October 12, 1929: Sanford Stadium Opens In Georgia

October 12, 1929: Sanford Stadium opens, on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens, 72 miles east of downtown Atlanta.

Named for Dr. Steadman Vincent Sanford, an English professor and an early supporter of the school's athletic program, the University of Georgia opens it with 15-0 win over Yale in front of 30,000 fans. Since UGa had been founded by missionaries from Yale, and had also borrowed Yale's team name of Bulldogs, they were the invited guests.

Known for the privet hedges that surround the field, and the end zone containing the crypts for the deceased Uga the Bulldog mascots, Sanford Stadium has seen several expansions and renovations that have put its current seating capacity at 92,746. It hosted the soccer games of the 1996 Olympics, even though Athens and Atlanta, despite being in the same State, are not all that close.

With stars like Frankie Sinkwich, Charlie Trippi, Theron Sapp, Fran Tarkenton, Jake Scott, Herschel Walker, Garrison Hearst, Champ Bailey, Knowshon Moreno and Brock Bowers, the Georgia Bulldogs have won 15 Southeastern Conference Championships since moving in, as well as the 1942, 1980 and 2021 National Championships. They've also had All-Americans named Johnny Carson (not the talk show host), Randy Johnson (not the baseball pitcher) and George Patton (not the general).

UPDATE: They were SEC and National Champions again in 2022, and SEC Champions again in 2024. So that's 17 SEC titles, and 4 National Championships.

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October 12, 1929 was a Saturday. Napoleon "Nappy" Brown, the original singer of the rhythm & blues songs "Don't Be Angry" and "The Night Time Is the Right Time," was born on this day.

Game 4 of the World Series was played at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Going into the bottom of the 7th inning, the Chicago Cubs led the Philadelphia Athletics, 8-0. The A's set a Series record by scoring 10 runs in the inning, and won the game, 10-8. Since playing professional sports was still illegal in Pennsylvania until 1933, the A's could not wrap up the Series the next day, so they wrapped it up the day after that, on Monday, October 14, in Game 5.

Pro basketball was still strictly minor-league. And the NHL season didn't begin until November 14. But there were other college football scores, including the following:

* The top team in the South that season, Tulane University, beat Mississippi A&M, 34-0 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. (A&M would rename itself Mississippi State in 1932.)

* Notre Dame beat Navy, 14-7 at Municipal Stadium in Baltimore. From 1950 to 1954, piece by piece, it was converted into Memorial Stadium, longtime home of the Orioles and Colts. Notre Dame went 9-0, and were retroactively declared National Champions.

* The University of Pittsburgh also claim a National Championship for this season. They went 9-1, including on this day, winning their annual "Backyard Brawl" with West Virginia, 27-7.

* Purdue beat Michigan, 30-16 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana. This game decided the Big Ten Conference title.

* The top team on the Pacific Coast, USC beat the University of Washington, 48-0 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* In New York City, Fordham beat New York University, 26-0 at the Polo Grounds.

* And City College of New York lost to St. Lawrence University, 22-0 at Weeks Field in Canton, New York.

* In New Jersey, Princeton lost to Brown, 13-12 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

* And Rutgers lost to Holy Cross, 20-3 at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts.