Bear Bryant - Bobby Dodd fued

The recent story written by Bill Curry in ESPN (see here), has promoted an interesting disucssion over at the Hive about our history and why we were not voted back into the SEC - link here.

One of the interesting links provided is a story about an Alabama player putting one of ours in the hospital - link here. Evidently this incident is what started the animosity between Dodd and Bryant.

The single incident that became a national symbol for the type of dirty football allegedly encouraged by Bryant occurred in the fourth quarter on a routine punt return on which Alabama's return man called for a fair catch. The score was 10-0 and Alabama was determined to pound the last hopes for victory from the Tech squad.

Georgia Tech's Chick Graning was running down field on punt coverage when he saw the fair catch signal. Thinking the play was over, he pulled up, temporarily dropping his guard. That was all Alabama's Darwin Holt, a Texas native and a senior who'd followed Bryant from A&M, needed to see. He sprung at Graning, throwing a forearm into the unsuspecting young man's face and shattering his jaw.

Everywhere else in America, and especially in Georgia Tech's hometown of Atlanta, it was the story of the week. Graning's jaw and cheekbone were shattered, he'd lost five teeth, suffered a concussion and, since his nasal bone had also been destroyed, his sinuses had flooded with blood. The Atlanta Constitution ran photos of the brutalized young Graning lying in his hospital bed with his face smothered in bandages. The papers called for Holt to be suspended for what was, to them, an obviously late and dirty hit.