B Y - W A Y N E - M I N S H E W - ( A B J - '6 1 )

That's what we called the little gray building that is now a construction site for the athletic department's new academic achievement center. But in the 1950s, it was an athletic fieldhouse—and, as we learn from the former resident below, a makeshift dorm

ome, we are told, is where the heart is. It is also where one hangs his hat, where there is no place like, and, according to a noted author we had to read as students at UGA, where you can't go again. The latter is particularly true in regard to the place I called home as a college student in the late 1950s because it no longer exists. I'm referring to the building that would later become the headquarters of the UGA Alumni Society and then the National Alumni Association. For the past couple of decades, that gray one-story building between the Coliseum and the baseball stadium has been known as Alumni House, which has since given way to a construction gang that is building UGA's new academic achievement center.

As I look at that construction site today, I am transported in time —back more than 40 years—to an era when that small brick building was UGA's athletic fieldhouse. I played on the baseball team back then, but I did more than shower in that building; I lived in the attic along with four or five other baseball players, a football manager, and an interloper who simply moved in.

The fieldhouse was a great place to live. Pap Eberhardt, who managed the equipment room, kept us in soap and towels and even issued a broom for our poor man's penthouse. We considered dirt and dust furniture protectants. We ate at training table. We snacked on doughnuts. And we couldn't have been happier with our accommodations.

The only other permanent resident of the fieldhouse was Mike, Wally Butts' bulldog and the football team's pre-Uga mascot. We earned our keep by feeding Mike and massaging his back with our baseball spikes, which he loved. Our other duty was to keep watch on the fence surrounding the Ag Hill practice field because Tech students loved to paint obscene signs on its facing. Not a drop of paint was spilled on that wall while we stood guard, but the bulldog statue near Stegeman Hall did mysteriously disappear the week prior to the '58 Tech-Georgia game.

The only other permanent resident of the fieldhouse was Mike, Wally Butts' bulldog and the football team's pre-Uga mascot. We earned our keep by scratching his back.

Those were the days of the drought-breaker Theron Sapp, whose touchdown run stopped an eight-game losing streak to Tech in '57. The stars of the freshman team included Francis (he'll never be "Fran" to me) Tarkenton and a 190-pound guard by the name of Pat Dye. Ray Allen, Fred Edmondson, and Henry Cabiness were the basketball standouts coached by Red Lawson. They played their games at rickety old Woodruff Hall—the only gym in the country, Lawson was wont to say, where wind was a factor. I liked that line.

We had it pretty good in the old fieldhouse. A strange fellow who frequented an Athens record store kept us in country music hits, and we were also fond of our night watchman, "Hawkshaw," who made his nightly rounds fortified by a bottle of white lightnin' that would scorch cement. We provided tickets when he wanted them, and his position on us was, "As far as I'm concerned, you fellers don't exist."

I don't think we were actually in violation of any residency rules, university or otherwise, but I remember liking the idea that we were sort of getting away with something.

frequent visitor to our humble digs was Clegg Stark, a local athlete whose abilities were legend. It was said that, in his youth, Clegg could throw a football 100 yards. He was a favorite of Coach Butts, who used him as a football manager. Clegg claimed he could pick out freshman football players who would star on fall Saturdays.

"Jes look at a man's chin," he would say. "If it ain't there, he won't amount to nuthin. If it's square, he's a player."

"But, Clegg," I'd say, "I don't have a chin. Guess I couldn't play football?" "With that arm you got," he'd say, laughing, "you don't need no chin!"

The Way We Were
Top row: The forerunner of the laptop and the Palm Pilot took up an entire room of the University computer center. Once upon a time, men wore hats and bell bottoms were all the rage

Bottom row: Women were tested on how to use a clothes dryer, t-squares were a design staple, and cheerleader and majorette outfits left more to the imagination. For more photos, see this page.

There were other characters who intervened in our lives, including one who gave us a lift to dinner following a baseball game I had pitched.

"I'm a big league scout," he said.

Right away, he had our interest, professional baseball being the primary aspiration for all of us.

"Yeah? Which club do you scout for?" we all asked in unison.

"Cincinnati Reds. You pitched today, right?" he said, looking at me.

"Yeah, what did you think?"

"Well, you are what we call a short-arm pitcher," he said. "The reason we say that is because you have short arms."

Which was code for, "Your baseball career will be short—or nonexistent." None of my professors could have made it clearer. But the guy did me a favor because instead of trying to make it as a hurler for the Braves, I ended up heading their public relations department, where I got to know and work with Hall of Fame pitchers like Phil Niekro. Now that was a thrill.

I think about those bygone days in the fieldhouse, and the memories are still crystal-clear. I know that one of the guys I lived with, "Flap," made big bucks in insurance, enabling him to make contributions to the University and to the baseball program. "Bird" worked in the state penal system, and I saw "Fats" up close a few years after college when he homered off me to win a semi-pro game. I wonder what became of "Smoky" and "Preacher."

We promised to stay in touch, but didn't. We should have.

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