After last night’s heart-breaking debacle for the Falcons, there's been a lot of talk today paralleling Atlanta’s epic collapse to those experienced by the Georgia football team in recent years. On a positive note, I wanted to detail a notable instance when the Bulldogs and Falcons had something in common—something good—like the initial time Atlanta drafted a Bulldog—Mr. Bulldog, to be exact.
In the eighth round of the 1968 NFL Draft, Atlanta chose Georgia's Ray Jeffords. The 194th overall selection in late January of that year, Jeffords was taken nearly 100 spots earlier than Bulldog and eventual two-time Pro Bowler, Jimmy Orr, was chosen 11 years earlier in the 1957 draft, and even higher than recent hall-of-fame inductee and UGA's Terrell Davis would be selected in 1995. Notwithstanding, where Jeffords was picked wasn't the most unusual aspect of his selection, but the fact that he was picked in the first place, considering he didn't play a down of football for the Bulldogs.
The 6-foot-5, 200-pound Jeffords had played basketball at Georgia, and basketball only. Still, the Falcons selected him as a tight end prospect because of his "good hands," which he indeed possessed on the gridiron but more than six years earlier, or the last time he had played organized football as a first-team all-state end for Ware County High School.
After lettering in four sports at Ware County, Jeffords earned a basketball scholarship to Georgia, where he would go on to become one of the Bulldogs' greatest roundball players of the 1960s. In three seasons on Georgia's varsity, Jeffords averaged 10.6 career points per game and 8.4 rebounds. Known for his defensive and competitive play, Jeffords was recognized as an honorable mention All-SEC player as a junior in 1965-66. The following year, he was chosen captain of the 1966-67 squad, but suffered a knee injury, forcing him to sit out the entire season.
Believing Georgia's basketball squad was finally on the verge of a winning year after 16 consecutive losing campaigns, Jeffords decided to return for the 1967-68 season back when it was routine for players to not come back for a fifth year. Good thing for Jeffords' return. Elected team captain for a second time, he was an integral part of a remarkable 17-8 season, which included an improbable victory over 5th-ranked Tennessee, snapping the Bulldogs' 11-game losing streak to ranked opponents. Averaging 12.6 points and 9.4 rebounds per game, "Mr. Bulldog," as he was known by some on campus, was a consensus second-team All-SEC forward.
On January 29th of his final season, or the day before the NFL's annual draft, Jeffords broke his nose in a blowout win over Alabama. Two days later, or the day he was chosen by the Falcons, Jeffords not only played at Auburn with the broken nose, but led the Bulldogs with 14 points.
"Ray Jeffords was one tough hombre," a UGA football player during that time informed me in an interview a few years ago. "He was someone you wouldn't want to fool with."
On the court, Jeffords was known to be a “hatchet man,” or a player who would mix it up with anybody. But, off the court, he was evidently just as rugged.
Not maintaining to have first-hand knowledge, the former football player I interviewed claimed that dorm life at UGA back then could involve literally paying off certain athletes not to "fool with" you, or paying certain athletes for protection from those who did the foolin'. "He was one of those," stated the former player while not indicating which specific group Jeffords was a part of. "He was an enforcer on the basketball court and in the dormitory."
It leads me to wonder why Jeffords was not an “enforcer” on Georgia’s gridiron, as well.
“It was in 1964…when [defensive coordinator] Coach (Erk) Russell approached me about the possibility of playing defensive end,” Jeffords said in an interview in 1968. “It was okay with me.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t okay with the university, which had a rule forbidding an athlete who had signed a basketball scholarship to play other sports, although an individual who had signed a football scholarship could play multiple sports. Out of high school, Jeffords had signed a basketball grant-in-aid.
Nevertheless, Atlanta gave the rough and tough enforcer a shot at the sport, forever linking the Falcons and the Bulldogs with making seemingly one of the most bizarre transactions in the history of athletics. But, for the selector, was it really all that unusual at the time to choose a basketball player?
In the 1967 draft, or the year prior to Jeffords being chosen, the Falcons had picked Texas A&M's Randy Matson in the 5th round with the 120th overall selection. Matson, who had been on the track and field team at A&M, and the track and field team only, had not played football since the 11th grade. He had won a silver metal in the shot put at the 1964 Olympics, and would capture gold in 1968 but, as for football, he wouldn't even report to camp for the Falcons.
As for Jeffords, was it really all that bizarre for Mr. Bulldog to be considered a football player years after participating in the sport? Evidently not, as for the very next year in 1969, he played with the Alabama Hawks of the since-defunct Continental Football League.
Jeffords was such a standout at linebacker for the Hawks, it earned him an NFL tryout in 1970 with the St. Louis Cardinals. Remaining with the Cardinals until their roster was trimmed to 48 players, the tough hombre was only waived after suffering a severe shoulder injury.
