Mr. Maddox, class of 1944, conducted by Jennifer Jowski on August 2, 1944, at 1994, at Mr. Maddox's home. The subject of this interview is student life at Georgia Tech. 

Okay, Mr. Maddox, we'd like to know a little bit about student life at that period of time. 

Do you have an earliest memory of Tech? 

Do you remember anything specific that stands out in your mind? 

Well, the reason I went to Georgia Tech is because I'm a native of Atlanta, and I've lived in Atlanta all my life, and I went to Atlanta Boys High School, and so I used to play a lot of tennis when I was younger. 

I was a pretty good tennis player, and I was offered a scholarship to go to the University of Georgia and play tennis, but they wouldn't pay the room and board, and Georgia Tech said they would help me out a little bit financially and get me a job so I could go to Georgia Tech for less money than I could go to the University of Georgia. 

So, for that reason, I went to the Georgia Tech. And I first went to Georgia Tech, I think, in, I believe it was September of 1941. And I really don't remember too much about that, but that's when I first went there. What was tuition and all that? 

That was all paid for through school and work? 

No. You had to pay for your own tuition. 

Did your parents help you out? 

My parents helped me out some, and the school helped me out a little bit. Not too much, but a little bit. 

And so I wasn't in school very long before, you know, in December, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. And so I hadn't been in school very long when the war broke out. 

And so when the war broke out, they told all the students at Georgia Tech that they had to sign up for, I think they called it the Enlisted Reserve Corps if they wanted to stay in school. 

So everybody went down and signed up for the Ennisted Reserve Corps, which I did also. And at that time you had to fill out some forms and so forth. There was some place there on the form where you had to select Army, Navy, Marines. 

And I had been in the Coast Artillery at Georgia Tech, and I knew I didn't like that particularly well, so I just put down Navy. 

And I don't really know whether that's how I happened to get into the V-12 unit or not, but I finally wound up in the Navy V-12 unit, which was called up later on, and we were all put in uniform. 

We all went down to the Naval Armory, and they had all of us down there, and I think they gave each one of us about a half a dozen shots. 

And I do remember, I guess that's one of my main memories, is going down to that Naval Armory and going through all of that stuff and getting into the Navy V-12 unit. When I had first gone out there, I had eventually gotten into a fraternity, a Sigma Nu fraternity. I lived at the fraternity house, I think, for about a semester. 

But then after the Navy V-12 unit came along, all of us were put in dormitories out at the school. 

So from then on I lived in the dormitory. 

I think I first lived in Howell Dormitory and then later on in Brown during the rest of my stay at Georgia Tech. 

Do you remember where you were when they announced that they had been in the attack? 

I believe I was in a movie theater somewhere in Atlanta when they announced that. 

What did you do on the weekends, like your social life, girls? 

Well, as I say, when I had joined this fraternity, and that was primarily my social life, was the fraternity, they were always having some kind of a party at one time or another. Back in those days, there didn't seem to be much restriction on drinking. There was a whole lot of drinking that went on. 

I can remember when Auburn came up to play Georgia Tech, I was wandering around the fraternity house, and it looked like every table, every possible service must have had at least a six or eight fifths of whiskey on it. And so, that's the way it was back then. 

Where were the, did you date girls while you were there? 

Where did they come from? 

Well, of course, I lived in Atlanta and I'd used some people in Atlanta, so I dated Atlanta girls that I had known in high school or whatever they had. 

I remember the fraternity having a Little Abner dance, I think they called it, where the boys all dressed up as Little Abner and the girls dressed up as Daisy Mae, and they had that sort of thing. and that seems to stick out in my memory. 

What did you do downtown? 

Where did you go downtown? 

Because I know a lot of times the social life revolved around things downtown in the fall. I don't recall going downtown particularly. You know, once they put me in the dormitory out there, my life revolved around the dormitory mostly. 

I lived, well that was an exciting life, though, in the dormitory, because when I was in Howell Dormitory, I was in a corner room moving on Howell Dormitory, and I was right across the room, right across from me, he was occupied by Eddie Prokop and John Steva. Prokop was a running back, and John Steva was an All-American tackle, I think. And Frank Bernoulli's was in that dormitory also. 

You may know that Frank Broyles later on became the coach of Arkansas and is now the athletic director at Arkansas. 

And he was in that dormitory and I have since run into him on one occasion out at the Atlanta Country Club for a golf tournament they were having out there. I went into him out there. 

So that's about the way my social life was. 

What about football games, the rivalry between UGA and Tech? 

Do you have any specific memories there? 

Oh yeah, I remember some things about that. Of course, back in those days, Alexander was the coach of the football team. And one year, I think it was, I'm not sure, I think it was 42. Georgia Tech had an undefeated team. They were undefeated for the entire season going up to the Georgia game. And I believe Frank Brawls was the quarterback then. And I believe Paul Duke was on that team. They had some good players on that team. And the only problem was that the University of Georgia also had a very good team that year. They were undefeated when we met. Both Tech and Georgia were undefeated. 

But Georgia had, they had Charlie Trippie, I think, was on the team. 

I don't remember whether Frank Sinkwich was on that team or not, but I do remember Trippie was on that team. And it was played in Athens, and for some reason I was late getting to the game. 

For some reason I was late getting to the game, and by the time I got to the game, it was already 70-0, I think, in favor of Georgia. 

But it really was quite a game. I remember him on one play. They were down about the 20-25 yard line of Georgia Tech, And they hiked the ball back to Trippie. 

And two Georgia Tech players came charging at him, and he ran in a little semicircle back there to dodge them. Two more came at him, and he ran in another little semicircle. That happened on three different occasions. Him running in little semicircles back there, dodging tackles, and then he turns around. 

All this time he was dodging people, and then he turns around and throws a strike right into the guy's chest in the end zone. 

So that guy was really quite a player, and he was the primary cause of our downfall, I guess. 

But my recollection of football was that when I was in high school, I was either in the same class or the class ahead of Clint Castleberry. And Trent Castleberry was a high school star. I mean, he was a really terrific player in all sports. He was a good baseball player, a good football player, and a basketball player. And he came to Tech. He played on the team as a freshman. That's when I think the first one started allowing freshman to play at that time. And he played on the team as a freshman, and he was really something. He was later killed, and he was in the Army Air Force and was killed in the Army Air Force. I remember him playing against the University of Notre Dame. Tech beat Notre Dame that year, primarily because of Clint Castleberry. 

So, that was a nice recollection of the football happenings out there. I guess that's about all I can tell you about that. 

How were classes while you were there? 

I know that I always had a hard time getting up in the morning to get to that first class. 

But I really had a pretty bad attitude myself when I was out there, because it seemed like the whole attitude of the school was that we've got to go off and fight the war. And I really didn't have the right attitude, and I really didn't do very well with my grades. And I had to come back afterwards to make up some grades, and I had to take some courses over. 

But this time, I knew I had to do what I had to do, and so I made very good grades when I came back, and I was able to go ahead and finish up. 

Do you have any memorable teachers, any teacher that influenced you? 

Well, I was on the tennis team at Georgia Tech, and the coach of the tennis team was a professor, Earl Bartell. And Earl Bartell, he was quite a character himself. He was a physics prof. He was real short, and his pants always looked like they hadn't been pressed in at least six months. He had baggy knees, you know, and he really looked real slouchy. He was a good prop, but he just looks kind of slouchy. He was left-handed. 

I remember when the team went on trips, he would drive and his legs didn't reach down to the pedals too. Anyway, we were always driving and he was in a jerking motion. 

You know, he'd be giving it to gas one minute and taking his foot off the next, so we were constantly jerking back and forth. I remember him very well. 

While I was out there, I worked in an architectural library, And I knew some of those people that were studying architecture that had been studying in that building. I don't really have too much of a recollection of my professors, to tell you the truth. 

I remember that we had a professor named Trotter who taught machine design, who was really quite a character, and he usually talked about mostly everything except machine design. And, you know, I remember him. I don't have any distinct recollections of any of the others. 

What kind of organizations were you involved in? 

Were you involved in anything on campus? 

What kind of things did you do? 

I was on the tennis team. I was on the tennis team every year that I was out there. As I say, I had been a pretty good player. 

While I was in high school, I won the Georgia Interscholastic, GIAA, Georgia Interscholastic Athletic Association, singles and doubles, and when I came out to Tech as a freshman, I think Nelson Abel was the number one varsity player at that time, but I was able to beat him even when I came out as a freshman. And we had some pretty good tennis teams while I was out there. 

Later on, the year behind me, there was a fellow named Frank Willett that came out there, and another fellow named Howard McCall, and Willett was the best player on the team. I played him twice in tournaments and he had beat me both times. McCall had never beat me, however. I had won the Atlanta City Junior Tournament when I was 18. I was won the Georgia State doubles tournament twice before I ever went to Georgia Tech, I believe. And later on, in 1948, I was ranked second in the South in doubles. 

I had gotten I took the semi-finals of the Southern Men's Tournament up in Nashville, and we played, my partner and I played Brian Bitsy Grant and his partner. They beat us in the semi-finals of that tournament. 

What kind of jobs did you have while you were on campus? 

Well, as I say, I had worked in the architectural library. They helped get me that job, which helped me to make a little money doing that. That was the only one that I really had. 

Well, I think I worked in the fraternity house. I worked some in the fraternity house serving meals, I believe, to make some money. 

But after I got, after the V-12 unit took us all in, all of the tuition and everything was paid for by the Navy, by the government, so I didn't have any problems after that. 

Where did you eat while you were there? 

Did you ever eat at cafeterias? 

Do you remember? 

Well, when I was at the fraternity house, I ate at the fraternity house. When I was in the V12 unit, we ate at the school cafeteria, which is a great big place. Those were the two primary. 

And of course, my living in Atlanta, any time that I had the time that I could go home, I could go home and get home cooking. 

So, you know, I had a good deal there. Do you remember any of the, anything like George P. Burdell? 

Yeah, George P. 

Burdell happening while you were there? 

Anything specific? 

No, I don't really know too much about that, how that happened. I will tell you this, though. 

This last, summer before this last one, I was on a tour with my wife up in Nova Scotia, and those parts, and I ran into a fellow on that tour, and his name was C. B. Drummond. He was a colonel, apparently, that had been a colonel for the Army out at Georgia Tech at some time. 

Anyway, he and I got to telling each other lies, I guess, about our times at Georgia Tech, and And that guy is a talking machine. He can really talk, and he was telling me that he knew the fellow that had originated George P. Burdell. He had a real long story he told about that. I can't remember all of it, but he really knew how it all began and so forth. 

Recently, Georgia Tech was in the College World Series baseball tournament out in Omaha, and my son lives in Omaha, and he attended those games out there. And he said that George P. Burdell had been paged out there during the World Series. 

But that's about all I remember about that. 

Do you remember a specific rambling wreck while you were on campus? 

The car? 

Do you ever remember seeing one around? 

Did they have anything that they, like the Ramblin'' Wreck parades and all that stuff, did they ever do any of that while you were there? 

I know they didn't do it for a little while. No, I don't remember that. I think things got, things really got fouled up, you know, when the V-12 unit came in. 

Well, because most of the guys that had signed up for the Army were taken into the Army. I mean, they, I think they called it the ASTM or something like that. They, those guys were, they had to go out to Fort McPherson and were inducted into the Army. And, this all happened even before they got the V-12 unit set up. 

So, for that reason, I was glad that I had signed up for Navy. But, they took all of those guys in, and it was only later on that they set up the Navy V-12 unit. 

What was your question? 

I was just asking about if you had ever had rambling wreck parades while you were there. 

Well, they didn't, not that I can recall. Oh, your hands are getting the microphone. 

Things, as I say, things were really changed, because a lot of the guys that I had started the school with were taken out. They left. The Army took them, and they were gone somewhere. And a whole bunch of new guys came in. 

There were guys that came in from Auburn and Vanderbilt and a lot of the other schools around had people that came in. of Tennessee. The guy that I was rooming with, I think, was from Auburn. And the guy next door was from the University of Tennessee. And NC State had some people down. 

So they were from all over. 

So my class really got all messed up because of that. Did you ever go over to the robbery of the books? 

Oh, yeah. I went to the robbery quite a bit. As a matter of fact, I thought robbery was a very appropriate name for the police. As a matter of fact, I really kind of resented. 

I came from a family that wasn't exactly wealthy, And I kind of felt like they charged a little too much for some of that stuff at the time. And I kind of had a resentment about that. 

But later on, I changed my mind and decided, well, it was all well worth it. Did you ever climb Tech Tower? 

I know that was a big thing for people to do. 

You're talking about the main administration building? 

No, I never did climb up there, although I did have a class, I think it was in analytical geometry, on the third floor of that building. And I don't know if I should tell this or not, but this really sort of got my goat. 

I was in this class, and there was a new professor, and he was a very meek and mild-mounted sort of a guy. And, you know, he had no class discipline. 

And some of the guys in there were doing all kinds of stuff, you know, and it was disrupting the class really. And finally, we had a desk that was. It was a long desk, about eight feet long, that was anchored to the floor of the screws. And this guy's, of course, in the back, there was one desk, I think, that was not occupied. 

And they had taken the screws out of this And they had that desk hanging out, about two-thirds hanging out the window of that third floor before this guy ever said anything to them. And I tried to get transferred out of his class, but I wasn't able to do it. Was the Varsity there when you were there? 

Was it right down the street? 

Yes. Did you ever go eat over there? 

Oh, yeah. I went over to Varsity all the time. Spent some time out there directing traffic, and one thing and another, and the varsity. Do you remember, like, I know the technique was being printed at that time. 

Was that any kind of impact, the blueprint? 

Yeah, I still have my blueprints that I got when I was in school there. 

And I think the president of my fraternity was, I think, I believe he was one of the editors of Technique. He had Killam or something like that. I can't remember. Kill him, I think, was his last name. But, you know, that's about all I can tell you about it. Did you ever meet President Britain? 

Did you ever see him? 

No, I never did meet him. I met George Griffin. He was, of course, he was well -known by everybody out there. I didn't know him, and I think he had been a track coach at one time. Later on, after I had left the V-12 unit there, I was set to... 

I ran into George Griffin in Honolulu after I'd gotten a commission, I think at a tennis match out there when I was on the way out to my ship. 

But after I left Georgia Tech there, I was sent to a place in Asbury Park, New Jersey. 

So, anyway, I ran into George Griffin out in Honolulu. 

We were watching a tennis match, and I really wasn't all that, you know, personally familiar with George Griffin, but I did run into him out there. 

Well, what I started to say was that when you were in the B-12 unit, you were given a certain amount of time to finish up your schooling. And at the end of that time, you had to go. And so I reached the end of that time, and I still hadn't completed all my courses. I think I still had a semester to go or something. And anyway, I had to leave. 

So I was sent up to Asbury Park, New Jersey to a collecting point where they were collecting people like me from schools all over the country. It was sort of a waiting place until an opening came up in one of the reserve midshipmen schools. 

And so I stayed up there at Asbury Park, New Jersey in a hotel, the Monterey Hotel, which was on the boardwalk at Asbury Park, New Jersey. It was a resort hotel. and we would get up in the morning and go out on the beach there and do our exercises and with all the people walking up and down the boardwalk while we were out there exercising and it was really quite a nice place to stay and so we had a we had a nice time up there mostly we didn't have anything to do particularly so we were just doing what they told us to do which is doing the exercises, and most of the rest of the time we just could do whatever we wanted to. 

But then eventually, after a couple of months, we were all assigned to a reserve officer at Midshipman School. And I was sent to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, had a school for engineers. 

And so I was sent to Annapolis for a, for the, what they called it, I guess you called it back in those days, a 90-day wonder school. And so I went to the Naval Academy, and we were put in... I was in Bancroft Hall, which is one of the regular dormitories where the Naval students stay. And they treated us just like their own Midshipmen. And I remember that we had to learn different things just like the Midshipmen had to learn. Like, these were things that they would do to you just to try to aggravate you, I guess. 

For instance, they would ask you, what time is it? 

And you had to say, sir, my chronometer is in such an accord with the great sidereal movement, by which time is commonly reckoned, that I could not with any degree of accuracy state the exact time. 

However, I would say it's exactly two ticks, one talk, and 30 minutes past the hour. They had asked you questions like that that you had to know the answer to. 

They had one, I can't remember all those now, but one of them I think they asked you was, How long have you been in the Navy? 

And you say, Sir, my mother was a mermaid. My father was King Neptune. I was born on the crest of a wave and rocked in the cradle of the deep, and so forth, you know. And when we ate at our meals, we had to eat square meals, you know, like this. 

And anyway, we were treated just like the regular naval cadets were treated, the midshipmen were treated. And so I spent three months there, and at the end of three months was given a commission. 

I was sent down to Florida to a destroyer ****** training school, and I was there for about six weeks going to school in Miami. 

Then from there I was sent out to San Francisco, and I stayed in a hotel on Market Street in San Francisco for about a month, I guess. 

They didn't have any bachelor officers quarters and so they put us in a hotel on Market Street and we were being paid per diem every day for that. 

And all we had to do was call in every day to see if our orders had come in and been assigning us to a ship or something. 

If we hadn't been assigned anything or we didn't didn't have any orders, we didn't have anything to do, so we could do whatever we wanted to. 

And that went on for about a month, and then eventually I was sent down to San Diego for a night or two, and then we left there on an aircraft carrier to go out to Montaluz or Pearl Harbor. 

And then I stayed out there for, I guess, for a month, still no orders, and going to gunnery school and firefighter school and so forth out there, and eventually I got on a ship and was sent on out to the Carolyn Islands, a place called Eulithy in the Carolyn Islands, and one of my recollections of that is that when I was on the beach over on an island called Mog Mog, and I was sitting there drinking a beer, just sitting there and down, walking down the beach comes this guy I had gone to high school with, and I just, you know, it's just one of those strange things that you run into somebody 10,000 miles away from home that you went to school with. 

But anyway, to make a long story short, they finally assigned me to a ship. And then I got on a destroyer going from there on up to Okinawa. And I got on my ship, which was a destroyer ******, at Okinawa. And this was at the later stages of the war. And we were on a patrol back and forth on the island. I mean, not on the island, but around the island. 

They had a whole series of ships patrolling back and forth all around the island and on further out about 10 miles out was the radar screen and those were the ships that were getting hit by the kamikazes although this ship that i that i got on had been hit by one before i got on it and had been repaired but anyway i could see the fighting some of the fighting going on from we were close enough in that i could see some of the fighting the strafing of airplanes going on. When I got on that ship, I had been, you know, I hadn't had any duties up until this time. And I got on the ship and it had three GQs the first night I was on there. And I hadn't even been assigned to the station or anything. I mean, I hadn't been told where to go, but I didn't have any duties. and on the third GQ, I just missed it altogether. I slept through the third GQ. 

But anyway, that's what happened to me after I left the school. 

And then when I came back to school, as I say, I had to make up some grades, and I had to go to night school. And I went to night school for a while and I really made A's and B's mostly. And they told me I could go back in and finish up. 

So I went on back into regular school. And during that time, I played number one on the tennis team then. 

Prior to that, I had, in earlier times, Frank Woodard had been number one and Howard McCall was number two and I was number three. 

That was back when the first time I was there, although Howard McCall never beat me a day But anyway, that's the way it was. 

But then I played number one when I came back, and we traveled. On the tennis team, we traveled all together by car, because there was just a mode of travel. And we played Tulane, I think. Tulane had a very good tennis team. They had a player that was, I think he was ranked in the top 10 or 15 players in the country. And his name was Jack Tuero. 

So they had a very good team. And that was the first time Tuero was there. 

And then the second time, after I came back, we went out there and played them, and I played a guy named Wade Herring, who was their number one player. And we had a **** of a match, and he finally beat me in three sets. and we lost the match. 

But anyway, the coach, Bartell, really liked to go on those trips to New Orleans because he loved raw oysters. And he could put away a couple dozen raw oysters at one sitting. We played, I think, Davidson. I don't remember who all we played. I think we played Duke and North Carolina. And we played Emory. I can't remember who all we we did play, but my doubles partner was a fellow named **** Collier. Collier was also a basketball player. He was on the basketball team, and he and I made a pretty good doubles team. 

And we, and McCall and **** was the other doubles team, and we had some real matches between the two of us. 

I don't know what else to tell you about the tennis, except that we had a very good team for that time, but the University of Georgia didn't have anything. 

The University of Georgia now has probably one of the best tennis programs in the country, And they had won the NCAA, you know, several times. 

But back in those days, they didn't have anything, and we beat them every time we played them. What did you practice when you played tennis? 

Well, in those days, they only had clay courts. They didn't have those nice facilities like they have out there now. They had some clay courts that we played on. They were just nowhere near as good as the facilities they have now. 

But I had seen the present tennis complex is called the Bill Moore Tennis Complex. And living in Atlanta, I had seen Bill Moore play when he was in school. He was a left-hander, and he was a very good tennis player. 

And I remember there was another guy named Burtz Boulware, who was the number one player, and Bill Moore was the number two player. 

But I remember seeing them play when I was younger then. 

Where were the practice scores? 

Do you remember kind of where they were located? 

I really can't even place where they were anymore. 

I think they were, it seems like they were near where the parking lot is, that big deck of the parking lot. I'm not sure of that, though. I don't know. Where did you live when you came back from? 

Well, when I came back, I lived at home. I stayed at home and just went back and went to school. 

Were the attitudes of the other students and the teachers and stuff, were they different after? 

Or was your attitude different? 

My attitude was a whole lot different then, because I knew before that I had really wasted a lot of time because I had such a bad attitude, and I didn't take studies seriously. 

But when I came back, well, I had to take integral calculus over. I think I had made a D or something in it. And so I had to take integral calculus over. 

And, you know, when I was studying it, I worked all the problems at the back of every chapter when I came back. 

And I wouldn't have even thought about doing that the first time, you know, but the second time I was really serious and I studied hard and I wanted to prove to myself that I had enough sense to do it. 

It makes a big difference when you're putting your heart into what you're doing, you know, than if you're just slacking things off, so that's about the way it was. 

Is there anything else that we haven't asked you about that you wanted to talk about or that you remember? 

The only other thing I could think of, just off the top of my head, was that right before I left Tech the first time, We had received invitations to go to the NCAA Tennis Championships, and Coach Bartell had told us that we could go if we wanted to. 

Well, I was leaving, and I think **** Colley was leaving also to go, you know, in something. 

So, I didn't have a very good attitude about that even then, so he and I decided we weren't going to go. 

But Frank Willett and Howard McCall went up there, and they did very well in the tournament. There was a guy named Pancho Segura, I think was his name, who eventually won the tournament. 

But Frank Willett gave him a very good match up there. I think Frank got the semifinals. I'm not sure, but both of them did very well in the tournament. 

They had some kind of point scoring system, and I've always regretted that Carl and I didn't go, because if we could have been able to make some points ourselves, we might have won the NCAA. That's about all I can think of to tell you right now. 

Well, I think we're done then.