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ga tech 1956 bowl champs patch-flea market pickup
rube26105
Posts: 10,225 ✭✭
i thought this was neat, anybody know any significance of the explorer service on it,they kinda lost me on the explorer part?
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Let me know if you want to let it go. I'm always looking for some cool Jackets stuff.
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Howard Ector has been presented the Griffin Community Service Award.
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By John Dunn
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While Howard Ector was sitting on an emergency room table in Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Ga., last May, waiting as his wife filled out admission papers, his heart stopped.
"I died," Ector said. "My heart--everything--quit, with three doctors standing there. They brought me back to life and took me out to Emory."
After undergoing a quadruple-bypass heart surgery, Ector marveled at his good fortune. The day of his heart attack, he had been at a golf tournament in Tifton, Ga. But he was not feeling well. He asked a friend to drive him to Macon, where his wife could meet him, and his friend could then return to the tournament. Ector's host, however, insisted that he fly back in a private plane.
"It gives you chills," the 78-year-old Ector said. "Had he not flown me back, I would have died on the road to Cordele. But I'm here, and I have great faith in the Lord."
During Homecoming weekend, W. Howard Ector Jr., IM '40, was presented the 1995 George C. Griffin Community Service Award in recognition of a lifetime of civic and community involvement. The award honors Griffin, who during his lifetime was a coach, teacher, administrator and dean of students at Tech.
Ector retired as a vice president of Trust Co. Bank after a 23-year career and became a senior vice president with Georgia International Life Insurance Co., retiring eight years later. In 1992, Ector received the Marietta Citizen of the Year Award.
A seventh-generation Georgian, Ector grew up in West Point and excelled as a Boy Scout, earning 42 merit badges and the rank of Eagle Scout. He has remained active in Scouting all his life and is a recipient of the Silver Beaver award. He married Ellen Bradshaw, whose father was executive director of the West Point Boy Scout group. They have three grown children.
"I've been blessed," Ector said. "One of the great blessings of my life has been my friends. I know a lot of people, and I have a lot of friends."
After graduating from West Point High School in 1934, Ector received a scholarship to play football at Georgia Military College under coach Wally Butts, who later coached for the University of Georgia. Two years later, Ector said, he received a letter from George Griffin inviting him to spend a weekend at Georgia Tech.
"They bought me a bus ticket, and I stayed in the dormitory," Ector recalled. "I went to the spring dances, but I never met coach [W.A. Alexander] Alex, and I never met coach Bobby Dodd. I went home the next day. I'm sure they spent about $2 on me that weekend."
It was a good investment. Although Ector wasn't offered a scholarship to Tech, George Griffin promised to help him get a job, and Ector turned down football scholarships from Georgia, Florida and Clemson to play for Tech. At the end of his sophomore year, Ector received a scholarship for room, books, board, tuition, food and $10 a month. Ector was an all-SEC quarterback during his junior and senior years. In 1939, he led Tech to the Southeastern Conference Championship and then to a victory over Missouri in the Orange Bowl.
In addition to football, Ector played basketball and baseball at Tech. He was senior class president and a member of ANAK, Omicron Delta Kappa and the student council.
During World War II, Ector served as an artillery officer in the Guadalcanal campaign. He returned to the states for flight training and after earning his wings he flew B-26 bombers. He was a major at the time of his discharge, and Delta Airlines offered him a job.
"I don't know why I didn't take it, but I'm glad that things have turned out as they have," he reflected.
Ector became the first executive secretary of the Georgia Tech Foundation in 1947, and with Joe Westbrook, COM '29, who was president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, initiated the first Roll Call campaign.
"We started out on the basis of trying to get Georgia Tech people to contribute $1 for every year they had been out of school," Ector said. "Tech people were so wonderful that the thing just grew. I think back in the late '40s and '50s, we were probably the only publicly supported school in America where over 50 percent of our alumni gave to the fund.
"I give a lot of credit to Roane Beard [Alumni Association executive director], who spent 31 years in that job," Ector said. Beard, IM '40, was a football teammate of Ector.
During a six-month period in 1951, Ector served as Alumni Association executive director. In 1952, he became business manager of the Athletic Association.
"That was the time when football was the most prosperous it has ever been at Georgia Tech," Ector said. "We were winning every week and going to bowl games every year. Dodd was just unreal. Things were going great. Georgia Tech football was the social event in Atlanta. Every Saturday the society ladies would come out with their gloves, hats and furs--and if you didn't have a seat at Grant Field on Saturday afternoon, then you were flat out of luck.
"Tickets were a real problem, and that fell in my lap. What we did_and I caught a lot of flak about it--was take care of our alumni first. That had a lot to do with building the Roll Call. We were helping the alumni who were helping us."
During his first year as business manager, Ector started a tradition that also solved a major problem: finding suitable ushers for football games. He asked the Atlanta Area Council for the Boy Scouts of America to provide explorer scouts to serve as ushers at football games. "I told them we'll feed them a lunch, treat them nice, and at the end of the year, we'd make a contribution to the Boy Scouts commensurate with what they had done."
The concept was an immediate success and spread to colleges all across the country. In 1957, Ector served as president of the College Athletic Business Managers Association.
In 1959, Ector began his career with Trust Co. Bank.
When the class of 1940 observed its 50th reunion in 1990, Ector served as chairman. The class established an endowment for the Roane Beard Outstanding Classroom-Teacher Award, which is presented to a Georgia Tech professor. In 1994, Ector's classmates created the W. Howard Ector Outstanding Classroom-Teacher Award.
"It was very humbling," Ector said of the honor.
Ector is a past president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association; past member of the Tech Athletic Board; former chairman of the job-placement committee for Tech athletes; member of the Tech Athletic Hall of Fame; and emeritus member, life member and past state co-chairman of the Joint Tech-Georgia Development Fund.
Ector's community involvement and service have been extensive. He is a former Cobb County member of the Metro Atlanta Community Foundation; former vice president, Cobb County Chamber of Commerce; past vice president, Atlanta Area Council Boy Scouts; past member, Atlanta Community Chest; past co-chairman, Fulton County Cancer Crusade; past chairman, Fulton County March of Dimes; past chairman, the Arthritis Foundation; and past chairman, Atlanta chapter of Project Concern. An elder with First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, Ector is a trustee of Columbia Theological Seminary, manager of Lewis H. Beck Educational Fund and founding member of the Kennesaw State College Foundation. He was appointed by Gov. Jimmy Carter to the Judicial Qualifications Committee in 1973-74 and served as vice chairman. He is also a past president of the Atlanta Touchdown Club and a past treasurer of the Ty Cobb Baseball Memorial Commission.
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