Dec. 7, 2011
TO: Fans, Friends, and Supporters of Georgia Tech Athletics
FROM: Dan Radakovich, Georgia Tech Director of Athletics
We were all excited to get the news Sunday that we had been selected to participate in one of the great, traditional bowl games in America, as Georgia Tech accepted an invitation to the Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.
The Sun Bowl is tied for the second-oldest bowl game in the country behind only the Rose Bowl. This year’s game will match our Yellow Jackets with the University of Utah from the Pac-12 Conference. We’ll kick-off at 2:15 p.m. EST on Saturday, December 31st. The Hyundai Sun Bowl is the only bowl game carried by CBS Television, the 44th year CBS has televised the Sun Bowl. The Sun Bowl is the second-longest running sports event on CBS behind only the Masters.
Congratulations are in order to Coach Paul Johnson, our staff and, most importantly, our football team, having finished with an 8-4 regular season record and earning our 15th consecutive bowl trip. Our bowl practices have already begun and I know our team is focused on one of their season-long goals – to bring back a bowl game victory. We’ll depart for El Paso on December 26th and Sun Bowl Executive Director Bernie Olivas promises a great experience for our young men in the great Southwest.
I realize that this bowl game presents some challenges for our fans in terms of travel. Some of you have responded early, purchased tickets and are making plans to get to El Paso for the game. I know from experience that Georgia Tech fans are tremendously creative and will find all sorts of ways to end up in the stands to back our team. We all hope you’ll do your best to make it to El Paso for this unique bowl trip.
For those of you who just can’t make the trip, we’re asking that you consider a ticket donation to some of our nation’s finest soldiers, who are stationed near El Paso at Fort Bliss. This is one of the country’s largest military installations with more than 30,000 troops stationed there at this time. We would like for Georgia Tech fans to give these heroic men and women a slice of holiday cheer by providing tickets to the ball game. What better way to not only support Georgia Tech, but to spread our brand and feel good about these tickets going to a great cause.
One of the activities for our football team while in El Paso is a trip to Fort Bliss to visit with the troops, tour the facilities and check out the massive arsenal of state-of-the-art military equipment. It is on this visit that our players and coaches will present the tickets that you all have donated. They will carry a personal message from Georgia Tech fans everywhere when they present the tickets. Please consider helping with this program.
It is extremely easy to follow our online process to either purchase tickets for your own use or to purchase tickets to be donated:
Purchase your Hyundai Sun Bowl tickets.
Donate bowl tickets to a soldier.
As always, we thank you so much for supporting our program. Coach Johnson and the team have worked extremely hard to accomplish an eight-win season and are focused for the next three weeks on getting a bowl win and get to victory No. 9 for the third time in the last four years.
Happy Holidays from Georgia Tech Athletics
To close out my Good Word this week I thought I would pass along a little yule-tide cheer to all of our great Yellow Jacket fans and followers. Hope the attached card will put you in the holiday spirit.
Fun Facts About El Paso
Dean Buchan and our media relations folks put together some fun facts and figures about the Hyundai Sun Bowl and the City of El Paso. I thought you might enjoy these whether you are heading out to the game or watching the Jackets on CBS:
• El Paso stands on the Rio Grande, across the border from Juárez, Mexico.
• The sun shines 302 days per year on average. In December, the average high temperature is 57.4 degrees, the average low 33.4. The record high was 80 degrees, the record low -5 degrees. Average December snowfall: 1.8 inches.
• Nicknamed “The Sun City,” El Paso was incorporated in 1873. It’s the sixth-largest city in Texas and the 19th-largest city in the United States. In 2010 El Paso was awarded an All-America City Award.
• Population: 649,211. Elevation: 3,800
• Home to The University of Texas at El Paso (founded in 1914 as The Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy).
• Fort Bliss, one of the largest military complexes of the United States Army, lies to the east and northeast of the city.
• The Franklin Mountains nearly divide the city into two sections
• El Paso lies at the intersection of three states: Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua(Mexico).
• Only major Texas city on Mountain Time.
• The 24,000-acre Franklin Mountains State Park is the largest urban park in the United States and resides entirely in El Paso. El Paso is surrounded by the Chihuahuan Desert.
• El Paso is closer to four other state capitals than Austin, Texas.
• More than 70 Fortune 500 companies have offices in El Paso.
• Call center operations make up 7 of the top 10 business employers in El Paso.
• El Paso is the second largest city without a major sports team.
• The Tigua Indian Reservation Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, located in El Paso County, is one of two Indian reservations in Texas.
• The El Paso area has the largest pecan orchard in the world, Stahman Farms.
• El Paso is the sight of the actual first Thanksgiving in April, 1598, predating the Pilgrims by 23 years.
Good Information On The Hyundai Sun Bowl
BOWL CENTRAL – YourComplete Tech Guide To The Hyundai Sun Bowl
Some Things To Know And Do InEl Paso
Remembering Tech’s 1970 SunBowl Trip
Basketball Teams Moving Toward the Holidays
Our men’s and women’s basketball teams are moving full speed ahead in their pre-holiday schedules. Brian Gregory’s men’s team is on a tour of the state of Georgia this week with a game tonight at the University of Georgia at 7 p.m. (Fox Sports South) and then a date at Savannah State on Saturday at 6 p.m. The guys have two games at The Arena at Gwinnett Center before Christmas, taking on Alabama A&M on Monday (Dec. 19) and Mercer on Thursday (Dec. 22).
MaChelle Joseph’s team is 5-3 so far after taking on a tremendously demanding schedule in the early going. They’ll play Sunday at Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro, and then battle cross-town rival Georgia State at GSU on Friday the 16th. A trip to the Bahamas for a pair of games on December 19-21 will complete their pre-holiday schedule.
Volleyball’s Mead Named to All-Region Team
After completing her junior season, Monique Mead has been named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association All-East Region Team. This is the second AVCA postseason regional honor for the Tech captain who earned the nod last season.
Monique earned honorable mention honors in her freshman year.
In the final game of her junior season she moved into second place on the single season kills list passing Lynette Moster’s 585 kills recorded in 2004. Mead also cracked the top-10 in the career kills category at NC State and at the end of the season sits in eighth place with 1,459 total kills during her three year career on the Flats. Congratulations to Monique.
Swimmers Qualify For Olympic Trials
Five Yellow Jacket swimmers qualified for the United State Olympic Trials in six events during the 2011 AT&T Winter Nationals that was held this past weekend at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.
Senior Heidi Hatteberg was the only Yellow Jacket to qualify in multiple events as the Louisville, Ky. native earned a spot in both the 100 back (1:03.19) and 200 back (2:17.44). In addition to Hatteberg, freshman Kate Woolbright qualified in the 400 free (4:19.39), while senior Lexi Weber earned her spot in the 50 free (25.96) and senior Jordan Evans clinched an Olympic Trials spot in the 100 free (1:01.99). On the men’s side, junior Eric Chiu qualified with his 100 fly time of 55.05.
Compliance Corner
Often times the media reports of alleged NCAA violations involving impermissible benefits, many of which are provided by what the NCAA refers to as “representatives of athletic interest.” What exactly does that mean? What the public considers a booster, the NCAA defines as a representative of athletic interest. Further, once an individual is identified as such, they retain the identity forever. For further information on the NCAA’s definition of a booster and for important guidelines to follow should you fit the description, please click here for a recently published NCAA article, Role of Boosters.
Vote For Buzz To Win It All
Buzz, our loveable mascot, has earned his spot in the Capital One Mascot Challenge finals!
After a 12-week regular season that saw Buzz go 12-0 and two huge playoff victories where he downed Brutus of Ohio State in week one and Wilbur of Arizona in week two, Buzz has made it to the finals. Buzz will face off with Wolfie, Jr., of the University of Nevada.
You can cast an UNLIMITED number of votes over the course of this week from December 5, at 12 p.m. to December 12 at 11:59 a.m. in three different ways.
First, you can vote for Buzz via the Capital One website. For all those Facebook fans out there you can also vote for Buzz on the Capital One Bowl’s Facebook page. Lastly, don’t forget to text in your votes by texting “BUZZ” to 78527.
