Top five traditions for Georgia football

Ringing the Chapel Bell

There is something about winning a game in Athens, Ga., and then hearing that chapel bell ring all night long.

It’s one of the University of Georgia’s oldest traditions, and it doesn’t just have to deal with the football team.

So most know that when Georgia wins, you ring the bell. However, the bell is rung in the tradition of graduating and encouraged to ring if you’re celebrating something.

After football games, I can remember people waiting in line for hours to ring that bell. Recently I remember staying downtown one night after the game and hearing it until around 5 a.m.

While the university’s website mentions 1913 in its small description about it, but it was in the 1800s when it first surfaced.

According to Georgia’s library archives, the earliest reference to the Chapel bell being rung in celebration of a victory can be found in the student-run newspaper the Red & Black on Dec. 1, 1894.

On Nov. 24, 1894, Georgia defeated its arch-rival Auburn 10-8. It was the second-ever meeting between the schools after Auburn took the first game on February 20, 1892, 10-0.

The website included a snippet from the newspaper which included a sentence regarding the bell.

"“The night had far spent itself when the last echo of the bell was hear and the dying embers of the great bonfire was all that was left to remind the passer by (sic) that the great day was over. Georgia had triumphed,” the newspaper snipit said."

It’s incredible to know that a tradition like ringing the Chapel Bell has been around as long as the South’s Oldest Rivalry.

I’ve rung the bell more times than I can count, but the sweetest one came when I graduated from Georgia.

Now that I know how old the tradition is, it makes me appreciate it that much more to see that outside of a few renovations that bell or some form of that bell has been there since 1894.

So when we ring that bell, we’re ringing history, and that makes it such a remarkable tradition.