How the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry really started

Exactly 129 years ago today, on February 20, 1892, at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia and Auburn faced off in football for the first of 125 all-time meetings. That initial contest was only Georgia's second game of its brief football history, whereas Auburn was making its maiden voyage in the relatively new sport.

There are a few misconceptions and overlooked history regarding this contest.

The 1892 Georgia-Auburn contest was a battle of coaching doctors: Dr. Charles Herty headed up the Red and Black, while Dr. George Petrie was recognized as Auburn’s head coach. It looked more like a grinding, hard-nosed rugby scrum than our conception of modern football; three downs were available to make five yards for a first down on a field 110 yards long. The forward pass would not be permitted in the sport until more than a dozen years later.

The game kicked off around 3:30 p.m. A grandstand had been erected at the field to hold 10,000 people, and there was a good bit of hype surrounding the game. Nearly every seat was expected to be filled, and contemporary accounts insisted that "thousands of men, women, and children flocked to Piedmont Park" in "vast armies." However, dark clouds and a steady rain leading up to the highly-anticipated affair limited the game’s attendance to roughly 3,000 onlookers. The expected thousands of dollars in gate receipts resulted in only around $800.

Having traveled the short distance loaded up in streetcars, 150 Georgia Tech students were in attendance. But if you expected ill intent, you'd be wrong. Wearing their neighbor's school colors of "black and crimson” while loudly pulling for UGA, Tech students curiously chanted during the game, "I love codfish, I love codfish, I love codfish balls." You can’t make this stuff up.

Yet, apparently “made up” is what some at Auburn claim to be the most popular legend surrounding its ubiquitous “War Eagle” battle cry—that the “cry dates back to the first time Auburn met Georgia on the football field in 1892 and centers on a spectator who was a Civil War veteran.” Supposedly, the veteran took his pet eagle to the game that afternoon, whereby the bird broke free and began circling the playing field. Auburn fans, “taking the bird's presence as an omen of success,” began yelling, “War Eagle!” At the game’s end, the eagle suddenly dove from the sky, crashed to the gridiron, and perished.

In recent years, this version of where “War Eagle” stems from has been discovered by historians and journalists to be more of a “dramatic tale” and “extremely made-up.” Rather, a growing number of researchers and even some Auburn followers have settled on as late as the 1910s as to the most likely origin of the cry.

Many current UGA football enthusiasts are well aware that a goat, Sir William, bore the honor of being Georgia's first school mascot. However, there was almost another story, and you won't find him, anywhere in the annals of Georgia football, as it's not exactly a proud specimen of UGA lore. Instead of the goat, Georgia was nearly represented by a human being—Lewis Green, better known as Old Tub

Old Tub was a blind Black man who lived in a cabin next to the UGA campus during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Adored by students and regarded as "one of the landmarks of Athens,” Old Tub was particularly known for his spellbinding stories, including accounts of his round-trip journeys to both Hell and Heaven. A playful "college alphabet" in UGA’s 1890 yearbook, the Pandora, actually tells us that “T is for tub, the college Mascot.” These were very different times in the Deep South, and it's no wonder such details don't appear in official modern histories.

Leading up to the Auburn game, Georgia students suggested that the 79-year-old Old Tub grace the sidelines to represent the team. In the end, however, the goat won out. On the contrary, it was Auburn that took the path UGA rejected. Instead of any tiger or eagle, Auburn offered “Dabble, the negro boy” as its mascot.

When Auburn fans shouted at Sir William, “Shoot the Billy goat!” the Georgia faithful directed their yells toward Dabble: “And, take the negro out!” Nevertheless, as reported, Dabble stood his ground, totally ignoring the shouts, and "walked on calmly...across the field to his place near the judges' stand."

In the end, or only an hour and a half following the opening kickoff, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, as it was known, had prevailed by a 10-to-0 score via two touchdowns (each counting four points at the time) and one successful conversion (two points).

While “War Eagle” has likely been inaccurately associated with the first Georgia-Auburn game, the 10-0 Auburn victory has been celebrated on the Plains as the inauguration of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. But as one might expect, the school is quite mum when it comes to its first mascot—the brave, dedicated Dabble—and his association with Auburn football.