Author: Gene Asher

Former Colt – and Falcon – Alex Hawkins has many colorful tales to tell

Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins is a still a champion

The Chadwick brothers’ story is one of triumph and tragedy

Jackie Miller Walburn's 50-year-old basketball scoring records are still standing.

Falling sugar, hobnail boots and all, Larry Munson has called UGA football for four decades.

George William Mathews, Jr., one of the greatest and most successful Yellow Jackets of them all, wanted to attend the University of Georgia, not Georgia Tech.

How the Atlanta Boys Club sparked a pair of boxing careers — one with real staying power.

Boys' High and Tech High delighted football fans around the state, not just Atlanta.

At UGA, Cedartown's Kermit Perry ran for glory on the cinders.

Morris Edwin Harrison, the former Georgia Tech fullback, not only lit up Grant Field (now Bobby Dodd Stadium) he lit up half the world. And at age 79, he's still at it.

John Edwin Pope grew up in Athens but found a home in Miami.

Homer Cranston Rice may be the only Georgia Tech athletics director ever to serve time in jail.

John Sholar (Jack) Langford, former Fulton County Superior Court judge, Southeastern Conference football official, Boy Scout Council member and Auburn defensive end, officially retired 17 years ago, but you would never know it. At age 74, his schedule is packed tighter than ever.

If you think the University of Georgia's first group of African-American athletes was an ordinary bunch of jocks, think again.

When Kentucky played the University of Georgia basketball team in 1959, there was only one way to stop Bulldog sophomore Pat Casey - grab him by his shorts and not let go.

Ironically, it was the immortal Georgia Tech Coach Bobby Dodd who convinced Frank Broyles to stay on as head football coach at Arkansas when he had two chances to return to Tech as head man.

Decatur native Frank Broyles keeps on going - and going. What does 80-year-old Frank Broyles have that 73-year-old Vince Dooley does not? Answer: A new, five-year, rollover contract as athletics director.

Magic anyone? How about the Wyche brothers? Sam can make articles of your clothing disappear, find silver dollars in your ears and make small sponge rabbits drop from under your arms.

Who ever associated the name "Domino Lee" with one of Georgia's greatest sports legends?

Austin Joe Kines, Jr. has finally found a home. Born on a train 61 years ago and traveling ever since, one of the nation's most respected defensive football coordinators has landed in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (for the second time) and has no plans to leave.

The biggest thrill Billy Henderson ever had was not winning three state football championships, nor was it whipping coach Wright Bazemore's Valdosta Wildcats three consecutive years. It wasn't even having the Clarke Central High School Stadium renamed Billy Henderson Stadium or being honored by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.

You've heard of the late Red Smith, legendary sportswriter for The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune and a member of the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame?

To paraphrase a line from an old Broadway tune, "I ain't dead yet." Such is the mindset of Dr. Sidney Earle Williams, the former Georgia Tech defensive end turned chiropractor, known in his playing days as "Dead Man."

I have known my share of world champion prizefighters. I did road work with Rocky Marciano, played cards with Carmen Basilio, interviewed Beau Jack and Archie Moore and took a playful swing (and missed) at Max Baer. All were great fighters but Baer. And he could have been the greatest of them all if it were not for wine, women and all-night partying.

In the annals of University of Georgia athletics, there never has been an athlete like John Richard Carson. He is one of only two Bulldogs named All-American in two sports (Herschel Walker was the other). He is one of only two Bulldogs to earn letters in four sports (Mort Hodgson in 1908 was the other) and, says UGA historian Dan Magill, had he been able to work it into his schedule, he would have earned letters in six sports.

Arthur Arnold DeCarlo never met a man he didn't like. Rarely is seen without a smile on his face. Extends a warm greeting and firm handshake to everyone he meets. Never been known to be unhappy.

He beat Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tom Weiskopf. He won back-to-back professional tournaments in four different years, and when Ben Hogan introduced the 1967 U.S. Ryder Cup team as the "finest golfers in the world," he was among them.

There was so much talent on the 1950 University of Georgia football team it was nearly impossible for anyone to stand out. Nine Bulldogs made it in the pros and six of these, ends Bobby Walston, Harry Babcock and John Carson; tackles Dick Yelvington and Marion Campbell and center-linebacker Art DeCarlo became All-Pro.

Maybe he didn't become president of the United States like Jimmy Carter of Plains, but for a boy born in Clyattville and raised in Ray City, Garland Folsom Pinholster did quite well for himself.

There is a passage in the Jewish prayer book that reads, in part, "only by obedience to Thy commandments, by faithfulness to our duties, by the goodness of our deeds, can we make our worship acceptable to Thee."

Nothing came easy for Philip Henry Niekro, better known as "Knucksie." At 19, he tried out for a pitching job with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This being the month of the Masters, thoughts turn to 90-year-old Charlie Yates who attended 68 consecutive tournaments, played in 11 and was low amateur in five.

Tommy Nobis may be the only football player nearly recruited from outer space. In 1965, when he was drafted No. 1 in the NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons and No. 1 in the old AFL draft by the Houston Oilers, Astronaut Frank Borman, command pilot of the Gemini 7 spacecraft, radioed word from space encouraging Nobis to sign with the Oilers. The message was relayed to Nobis, who opted to sign with the Falcons and became the finest football player in the franchise's history.

The first time I saw George Hamilton Brodnax III play a football game, he was a 175-pound end for the old Atlanta Boys' High School. He was running across the pitcher's mound at Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Park, site of all the Tech High and Boys' High home games. With outstretched hands, his body leaning forward at a 45-degree angle, he raced over the mound, pulled in the ball with his fingertips and carried it across the goal line to bring his team back from almost certain defeat to a 13-13-tie with arch-rival Tech High.

Ninety-one-year-old Natalie Cohen is one of a kind. She played competitive tennis for 73 years, winning 13 Georgia State Women's Open Doubles Championships. At age 42, she won both the Atlanta City and Georgia State women's singles and doubles championships, equivalent to the state's Grand Slam.

Of all the structures on the University of Georgia campus, none is more touching than the War Memorial monument in front of the Student Athlete Academic Center. The handsome red and black monument, made of Georgia granite, honors 21 student athletes who died in wars.

In the 60 years I have been watching prep football, I never have seen a lineman as good as Gene Chandler. He was fast, quick, agile and a devastating tackler. He was so fast that when he snapped the ball on punts, he would beat the ball down field and patiently wait for the safety man to catch it. And then he would crash into him with such force that he would often cause a fumble.

Athlete, public servant, successful businessman, musician, bouncer. You name it and John Paul Holmes Jr., has done it.

It is one thing to be the greatest college basketball player ever in the state of Georgia. It’s another to be the most successful basketball coach. But it?s downright remarkable to be both.

Jimmy Harper, one of the great Georgia Bulldogs, can thank three Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets for his incredible success as a college football official and a businessman.

Athlete, musician, dancer, family man, champion of charitable causes, civic-minded citizen, successful business man and host with the most on the ball. John S. Hunsinger, native Atlantan, is all of these.

To get into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, it is, in my opinion, not so much what you accomplished on the athletics field as it is who you know and what committee clique will support you.

Unless you read The Fayette Neighbor, or attended the World Masters Games in Melbourne, Australia last October, you never would know that Bill and Jeanne Daprano won four gold medals between them.

This month marks the 30th anniversary of Atlanta's Ronald Mark Blomb erg's debut as baseball's first designated hitter. The date was April 6, 1973, the season opener for the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The place: Boston's historic Fenway Park. And the park was packed, despite a bone-chilling temperature of 30 degrees.

Of all the greats who have come out of Georgia, the one the Atlanta Touchdown Club picked for its inaugural Legends of the Game honor was George Bernard Maloof. And the TD Club could not have made a better choice.

He grew up in poverty. He never knew his father. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom were on welfare. Knee and ankle injuries almost ruined his football career. A drug and alcohol problem almost ruined his life.