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accented with a colorful and humorous presentation. He also knew abut the players and their high school coaches.

On top of that, he was an entertaining and delightful host, taking the writers to Harry’s Tavern in Five Points, Poss’ barbecue on the Atlanta Highway, and on Friday nights before home games, the Athens Country Club.

There has never been a more entertaining and gracious host than this colorful UGA personality. He made everybody feel good about his alma mater in the process.

However, he was a seasoned competitor as the men’s tennis coach, and he never backed away from confrontation if he felt that he or his school were wronged.

If a writer was unfair in any way, Magill would challenge him, pointing out where he was in error. Magill didn’t rant and rave just to be exercising his vocal cords. He pointed out the facts in plain English with an occasional expletive or two.

In later years, I asked Jim Minter, who became editor of the AJC if Magill were right about a sinister element at the paper that seized on the opportunity to embarrass the University. Minter said that Magill was correct in his assessment.

A classic example of Magill’s antipathy with the AJC bias or shoddy reporting came during the time of the late Bobby Garrard. Throughout the lean years, Magill tried his hardest to bring about good press, and when he did, he would complement the writer.

Likewise, he would offer professional rebuke when some reporter took a shot at the Bulldog program.

Those years were when newspapers held sway. The Atlanta Journal owned the Atlanta Constitution but the sports staffs were separate and fought tooth and nail for news and scoops.

One morning in the fall of 1954 Minter’s phone rang and an irate Magill called him with this terse comment: “Jim, if Captain Bobby Garrard suffered a fatal heart attack at practice today, the headline in the Atlanta papers would read, ‘Garrard quits Georgia.’” With Garrard’s passing last week, I called Minter, and we reminisced about that long ago phone conversation, an interesting vignette in the lore of Bulldog football, and a reminder of the love of alma mater that defined the unforgettable Dan Magill.