for himself and his family. I do think it’s a little unfair [the way some fans have reacted]. He fulfilled his contract, his team was great last year with 66 wins. From a professional standpoint, if he wanted to take the easy way he could have gone back to Cleveland. The only thing that can make this decision right is to win multiple championships.

q: did you speak with chris before this went down, or since?

A: I talked to him before, but not in a counseling way. I’ve talked to his mom since then, and we’ve texted. He made his decision as I was flying back from Germany, and we’ve been on the road. Once I get back to Atlanta, I’ll call. I talked to his mom before, and teased her about him going to the Knicks, and then I told Capel he was going to Miami. We were coaching [the U.S. 18 and under team] while a lot of this was going on. She didn’t come right out and say it, but I guessed.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Not necessarily.

MaChelle Joseph can tell you everything she did in las Vegas with a non-poker face: watch basketball and sleep. And much more of the former than the latter.

the month of July may very well be the busiest month of the year for college basketball coaches of both genders. that’s because the NCAA allows coaches 18 basketball-filled days and nights to evaluate prospects in non-scholastic (i.e. AAU) tournaments.

At tournaments like the ones Joseph attended in las Vegas and orlando, coaches wearing clothing with logos of their respective schools flock to catch a glimpse of future stars, and for future stars to catch a glimpse of them.

typically, games begin in the morning and don’t end until late at night. So don’t bother asking Joseph if she caught the show at the MGM or rolled the dice down at Binion’s. this was a working trip for the Georgia tech head coach.

las Vegas was just one of Joseph’s multi-city July stops. She has the frequent flier miles and passport stamps to prove it. In a three-week span, she travelled more than 16,000 miles.

Below is a brief look at Joseph’s July travel schedule:

July 6th — Atlanta July 7th — Irvine, Cal. July 8th — Drove from Irvine, through Mojave Desert, to las Vegas July 9th — las Vegas July 10th — las Vegas July 11th — Redeye flight from las Vegas to orlando July 12th — orlando, fla. July 13th — orlando, fla. July 14th — orlando, fla. July 15th — orlando, fla. July 16th — Atlanta (met with team and staff) July 17-21 — Rome and Venice, Italy July 22nd — liepaja, latvia (U20 fIBA european Championships) July 23rd — liepaja, latvia July 24th — liepaja, latvia July 25th — liepaja, latvia July 26-31 — Atlanta and Augusta

Joseph on her JulY TraVelsFavorite city visited: Venice, italyBest restaurant: eiffel tower restaurant in paris hotel in las VegasWorst meal: latvian food in airportBest hotel: aria hotel in las VegasA tourist attraction you had time to see: the pantheon in romeWorst flight and why: air baltic flight from latvia to paris - too early in the

morning!Best game you witnessed: Danielle hamilton-carter and frida fogdemark play-

ing for sweden vs. Germany in fiba u20 european championships. Dani had 20 points, and frida had 12 rebounds.Hewitt and his father share a passion for New York sports, but not necessarily the same

teams.

15www.ramblinwreck.com

undenIable. unbeaTable. unbelIeVable.20 years after wiNNiNg the NatioNal champioNship, georgia tech’s reuNioN of the 1990 team will be special, iNdeed

TTheir reunion, like these Jackets

themselves, can’t be beat. Indeed, has there ever been a better reason to reconvene on the Flats than this?

The 20th anniversary celebra-tion of Georgia Tech’s 1990 football national championship. The second weekend in November. The cen-terpiece: Saturday, November 13. Bobby Dodd Stadium. Georgia Tech, the reigning ACC champion, versus Miami. Be there. Joe Siffri will.

“Those were the days, man,” said Siffri, a first-team All-ACC senior guard in 1990. “I can’t wait to see the guys again.”

Neither can Marco Coleman and Mark Hutto. Scott Sisson and Tom Covington. Each and every full mettle Jacket from that fall of ’90. Even Homer Rice and Boss Ross, as head coach Bobby Ross was known on campus back in the heyday.

“My most vivid memory?” Ross said over the phone from his home in Lexington, Va. “Winning every-thing. A real, real, real fun memory. Oh yeah, I’m really looking forward to seeing all the guys.”

Reunited, and it feels so good. Real, real, real good. Oh yeah.

“The camaraderie, the relation-ships. That’s what I remember most about that team,” Coleman said. “Only a few guys off that team went on to play professionally, but it was really ‘The Team.’”

An All-American outside line-backer in 1990 and ’91, Coleman was the first-round draft pick (12th overall) of the Miami Dolphins in 1992. He played for 14 NFL seasons,

for six teams.If pro football provided a lucrative

living for Coleman and his family, and now a comfortable retirement, it was nowhere near as enjoyable or satisfying as that championship season on the Flats. “That,” he said from his home in St. Augustine, Fla., “was definitely the best time I had playing football.”

For Homer Rice, then Tech’s ath-letic director, now and forever a foot-ball man, 1990 was “The ultimate for me. Football is my sport.”

For Siffri, as rewarding and as the ’90 title season was, it’s also why he gave up the game for good. That autumn was as good as it gets. “I had no inter-est in playing football any more [profes-sionally],” Siffri said. “I wanted to play for Geor-gia Tech again.”

And for Ross, now 20 years and three coaching jobs removed from the Flats, 1990 remains the high-light and crowning achievement of a star-spangled coaching career.

“I would have to say it is,” said Ross, who abruptly resigned from Tech a year later to become head coach of the NFL San Diego Char-gers. His time there included an unexpected trip to Super Bowl XXIX in 1995 and a 49-26 beat-down by

San Francisco.“But we won this,” Ross said of

Tech’s 1990 title. It was the fourth national championship in the Insti-tute’s annals, the Jackets’ first since 1952, surely its most unlikely and likely the most cherished.

“We didn’t win the Super Bowl [with] San Diego,” Ross said, “but we won the national championship at Georgia Tech. And there’s only one [champion] a year.”

Not that year. Actually, there were two national champs in 1990: Colorado, which finished atop the Associated Press poll as voted by the sportswriters. And Tech, which an-

nihilated Ne-braska 45-21 in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando to finish 11-0-1, the nation’s only unbeaten team. Not until the Jackets returned to Atlanta the next day, Jan. 2, did they learn they’d edged once-

beaten Colorado by a single point in the dramatic voting for the final UPI coaches poll.

Never mind that in their first three games, the Buffaloes had tied Tennessee and lost at Illinois. They ran off 10 consecutive wins but needed an extra down, scoring on a mistaken fifth down at the goal line to beat Missouri 33-31 as time

expired. That gaffe by the officiating crew wouldn’t happen in these days of instant replay and coaching chal-lenges.

In the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Night, hours after Tech trounced Nebraska, Colorado needed a con-troversial penalty flag – “Clipping, Notre Dame” – to nullify a late TD punt return by Rocket Ismail that would’ve upset Colorado and made Georgia Tech a consensus No. 1 in both polls. Instead, the Buffaloes won 10-9, and finished No. 1 the next morning in the final AP poll.

“The reputation of the conferenc-es had a lot to do with that. Colorado definitely wasn’t as dominant a team all year as we were,” said Coleman. “But people said, ‘Oh, the ACC is a basketball conference and the Big 12 is football.’ I think that’s why there was a split. The coaches know; they saw us play and voted for us. The writers, they never played football. They didn’t know.”

Siffri recalls that when the Jackets flew back home to Atlanta the next day, and a TV sportscaster asked him about being co-champions with Col-orado, he replied, “I’d much rather have a poll where the coaches voted on it than sportswriters.” He paused in the re-telling, then laughed and said, “Of course, if the writers had voted for us, I would’ve said the same thing about them!”

Translation: Any championship would do. Especially after every-thing the Jackets had endured. Start-ing with…

■ A 2-9 struggle in 1987, Ross’s

bY Jack wilkinSon

fbfootbAll

16 the buzz

tech’s 21-19 win over clemson made the Yellow Jackets 5-0 and bumped them to 11th in the national rankings.

first on the Flats after his predeces-sor, Georgia Tech alum Bill Curry – at the urging of his former coach, the legendary Bobby Dodd – took the job at Alabama. “You can win a national championship there,” Dodd advised. Curry didn’t, but Ross won one at Tech. Yet not before…

■ A 3-8 record in 1988 that dis-heartened Boss Ross even further, and left a freshman backup quar-terback wondering, “What have I gotten myself into?” Two years later, Shawn Jones, with offensive coordi-nator Ralph Friedgen orchestrating, would run the most explosive Tech offense in years. Yet not before…

■ An 0-3 start in ’89 left Ross despondent, severely depressed and on the verge of quitting. Again. The Monday after a 21-10 loss at un-ranked South Carolina, having lost 16 consecutive conference games, having beaten just one I-A team in nearly two-and-a-half seasons, a sloppy start to practice prompted Ross to call a halt and order every-one inside to the team meeting room. As Ross told me for “Focused on the Top,” a book about the rise and run to the 1990 national cham-pionship, he told his players:

“Look, I’m getting tired of this. It isn’t worth it to me. We’ve worked

very hard to get to this point as a team and I think we’re a pretty good team physically and about ready to be a good football team. And I think I know what I’m talking about. But I am tired of being a Gestapo agent. I’m telling you to get to the weight workouts, to get to class. Those things are as important to me as win-ning football games. They’re impor-tant to winning football games. You don’t win doing things this way…

“Now you sit in here and hash it out and decide what you want to do. If you don’t want to do it and if you can’t do it, then let me know and I’m gonna leave.”

Now, as then, Ross says, “I was dead serious. I was fed up with it.”

The players listened up, wised up and buckled down. They got it. That Saturday, Jones rallied Tech from a 14-0 deficit to edge Maryland, 28-24. The Jackets’ first ACC win since November 1, 1986, ended a 16-game ACC losing streak and was the first of seven Tech wins in its last eight games.

The Jackets concluded the season with a 33-22 victory over Georgia to finish 7-4, 4-3 in the ACC.

However, “We’d beaten Georgia,” Siffri said, “but they went to the Peach Bowl and we went to the Zero

Bowl.” That insult only served as further motivation for 1990.

Still, could anyone have imagined a run to a national championship? “That’s probably like a fish story,” said Mark Hutto, a senior backup guard behind his buddies – and still good friends – Siffri and Jim Lavin. “People tell you that. But we [just] wanted to win the conference.”

For openers? N.C. State, one of three ACC teams that Tech, under Ross, hadn’t beaten. “A vendetta,” recalled defensive tackle and captain Jerimiah McClary. “The hottest game I ever played,” said safety Thomas Balkcom, who grew up in Miami and claimed the on-field temperature of 105 was 118. Yet not nearly as hot as Jones and Tech’s offense, who overcame an early 10-0 deficit and sizzled in the fourth quar-ter of a 21-13 win.

“There are four games,” Ross says, “that really stand out in that season.

■ “Number one, Clemson: As tough a grind as any game I’ve ever been a part of. Every yard was tough. We hung in there and won a very gritty game.” A spectacular TD catch by Greg Lester had Tech up 14-3 at halftime. But Ross turned conservative and Clemson’s Chris

Gardocki’s fourth field goal cut it to 14-12. Walk-on Kevin “Cut It Up” Tisdel returned a kickoff 87 yards, setting up T.J. Edwards’ decisive touchdown. Tech’s defense yielded its first TD of the season, but Tech prevailed 21-19.

■ “Virginia.” Of course. The Game of the Century, the greatest Tech triumph ever. Two weeks after a 13-13 tie at North Carolina left the Jackets 5-0-1 but didn’t dismay Ross.

“We were minus both our start-ing offensive tackles [Mike Mooney and Russell Freeman, who broke his wrist early in the first quarter] that game and Ken Swilling [Tech’s consensus first-team All-American junior free safety that year] hardly played. Offensively, we were very good [Tech’s total offense was 435 yards to just 151 for Carolina]. But we still controlled our destiny. Frankly, our goal was to win the conference title.”

The Jackets were 6-0-1 and No. 16 when they came to Charlottesville. Top-ranked and unbeaten Virginia led the nation in scoring (48.1 points a game) and total offense (544.9 yards). Shawn Moore was the coun-try’s No.1-rated passer, Herman Moore the most dangerous wideout in the land. The game was nationally

17www.ramblinwreck.com

broadcast on CBS, the buildup and ballyhoo beyond belief.

The night before, vandals snuck inside Scott Stadium and burned a portion of the artificial turf. This scorched earth policy failed: A UVa maintenance crew replaced the dam-aged turf – initially, it turned out, to Tech’s chagrin. Shawn Moore hit Herman Moore for a TD bomb on the game’s second play. Two field goals put Virginia up 13-0 early in the second quarter.

Shawn Jones sped 23 yards to score, but Tech had technical problems: The phone from Ralph Friedgen up in the coaches’ booth to Boss Ross on the sideline kept going dead. The Fridge went ballistic, bel-lowing in blue language loud enough for the big-money UVa alums sitting just below him to hear. “It was like that AT&T commercial,” Friedgen said. “‘Hello, Rangoon.’”

Moore-to-Moore was unstoppa-ble, however. UVa led 28-14 at half-time. Then it was Tiggle time: Calvin Tiggle, Tech’s senior linebacker who made 18 tackles that game, recov-ered a fumble to set up the Jackets’ third TD, returned an interception 38 yards leading to their fourth, and made an incredible, crucial diving deflection at the goal line to deny Herman Moore another TD with just over two minutes to play. That ended a sensational six-play defensive stand by Tech, forcing UVa to settle for a tying field goal.

By then, Shawn Jones had liter-ally grown up before a national TV audience’s eyes. The sophomore was magnificent, throwing a 26-yard strike to Emmett “Speed” Merchant to tie it 28-all. Jones then directed a 74-yard scoring drive, culminating in an 8-yard, tying TD by William Bell behind Tom Covington’s crush-ing block. Jones later found Bell

again on a drive that concluded with a Scott Sisson field goal for a 38-35 Tech lead.

And after the Jackets’ goal line standoff, Shawn Jones led his team on one last, blessed drive: Reading the 2-deep pass coverage perfectly and finding Bell out of the backfield and over the middle for 23 yards. That ultimately led to this, and bliss: Sisson’s second field goal, a 37-yarder split the uprights with seven seconds left and stunned Scott Stadium into silence.

“Aside from my personal good fortune that night, there were so many things about the game that made it special,” Sisson now says. “From the press buildup to the field ‘burn’ the night before, to the impossible comeback after halftime. The presentation of the game ball to the way the Tech campus reacted to the game.”

The presentation: When Bobby Ross got up to address his team in a delirious, jam-packed locker room, Darryl Jenkins, the senior offensive tackle and captain of the offense, interrupted his coach: “We decided to give it to someone very special to you.” Then his defensive counter-part, McClary introduced the recipi-ent, as trainer Jay Shoop escorted a frail old man through the players so Buss Ross could join his weeping son Bobby.

“From the bottom of my heart, this is one of the greatest things to happen to me,” Buss said softly. “From the bottom of my heart, this is one of the greatest things to hap-pen to me.”

As great, in its own way, as the re-ception awaiting the Jackets back on campus. “The reception we got from the Tech crowd, and student body,” Ross recalled, “was very special.” Very special? C’mon, Bobby, you can

do better than that. And so Ross did:“Some student’s climbing down

the front window of our bus,” he recalled, laughing. Upon closer inspection…”That was my youngest son, Rob, climbing down the bus. He and my wife met me.”

No, Alice Ross wasn’t climbing down the front windshield. But Mrs. Ross and Rob were among an esti-mated 10,000 delirious Tech stu-dents and fans awaiting their return-ing heroes. The goal posts were torn down. One was fed into a funeral pyre at the intersection of Bobby Dodd Way and Techwood Drive. A bonfire of the insanities that was also fed by old furniture from dorms had grown so high and intense that traf-fic lights began to melt.

“Maybe someone learned some-thing about thermodynamics,” then-Tech president Dr. John Crecine later said. “Heat rises.”

And in front of the main entrance to the Edge Athletic Center stood the long stranger: shirtless, with long stringy black hair, an enormous amplifier, and strumming a guitar and singing solo on Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” Smoke on the corner, and fire in the sky. And a brand-new fervor for Georgia Tech football.

And then seven days later, a real-ity check for Tech football.

■ “The Virginia Tech game,” Ross recalls. “I still remember tak-ing the field for that game, and a lot of people were lined up telling us what a great game we had against Virginia. I’m saying to myself, ‘No, no. I don’t want to hear that.’”

On a cold, blustery day in Atlanta, Sisson missed two early field goal attempts and No. 7 Tech trailed 3-0 midway through the fourth quarter. Shawn Jones promptly led the Jack-ets downfield to set up Sisson’s tying 33-yard field goal with 5:09 left. With 1:10 to play and Tech at its 16-yard line, Jones completed four key passes, leading to Sisson’s 38-yard game-winner at 0:08.

■ Now 8-0-1, Tech jumped to No. 4 in the AP poll and jumped all over Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Jackets came out playing no-nonsense football and led 28-0 at halftime. Offensive guard Jim Lavin still has the football he fell on in the end zone for a touchdown. In the locker room delirium, many Jackets smoked victory cigars courtesy of Kim King, the ex-Tech quarterback and long-time radio color commen-tator.

For Ross, who won three ACC titles at Maryland, it was his first ACC championship on the Flats. Tech’s first ACC crown was its first conference title of any kind since the ‘52 SEC championship. The Jackets were invited to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Tech’s first New Year’s Day

bowl since the 1967 Orange Bowl, Bobby Dodd’s last game as head coach with King his QB. Next stop for Tech, now No. 2 in the AP poll? Athens. 4-6 Georgia.

■ “I remember Coach Goff had everyone on the sideline,” Ross recalled. A triple-threat lineup in-cluding boxer Evander Holyfield, the heavyweight champion of the world. Walter Payton, then the NFL’s all-time rushing leader. The big Dawg himself, Atlanta Journal-Constitu-tion columnist Lewis Grizzard.

Duly, if not Dooley inspired, the Dogs took a 9-0 lead, taunting and talking trash. And the Jackets bit. “We kind of lost our poise there for awhile,” Ross remembered. “I went to the bench and said, ‘They’ve got you playing the way they want you to play. You’ve got to get back to doing things you’re supposed to do.”

Not to worry. Not with Shawn Jones on point. Make that pinpoint. The kid nicknamed “Big Toe” – his size-14 shoes often caused Jones to stub his toes – came up Big Game big. He completed a school-record 12 straight passes, finishing 15 of 20 for 225 yards and four touch-downs. He led Tech to touchdowns on five consecutive possessions. “Textbook,” Friedgen called Jones’ performance art in Athens.

The next day’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution headline: “Bee-lieve: Tech 40-23.”

Who didn’t? The 10-0-1 Jackets had won with ease. It was their first unbeaten regular season in 38 years, since the ’52 team finished 12-0 and won a share of the national cham-pionship. A month later, the Citrus Bowl was a revelation.

■ The Jackets, No. 2 in both polls, dominated Nebraska, one of the most dominant programs in the pre-vious quarter-century. What floored Ross was the fervor of Georgia Tech fans, and the view inside the stadium on New Year’s Day.

“That stadium was almost all yellow,” Ross told me in August. “I couldn’t believe that. The fans, they turn out well now [at Bobby Dodd Stadium]. But at that time, I was shocked to see that stadium ninety per cent yellow.”

Nebraska was shocked, too, by Tech’s talent, tenacity and offensive firepower. On the opening posses-sion, Jones dropped back, scrambled and shook loose his right foot from the grasp on a Cornhusker defender, then took off. Forty-six yards later, he’d helped set up fullback Stefen “Captain Book Bag” Scotton, the scholarly two-time academic All-American, for a 2-yard TD. The rout was on.

Tech seized a 21-0 lead, only to have it cut to 24-14 by halftime. Not to worry. Not with William Bell on the loose (126 yards rushing and

18 the buzz

STAY! PLAY! WIN!

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19www.ramblinwreck.com

three TDs). Not with Tech’s defense stunting and dominating (Nebraska rushed for just 127 yards, 204 below its season average). And not with Jones completing 16 of 23 passes for 277 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 41 yards more and an-other score. He was voted the MVP in Tech’s 45-21 triumph, the most points Nebraska had surrendered to any bowl opponent.

Let the waiting game begin. Some Jackets felt they deserved to be No. 1. Others worried that if Colorado, No. 1 in both polls, beat Notre Dame, the Buffs would prevail. And they did, barely, after Rocket Ismail’s punt return was nullified by a clipping call. But not before the Peabody, Tech’s headquarter’s hotel, shook so mightily during the Rocket’s return that it rocked the elevators.

Predictably, Colorado won the AP national championship. But once back in Atlanta, the Jackets rejoiced when word reached them: UPI vot-ers, the coaches, chose to do the right thing and anoint Tech as na-tional champs by one…slim…vote.

When offensive tackle Mike Mooney, defensive tackle Jim Galla-gher and backup kicker Alan Waters turned on the answering machine in Waters’ apartment, they heard Darryl Jenkins’ cry: “We won the national championship in UPI by one point!” So Mooney -- who played

two seasons in the NFL but later died in his sleep in 2007 -- called Jenkins back and yelled, “Darryl, if you’re lying to me, I’m gonna kill you!”

No lie. Georgia Tech won the 1990 UPI national championship.

“It means an awful lot to me,” Ross says now. “We, Georgia Tech, are in an elite group. Not many teams win a national championship. I’m very, very proud of that, and happy to be a part of it. Just a spoke in the wheel.”

The wheel of good fortune for the 1990 Ramblin’ Wreck. “It’s something you become more and more prideful of, especially as you get older,” said Covington, a native of Hempstead, N.Y., who has lived in Atlanta since graduating. “You realize it’s harder these days to win a national championship. You’ve got to be undefeated and you have to play the right people to get a chance [in the BCS Championship Game]. To see that we won it is a true bless-ing.”

Until recently, Covington could always see real evidence of a most unreal season: the Georgia Tech 1990 National Champions ring he always wore.

“Until I got married,” laughed Covington, who remarried in July. “My ring only fit the ring finger on my left hand.” That’s where his wed-ding band now gleams. “So I have to get my Tech ring re-fitted.” To wear

it for the 20th reunion of that cham-pionship season, when those Jackets were unbeatable.

Even now, nearly two decades later, the words Thomas Balkcom spoke almost 20 years ago remain a valedictory for that 1990 team and still ring true. Perhaps truer now than ever:

“When I think about it some-times, I still can’t believe it,” Balk-com told me in early ’91, in what became the last quote, the very last words of “Focused on the Top.” “You know all the work you put into it. I have to be careful sometimes. I get excited. I start sweating just thinking about it again. People say ghosts hang around stadiums and all that. I’m part of that. I’m part of his-

tory. Sometimes, I’ll be working out in the stadium with Calvin and Jeri-miah and Chris Simmons and Stefen [Scotton] and I’ll say, ‘Man, can you hear it?’ Calvin’ll say, ‘What’s that?’ ‘The crowd!’ I’ll say. ‘Yeah, I can hear it. We did it this year, fellas.’ Winning it all was wonderful. You’ll always remember everything you were doing, all the guys. It’ll always be something bright, no matter how you’re doing. I’ll always remember that at this time of my life, no mat-ter how down and out I am, I was the best. I was a champion. No one can ever take that away from you. Your son or your daughter can look up to you and say, ‘My Dad was the best.’” ■

20 the buzz

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It’s hard not to notice the growing number of headlines that have put boorish fan behavior in the spotlight in recent years, spanning prep, col-legiate and professional sports.

While incidents at Georgia Tech have been isolated, the administra-tion has taken the opportunity to formulate the Gold Standard, pro-moting good sportsmanship on both the field and in the stands.

The program extols some simple virtues: encouraging positive sup-port for the Yellow Jackets rather than anti-opponent behavior, instill-ing a sense of “host pride” for games on campus and creating a safe and respectful game day atmosphere.

“The Gold Standard is being given extremely high priority here at Georgia Tech,” explained director of athletics Dan Radakovich. “The lack of sportsmanship and respect at collegiate sporting events has reached alarming proportions across America. We intend to do everything within our power to encourage, even

insist, that our fans set the standard in classy and respectful behavior.”

The movement’s roots can be traced to a recent survey conducted during a home football game. Some of the responses painted Bobby Dodd Stadium as a some-times unfriendly environment.

The athletic department ad-ministration assembled a com-mittee to tackle the issue, and they have sought input and support from administra-tion, students and alumni.

“We took a hard look at what that survey revealed and started to find ways to change that,” noted Kyle Shields, Tech’s premium sales director and chairman of the com-mittee. “This really spans across everyone at Georgia Tech. We can’t have student-athletes fighting on

the field, we can’t have fans unruly in the stands and we can’t have staff being rude to the patrons.”

While hurling insults at opposing players and fans are common-

place, those in the heat of battle on the field

don’t find that very motivational.

“We asked the student-athletes, and they said they prefer and respond to the

fans cheering for them rather than

against the other team,” Shields said. “If

you remember last football season, we played the ‘All the Way Turnt Up’ song. When the team is vibing on that song and the fans are singing it too, it really got the team fired up. It feels everyone is on the same page, and that’s what gets ev-eryone going.”

Shields said that the committee

The Gold sTandardtech embarks oN iNitiative to promote better sportsmaNship

IbY Simit Shah

gtAthletics

The pledGe reads:“ i pledge to honor and uphold the Gold standard. i will strive to create a positive environment for my team and fellow fans. i will cheer for Georgia tech, rather than against the opponent. i will conduct myself in a positive manner, showing respect, responsibility and leadership to Georgia tech. it’s up with the white & Gold...Georgia tech is out for a victory!”

22 the buzz

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looked to model programs at several schools, including Notre Dame, Virginia Tech and Clemson.

The initiative has already started rolling out with various student groups, and alumni and season ticket holders will receive an intro-duction to the programs with their tickets.

The Gold Standard will certainly be visible in a prominent way on game day. In addition to stickers, shakers, shirts and cups bearing the Gold Standard logo, coaches and student-athletes will spread the mes-sage of good sportsmanship through videos played before and during the game.

Fans will be encouraged to partic-ipate in a stadium-wide handshake with those around them in conjunc-tion with the opening coin-toss and captains’ handshake.

There will also be in-game re-wards for the fans exhibiting the values of the Gold Standard.

Fans can take and share the pledge at rambinwreck.com/gold-standard.

The pledge reads:“I pledge to honor and uphold

The Gold Standard. I will strive to create a positive environment for my team and fellow fans. I will cheer for

Georgia Tech, rather than against the opponent. I will conduct myself in a positive manner, showing re-spect, responsibility and leadership to Georgia Tech. It’s up with the White & Gold...Georgia Tech is out for a victory!”

The site also allows fans to submit their stories of exemplary fan con-duct for a prize pack.

While previous initiatives have been shepherded by either the NCAA or the ACC, the Gold Stan-dard is uniquely Georgia Tech and will span well beyond just the up-coming school year.

“There is a sense of pride at Georgia Tech,” said Shields. “You can look at the kind of incidents around the country and realize that this place is where we act differently. The school is built on people with strong character, and we just need to remind everyone of that.”

“This movement is important to everyone at the Institute, our hundreds of thousands of alumni, our coaches and to our student-athletes,” Radakovich said. “It is our intention to increase the awareness of the Georgia Tech ‘Gold Standard’ in as many ways as possible. We very much want to be a leader in this ef-fort.” ■

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The Gold sTandard coMMITTee Is Made up oF:Mindy Hylton - Director of marketing, promotions & spiritLeah Thomas - Director of total person support servicesKatreshia Louis-Verrett - asst. Director of compliance Dan Goldberger - sports information assistant DirectorKevin Kitchens - Development associate, a-t fundGraham Neff - assistant Director of ticket operationsKyle Shields - premium sales Director and this project falls under:Wayne Hogan - associate Director of athletics for public relations

24 the buzz

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aAl Mead was the type of athlete’s father who could be found sitting in the

stands huddled over pen and pad, tracking his daughters’ every moves.“My dad is the main one that’s into the sports,” Monique Mead said, grin-

ning broadly.He was so consumed with detailing and diagramming Monique’s success

and that of her older sister, Ashley, that he kept statistics of their activities when they were high school volleyball players and stood firm in implement-ing training techniques and methods that could make them better.

Whatever dad did or said, worked.After a banner career at metro-Atlanta high school Landmark Christian,

Ashley Mead went on to compete at Middle Tennessee State, where she par-ticipated in the national tournament and earned Sun Belt conference MVP honors.

Monique, following a similar path three years after Ashley, ended up land-ing on Georgia Tech’s doorstep before last school year began, enrolling at the Institute and becoming an instant sensation on the court. The Yellow Jackets rookie ranked second on the team and seventh in the ACC with an average

3.07 kills per set. She had at least 15 kills in five matches. All of that was enough for the right side hitter to be granted freshman of the year honors by the ACC, honorable mention All-America honors by AVCA and to be soon recognized as one of the young rising stars in the country.

“I didn’t expect to get any recog-nition my first year,” Monique Mead said earlier this summer. “I just came to (Tech) to at least play that first year and maybe try to start at some point.”

Yes, clearly dad did and said something that worked.But while Al Mead may sound like a typical athlete’s father, hanging onto

his daughters’ every step, he really is anything but an ordinary, archetypal

all In The FaMIlYmoNique mead’s father, sister have helped her emerge as oNe of college volleyball’s top players

bY coleY harVeY

VbvolleybAll

26 the buzz

27www.ramblinwreck.com

sports parent. That is, unless all ath-letes can boast a father who has gold and silver medals for his country.

Al Mead earned a gold medal in the long jump during the Los Ange-les Paralympic games in 1988 and a silver medal in the high jump during the Barcelona Paralympic games in 1992. He also was on the national team in 1996 when the Olympics and Paralympics were held in Atlanta. While he clearly was a competitive athlete in his youth, apparently the now-Rev. Al Mead has not changed some 18 years later as he pushes his offspring along.

“From the genetic standpoint, he was really athletic, so me and my sister got that from him, as well,” Monique Mead said. “But he’s just always there to motivate us and en-courage us because he knows what it’s like.”

While her father is her basis of a firm athletic foundation, Monique’s sister Ashley provides the backbone to a volleyball career that may never have blossomed the way it has had it not been for the sheer fact that Ash-ley was playing the sport.

“I started playing pretty early. I started in middle school, but I

only started because my sister was playing,” Monique said. “If it had not been for her, I might not have started until high school.”

As the saying goes with most sports, the earlier a child begins playing volleyball, the better he or she can become at it, Monique ac-knowledged.

“She’s a big deal as to where I am right now,” she said, speaking of her older sister’s influence and ability. “She makes me work harder.”

Although basketball and track also occupied middle-school Mo-nique’s time, as well, it took back surgery her eighth-grade year for her decide that it was time to focus on becoming the best she could at one sport. Naturally, as big sister was do-ing so well torching her way up the state of Georgia high school record books, Monique decided to stick with volleyball only.

The decisions the Mead girls made to do that is one very few Af-rican American women make when they hit that age of adolescence in which they are moving into high school. As a result, the numbers of African American women on the volleyball court is dramatically lower

than what it could be, Monique Mead contends. And that is a point of emphasis for COBRA magazine, the group that this summer recog-nized that and is hoping to help pro-mote the sport to such young girls.

One of several magazines cover-ing the sport, COBRA’s primary mission is to raise awareness of the sport to young minority women in hopes of expanding the college ranks with them. Over the summer, the group recognized Monique as a member of its first-team, national volleyball team.

“African American women are completely athletic in and of them-selves, but with volleyball, it’s kind of tougher because at the younger age is when you learn all the tech-niques,” Monique Mead said. “It’s kind of ‘the older you get, the harder it is to get that technique down.’ And with a lot of African American girls, volleyball is not the first sport they start in. If we made that more of priority in the African American culture, to get girls started playing volleyball at a younger age, that would help tremendously.”

While still beaming over the hon-or even weeks after it was bestowed, Monique admitted to being blind-sided by it. As with most everything these days, she happened to find out about it while perusing a social net-working website.

“I found out about it actually when I was on Facebook; which is really random,” she said. “It’s crazy because COBRA magazine actually has a Facebook page, and it added me a month before, and so one day they had a link on there and it sent it back to ramblinwreck(.com), and it had a little picture on there. So I clicked it and was like, ‘Aw, that’s cool.’

“Yep, Facebook.”Monique added that she didn’t

expect the selection but “when it happens, I just try to take it in. I only want to get better. I only want more, I guess you can say.”

After spending much of August recovering from offseason ankle surgery, she is ready to help the Yel-low Jackets begin anew their quest for a national championship. (Ashley has been helping get Monique back in playing shape by running with her and hitting balls to work on Monique’s post-surgery reaction skills. Just before sitting down with Buzz, Monique had just wrapped up a morning sister-sister workout.) Last season, they gave a good effort toward that end, making the NCAA tournament field before bowing out not long after arriving to Southern California last November.

“One of the best things about playing in the national tournament was that it was held in California,” Monique Mead said. “That’s prob-

ably the farthest we’ll ever travel. So being able to go a long way from campus, and to go not necessarily somewhere where we might nor-mally play was great. And then, of course, it’s the national tournament,

so you’re playing against some really good teams.”

First-year coach Tonya Johnson’s Yellow Jackets fell in the first round to Baylor.

Al Mead, who tries to make all of Monique’s home college games, made the trek to California, too.

This fall, in order for the Mead family and the collective Yellow Jackets family to make it back, a few things will need to be addressed. Chief among them will be addressing Georgia Tech’s oftentimes shallow depth.

Signing five solid freshmen to the team will shore up that area, Monique said, and it will make prac-tices throughout the season intense as players know that spots are no longer certainties as they once were. Virtually any starting position could be up for grabs.

“When you have added competi-tion in practice and more depth in practice, you’re constantly compet-ing for your position,” Monique Mead said. “That in and of itself is going to help us this year. Last year, I feel like everyone kind of knew who was going to play. I didn’t stress over losing my position. This year, we’ve got great freshmen coming in and that’s going to push us to work harder.” ■

28 the buzz

ORS 3432 SportsMed Techad.indd 1 7/14/10 8:33 AM

hbY Simit Shah

How far would you go to show your devotion to Georgia Tech? That’s an easy question for Shawn Fowler, who moved his wedding day to a Friday to avoid a conflict with a Yellow Jacket football game.

The following day, he pledged to his new wife Laura that he’d ignore the game on their drive up to Boone, North Carolina for their honeymoon.

Unfortunately, the day was Novem-ber 3, 1990, and Tech was playing top-ranked Virginia in what turned out to be one of the greatest games in school history. Two words: Scott Sisson.

“I was thinking about the game, and the sweat was pouring off my forehead, so she said we had to pull over,” he remembered. “Finally, we pulled over at a gas station in Spartanburg and watched the second half. She could barely compete on our honeymoon with Tech football.”

Laura didn’t start out as a Tech fan, but she has learned to love the Yellow Jackets.

“She’s been on board since Day One,” said Fowler. “Two months later we were in Orlando to see Tech beat Nebraska in the Citrus Bowl.”

Fowler’s allegiance to Georgia Tech dates back to his youth growing up in Atlanta. His parents were ardent LSU fans, while his three older siblings favored Auburn.

“I can’t tell you exactly how it all got started, but I grew up as a Tech fan, even in elementary school and high

school,” he said. “Most of my friends were Georgia fans, but I always rooted for Tech.”

After graduating from Henderson High School in 1983, there wasn’t much of a quandary when it came time to pick a college.

“I didn’t want to be an engineer, but I loved Georgia Tech,” said Fowler. “I wanted to major in business or some-thing in that respect. To be honest, the athletics really drew me to the school. I had a passion for athletics and a love for Georgia Tech.”

His interest in athletics led him to tutoring student-athletes, and Fowler started helping many of the basketball players with their courses.

“I think I got a good reputation, and Coach (Bobby) Cremins would talk me up to the younger guys,” he explained. “I ended up tutoring John Salley in a lot of classes, even when he came back to school after he started playing for the Pistons.”

Fowler went on to earn his manage-ment degree with high honors in 1988 and started working at the accounting firm of Frazier & Deeter in Atlanta. Despite his new career and then mar-

riage, Fowler continued to tutor ath-letes in his spare time.

“My wife, even though she wasn’t a sports fan at all, knew my passion for Tech,” he said. “It was a way for me to give back. I tutored until 1993 when our son Andrew was born.”

His career took off at Frazier &

Deeter, which has grown from 11 to 180 people and become one of the top 100 firms in the country since Fowler has been there. He has been with the firm for over 22 years, the last 14 as partner.

From the moment he graduated, Fowler was a fixture at Tech home games, often joined by his wife, son An-drew and daughter Brenna. However, he had been relying on a friend to get tickets to Georgia Tech events, so he decided it was time to get involved.

“I used to ride on the coattails of a big contributor, and it was about eight or nine years ago,” he noted. “I started to think I need to put my money where my mouth is. I was passionate about Tech and had been blessed with a good career. I had to give back to one of my loves.”

Since then, Fowler and his wife have contributed in numerous ways. In addition to donating to the Bobby Dodd Stadium expansion campaign, they became Life Members of the Alex-ander-Tharpe Fund and endowed the

Fowler Family Scholarship for men’s basketball.

“Because of the tutoring with bas-ketball, we established the scholarship three years ago,” he said. “The first re-cipient was Lewis Clinch, and this past year was Mfon Udofia. It’s been a good way to give back. Being a student there and tutoring, I know the discipline and time management these student athletes have to develop. It’s hopefully going to prepare them for a lifelong career beyond basketball.”

The Fowlers also recently made a $50,000 donation towards the Zelnak Basketball Center and are in the pro-cess of including Georgia Tech in their estate planning.

“For people passionate about athlet-ics, it’s something people should get involved with,” Fowler said. “What it’s allowed me to do is support the program. We’ve got to support it be-yond ticket sales. It’s about the entire program. That’s what critical to the success.” ■

Fowler and Tech Make a perFecT MarrIaGeathletics attracted fowler to the flats, where he graduated with high hoNors iN 1988

atAlexAnder-

thArPe fund

“ I used to ride on the coattails of a big contribu-tor, and it was about eight or nine years ago,” he noted. “I started to think I need to put my money where my mouth is. I was passionate about Tech and had been blessed with a good career. I had to give back to one of my loves.”

30 the buzz

CoMpLiANCE CorNEr

bY Paul ParkerGeorGia tech aSSiStant director of athleticS for comPliance SerViceS

“I didn’t know that was a NCAA rule” is not a justifiable excuse for violating NCAA rules. the NCAA requires each institution to educate in order to maintain institutional control. It is the responsibility of each member institution to control its intercollegiate athletics program in compliance with the rules and regulations of the National Collegiate Athletics Association. therefore, we ask that you review this section and understand your role as a “representative of athletics interest.”

A representative of athletics interest is any individual who has ever:

• Attended Georgia tech;• Participated in or been a member of the

At-fund;• Contributed to the athletics department;• Assisted or have been requested by the

athletics staff to assist in the requirement of prospective student-athletes;

• Assisted in providing extra benefits to enrolled student-athletes or their families; or

• Been otherwise involved in the Georgia tech athletics program.

once an individual is identified as a representative of the institution’s athletics interests, the person remains a Georgia tech booster forever.

offers and inducementsIt is not permitted for a representative of athletics interests to directly or indirectly make arrangement for giving or offering to give any financial aid or other benefits to a prospective student-athlete (PSA) or the PSA’s relatives or friends, and current student-athletes or the current student-athlete’s relatives or friends.

the following list expressly prohibits these types of financial aid, benefits and arrangements (not all inclusive):

• ticket(s) for any kind of entertainment including Georgia tech athletic events;

• free or reduced merchandise from a merchant (unless it is available to the general public);

• free or reduced meals at a restaurant;• An employment arrangement for a PSA’s

relatives;• Gift of clothing or equipment;• Any use of a car or other transportation;• Arrange financial assistance for a PSA,

their family or friends;

• Money, gift cards, loan(s), a guarantee of bond or signing/co-signing of a note to arrange a loan;

• Any tangible items;• free or reduced-cost services, rentals or

purchases of any type;• free or reduced-cost housing;• Use of an athletics equipment (e.g. for a

high school all-star game);• Sponsorship of or arrangement for

an awards banquet for high school, preparatory school or two-year-college athletes by an institution, representative of its athletics interests or it alumni groups or booster clubs; and

• expenses for academic services (e.g., tutoring, test preparation) to assist in the completion of initial-eligibility or transfer-eligibility requirements or improvement of the PSA’s academic profile in conjunction with a waiver request.

contact with Prospective Student-athletesRepresentatives of athletic interests are prohibited from making in-person, on- or off-campus recruiting contacts, and written or telephonic communications with a PSA or the PSA’s relatives or legal guardians. this prohibition also includes contacting high school coaches or guidance counselors to get information about prospects.

Permissible activitiesRepresentatives of Athletic Interests are permitted to: • Provide newspaper articles to Georgia

tech coaches about a PSA; and• help Compliance Services by reporting

rules violations.

Please understand that if you provide extra benefits to PSAs or a current student-athlete, or violate NCAA rules, you may render him or her ineligible and the team may have to forfeit contests in which the student-athletes participated. If you have provided or have offered to provide any extra benefits, or are aware of extra benefits being provided, please contact Compliance Services immediately at 404-894-8792 or at pparker@athletics.gatech.edu. thank you for your continued cooperation and support.

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