The 2018 Georgia football season begins in 92 days.
92 is a very significant number for Georgia football. On January 30 of 1892, the University of Georgia played its first football game against Mercer in Athens. Since there are 92 days left until the start of the 2018 season, it’s time to honor Dr. Charles Herty, the founder of Georgia football.
Herty, the constructor of Georgia football, was born during the reconstruction period 1867 in Milledgeville, Georgia. He first attended the University of Georgia before transferring to John Hopkins University for a Ph.D in Inorganic Chemistry. John Hopkins is where Herty learned the sport of football. He already had a love for other sports.
He returned to Athens in 1890. In 1891, he joined Franklin College as an instructor in the chemistry department. Also that year, he created the Georgia football and baseball teams. He created some intramural teams, pushed for the creation and updating of several athletic fields, and founded UGA’s first gymnasium in the basement of Old College.
Herty isn’t just the father of Georgia football, he’s the foundation of all UGA athletics. But his influence on athletics stretched beyond Athens. He helped create the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1894. And he pushed for a ban of hiring professional players to add to collegiate rosters. Which was an issue at the time.
Also in 1894, UGA created the Department of Physical Culture and placed Herty in charge. The position essentially made Herty Georgia’s first athletic director. The school named Georgia’s main athletic field after him. And despite desecrating the field and turning it into a parking lot in the 1940’s, the school corrected that mistake by turning the land into a green-space in 1999.
But Herty’s influence didn’t even stop after athletics. He was still an accomplished chemist and had a lot to give in that field. During a trip to Europe during the 1899-1900 academic year with several colleagues from other institutions, Herty met several other famous chemists.
In Europe, he saw how German’s used Tannenbaume for paper. When he returned to Athens, he saw a lecture about how the paper industry at the time was destroying and would eventually wipe out all Pine Trees in the United States. He did his own research and accepted the claims of the lecture.
Herty then developed a new method of extracting turpentine from pine trees. His method extended the usefulness of the pine trees from a few years to several decades. This method radically changed the paper industry. By the mid 20th century, almost all newsprint and other white paper was made through this method.
First Georgia football team
But Georgia football is why we’re reading about Herty today. He began organizing the first team at Georgia in 1891 with his cousin Frank Herty, who was a student at UGA. The team played their first game on what would later be named Herty Field on January 30, 1892.
The opponent was Mercer from Macon, Georgia. It was also the first game played in the deep south. The average size of Herty’s players was 5-foot, 10 inches, and 156 pounds. Much smaller than today’s players. In fact, the 1890’s style of football is unrecognizable to today’s sport.
Mercer kicked the ball off to start the game. But because of vastly different onsides kick rules, Mercer easily gained possession. That was their only highlight. Mercer’s first play was a three-yard loss. Their third play was a fumble recovered by Georgia. Frank Herty scored Georgia’s first touchdown on their very first offensive play. The touchdown only counted for four points.
Forward progress stops were non-existent as well. Georgia used that to their advantage to take a 16-0 lead when one player carried a Mercer player on his shoulder 20 yards to the end zone to score a safety. Georgia won the game 50-0 with Frank Herty scoring six touchdowns. That included a shared touchdown because back then, if two players held the ball as it crossed the plain, both received credit for the score.
The score might have actually been 60-0 however. Allegedly, the scorekeeper missed two touchdowns because he was thirsty.
Almost a month later, on February 20, Georgia traveled to Atlanta to play Auburn. The plainsmen defeated Georgia 10-0 that day. George Petrie, friend and teammate of Herty’s from John Hopkins, coached the Auburn team.
The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry is another creation that we can credit Herty for. As well as college football’s popularity in the deep south, and especially in Atlanta.
Next: Georgia needs to make Atlanta their second home
The phenomenon of southern college football and the Bulldog Nation all began in 1892. By a man whose personal accomplishments impacted the paper and lumber industries in ways he couldn’t have imagined.
Dr. Charles Herty is the original, the very first, Damn Good Dawg.