Athletics through the years

At first it may seem strange to ever associate Georgia College with anything but the bobcats. Not so long ago, Georgia College was not only known as the colonials, but also had a gymnastics team and sported brown and gold colors, instead of the blue and green so commonly spotted around campus today.

In 1998, the Georgia College colonials changed their mascot to the bobcats, also changing their colors shortly after that.

“The mascot was not nearly as much out of favor as were the colors, but several athletes had complained that when the ‘colonials’ went on the road, they were sometimes referred to as the ‘colonels.’ They had asked if the school mascot could be reviewed at the same time that the colors were being voted upon,” said Bruce Harshbarger, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Georgia College.

Harshbarger himself proposed peacocks be the new mascot, but his nomination didn’t make the final five. Before a final decision was made on changing the Georgia College mascot to the bobcats, other mascot suggestions in the top five included razorbacks and blue devils among others.

Later, in 2007, students had the opportunity to get involved in the Name That Bobcat contest to give the university’s mascot a more defined image and name, giving birth to Thunder.

“Around the time of Georgia College’s name and mascot change the whole system did a name change,” Athletic Director Wendell Staton said.

The University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents was revamping the naming of schools and deeming those institutions whose highest degree was a masters as a “State University,” thus affecting Georgia College.

The school even tried out the name Atkinson State University for a single day and answered the phones that way, as Sports Information Director Al Weston recounted. The name change never stuck.

Around the same time, Georgia College went from being part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to becoming a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II school and part of the Peach Belt Conference.

According to the book, “A Centennial History of Georgia College”, gymnastics was one of the first womens sports to be a part of the Colonials intercollegiate teams, that was organized in 1968. The team won their first state championship in 1971-1972 and later won Nationals 10 years later in 1981 and 1982. Unfortunately, the NAIA discontinued gymnastics in 1988, and by 1991 gymnastics was no longer a part of Georgia College Athletics.

The cut was “concurrent with when we went full-fledged NCAA Division II,” Staton said.

The NCAA’s Division II only had five other schools that competed in gymnastics—all of which were primarily in the Northeast and Midwest. The biggest reason gymnastics was cancelled was due to the travel distance, cost factors and generally fewer competitors nearby.

Posted by VictoriaGarofolo on Apr 14 2011. Filed under Close Up, Special Sections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.