The first football game played by a team representing a
high school in Tifton took place on Saturday, October
17, 1914. To give you an idea -- Woodrow Wilson
was president, the Ford Motor Company announced the
8-hour work day, the minimum wage was set at $5 a week
and Germany officially started World War I by declaring
war on Russia.
Football was
already in most of Georgia. In 1903, South
Georgia football began in earnest when Benedictine and
Savannah fought for the Chatham County crown.
Evidence suggest that Fitzgerald and Waycross were
meeting on the gridiron even before that.
In Tifton, the
Tifton Agricultural and Mechanical School, which later
became the Georgia State College for men, was fielding
teams. In an Atlanta Constitution article printed
in 1915, the rivalry between Tifton A & M and Norman
College was in its sixth year with Norman owning a 4-2-2
advantage.
The A & M
Aggies claimed the 1916 state title after winning the
South Georgia Prep Association's championship game over
Norman 26-0.
In 1914, Tifton
High played "the Scrubs," which was A & M's B-team.
Tifton played the Scrubs three straight times with two
scoreless ties followed by Tifton's first recorded loss
-- a 14-0 defeat called because of darkness after the
third quarter.
With a record
of 0-1-2, Tifton then began their rivalries with
Moultrie and Valdosta. Both of those schools began
their programs a year earlier and handed Tifton a pair
of beatings with a combined score of 0-69.
Those losses
must have taught the young Tifton team well because
those same boys went on to win the South Georgia
Championship in 1915. They did so by beating
Valdosta 33-0 in the title game.
B.G. Childs was
the coach for Tifton's first three seasons and it's
worth mentioning the last names of those first players
for posterity: Carson W. Cobb, Morgan, Stypes,
Terrell, Whiddon, Parker, Herring, McCrea, J. Cobb,
Hargrett, Smith and Phillips.
In 1917, Tifton
went on a two-year hiatus because, "Owing to lack of
material, there will be no football team this season,"
according to an article published in The Dailey Tifton
Gazette. A flu epidemic was cited as a reason for
the lack of material, and World War I caused much of
Georgia to do without football through 1918.
As football
progressed, Tifton began some interesting rivalries
almost on a yearly basis. In its first year of
football, Tifton handed McPhaul Institute, better known
as Sylvester, a memorable loss. The 87-0 win is
still Tifton's biggest margin of victory and most points
in a single game.
Several
discrepancies exist when the rivalry with Fitzgerald is
discussed. A team from Fitzgerald is on the Tifton
record books in 1915 and played as early as 1909, but a
book chronicling the history of the Purple and Gold Boys
states that program officially began in 1919.
Thomasville
appears on the schedule in 1915, Albany in 1916, Cordele
and Ocilla in 1922. Nashville and Ashburn appear
in 1923 but Ashburn only appears six more times in the
1920s with an 8-1 record in 1923 with the lone loss
coming to conference champion Valdosta. The next
year, Tifton went 6-2 with one controversial game
against Moultrie. Tifton lost 12-0, but in
articles following the game, a pair of ineligible
players were in the game for Moultrie.
The year 1924
will stand out in Tifton history for a very special
reason. It was in 1924 that the first printed
reference was made to the Blue Devils. In a
preview for the Sylvester game, a sportswriter made the
familiar reference that still rings today. Tifton
lost what was called the South Georgia championship game
to Valdosta that year, 12-0.
