Carl Sanders, who died last Sunday, was the only Georgia football letterman to be elected governor of the state of Georgia. He was proud of that distinction, as were UGA alumni and the Bulldog family.

Sanders was good to his alma mater. As governor, he was always looking out for his university whenever he had the opportunity. While he was governor of the entire state, he was never reluctant to underscore his support of the university and express his feelings for all things red and black.

When I got the news of his death, I thought of the many times I was in his company, and we would reminisce about his days on campus and the big games with which he was familiar. He talked of Wallace Butts. Of Charley Trippi and the colorful teammates of his era. He was proud that his brother, Bob, whose nickname was “Blaze,” was his teammate.

One of his fondest memories came in 1945 (he became an Air Force pilot during World War II, entering the war in 1943) when he rejoined the Bulldog football team as a quarterback, traveling with the team to the Oil Bowl in Houston where Georgia defeated Tulsa, 20-6. Also making the trip was his brother.

“That meant a lot for Bob and me to make that bowl trip,” he said. “I don’t suppose there are that many brothers who have played on the same team in a bowl game.”

In his office on the 52nd floor of the Bank America Plaza at the corner of North Avenue and Peachtree Street, there was an alcove sitting area where he would host his guests and friends. He would share details of his time on campus. There never was a time when he did not express his appreciation for the football scholarship awarded to him to play quarterback for the Bulldogs.

“I feel that I owe the university my loyalty, and when I endowed a football scholarship at Georgia, it was to repay the athletic association for my education when I enrolled to play football after graduating from Richmond Academy in Augusta,” he said. “I will always be grateful to Georgia for the opportunity that scholarship afforded me. The education I got at Georgia not only means a lot to me, but it enabled me to become successful in life. I am indebted to the law school, but it all began with that football scholarship.”

Each year, Georgia will name a player to receive the Sanders Scholarship, which is given to the “quarterback who represents the student-athlete concept with equal emphasis toward both the classroom and on-the-field performance, befitting the record and tradition of excellence by Carl Sanders, former Georgia quarterback, law graduate, and governor of the State of Georgia, 1963-67.”

One of the incidents that he recalled with mixed emotions came during his freshman year, and it revealed something about his character. Upperclassmen were given to nasty hazing, causing the freshmen to revolt. They sent word to Coach Wallace Butts that they had had enough. They threatened to quit the team. To their dismay, Butts, ever the taskmaster, told the freshmen if they didn’t like what was taking place, they could pack their bags. This was Sanders’s response: “I knew that I could not go home to my parents and tell them I had quit and had given up my scholarship. The hazing was tough and hurtful, but I stuck it out. I was not going to give up that scholarship.”

When Sanders ran for governor, Coach Butts supported Sanders’s opponent, Marvin Griffin. Although he was greatly chagrined, Sanders harbored no ill will toward his former coach. One day at the Capitol, Sanders’s secretary came into his office and said to the surprised governor, “Coach Butts is here to see you.” Sanders extended a warm welcome to his old coach, who then apologized to the governor for taking a stand in support of Griffin. “You, know,” Sanders said of the visit by his former coach, “I truly admired him for doing that. I appreciated him having the courage to come and say that he was sorry for his decision. Not many people do that.”

As an aside, Sanders recalled hosting a small dinner party for some out-of-state dignitaries at Sea Island on a weekend of the Georgia-Florida game when he learned that Gov. Griffin had shown up without a reservation and was unable to be seated. Sanders invited Griffin to join his party. Sanders recalled that before long, Marvin, the consummate raconteur, regaled everybody with his colorful stories.

“After dinner,” Sanders remembered, “my guests asked me, ‘How in the world did you defeat a funny and clever fellow like that?’” This reveals an empathetic side of Carl Sanders — something which we have been led to believe does not exist in the political world.

There are so many points of pride in Sanders’s political years. As governor, he had a significant influence on bringing professional sports to Atlanta. The coming of the Braves happened on his watch, and so did the building of old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. One day, a very important visitor — Pete Rozelle, then commissioner of the National Football League — showed up at his office. The old American Football League, rival of the NFL, had begun making inroads toward locating a franchise in Atlanta. The NFL wanted to establish a team in Atlanta and asked Sanders for his input. The handsome governor knew exactly who should own the ball club: his old Chi Phi fraternity bother at Georgia, Rankin Smith, who owned the Life of Georgia Insurance Co. He invited Rankin to meet him and Rozelle at the governor’s mansion, and a deal was struck.

Sanders was a devoted workout advocate, an avid quail hunter and a low-handicap golfer. After retiring from politics to develop one of Atlanta’s largest and most successful law firms, Troutman-Sanders, the former governor later purchased the home of golf great Bobby Jones on Tuxedo on Atlanta’s fashionable “Northside.”

If you can believe it, during his administration, 60 cents of every tax dollar went in support of education. During his days in office, a building boom took place on campuses throughout the state, most notably at his alma mater. Of particular significance during Sanders’s term as governor, UGA doubled its faculty in one year.

It was Sanders who signed off on Georgia’s request for an athletic dorm in 1965. Joel Eaves, who had taken over as athletic director and who hired Vince Dooley, felt that an athletic dorm was warranted, which is how McWhorter Hall came about. It would house the latest in academic support facilities and services. Sanders supported the building of the dorm with the proviso that the state formula for building dorms (cost per square foot) would be the state’s responsibility, and the extra features for the dorm would be underwritten by the Georgia Athletic Association.

All Georgia partisans, no doubt, are in agreement with this salute: Carl E. Sanders was a “damn good dog.”