Happy Thanksgiving....

You have to go back to 1990 to find a year that we as Jacket fans have more to be thankful for.  10-1, a berth in the ACC championship game, the finest coach in all the land , & a pending implosion down the road in Athens...What's not to be thankful for?  We're clearly a program on the rise.  But we wanted to take a second and offer a bit of thanks for our football heritage on The Flats.  We have been blessed with many great players, coaches, & teams throughout our history at Tech.  Bobby Dodd, John Heisman, George Morris, Joe Hamilton, Calvin Johnson, just to name a few.  But there's only one jersey number you don't see in white & gold on Saturdays in the fall....

#19.  The only number we have & ever will retire at Tech.  The jersey of Clinton Dillard Castleberry, Jr., perhaps the finest football player to ever grace the Flats.  

Clint Castleberry arrived at Tech a highly regarded halfback from Boys High in Atlanta in the fall of 1942, all of 5'9" & 155 pounds.  But in the first year of freshman eligibility (due to the number of men off fighting the war) Castleberry would leave an indelible mark on the Tech program.  Fleet of foot & possessing what we today would call "shake & bake", Castleberry tore through all of college football in 1942, being named 1st team all SEC as a freshman (the first ever) & 3rd in Heisman trophy voting (the highest until Adrian Peterson placed 2nd in 2004- pretty good player, Purple Jesus...).  The New York Herald wrote the Tech halfback possessed "speed and shiftiness...which combined the best features of a wraith and antelope."  Noted newspaper columnist Fred Russell said, "I know of only one way to stop Castleberry, and that's to repeal the freshman eligibility rule".

But 1942 was Castleberry's only year to grace the Flats with his speed & elusiveness.  Only a month after the season Castleberry & 17 other Yellow Jackets were called to duty in the Army Air Corp.  After a quick wedding to his high school sweetheart, Castleberry headed off to do his duty & pilot training.  Only two years later, on November 7th, 1944, Castleberry's B-26 Marauder, The Dream Girl, was lost in a flight from Liberia to Senegal.  Two weeks later he was listed as killed in action.

So today, as we eat turkey, drink bourbon & watch football, think of #19 & all those in uniform who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us so that 13 Saturdays in the fall every year we can be transported to that magical place where only Tech football can take us.  Have a great Thansgiving & as always, TO HELL WITH GEORGIA...