Charles Oliver
Dalton Daily Citizen
DALTON —
No matter how you look at it Dalton State College won Saturday afternoon.
About 200 students, alumni and other area residents gathered at Bandy Gymnasium to watch a team of students take on a team of alumni at basketball. The students won 60-57 in overtime before a boisterous crowd.
Melvyn Ottinger, who coached DSC’s Roadrunners basketball team from 1968 to 1978, coached the alumni, and he wasn’t too happy with the outcome of the game. But he said he was thrilled at the turnout.
“To get a crowd like this for a bunch of kids playing some alumni who were coming back shows there’s still a lot of support for basketball here. If they could put a team back together like we had, they probably wouldn’t be able to play here. They’d have to play in the trade center or some place like that,” he said.
Several alumni and current students said Saturday they’d like to see the college bring back the Roadrunners, which was abolished in 1978, as well as possibly some other sports.
“I went here in the 1970s, and the Roadrunners were really big. It was something we were really proud of, and I think it would be great for the students and the community if we could get them back,” said Dalton’s John Taylor.
Former political science professor Terry Christie was part of DSC’s founding faculty, and he said he was thrilled with the turnout at the game.
“I don’t know if this will bring the Roadrunners back, but if it does, I know they can count on me to be there,” Christie said.
DSC president John Schwenn says the college hopes to eventually get back into intercollegiate sports, but he says that’s a process that will take some time.
“We are starting with club sports. They are doing some traveling, meeting other teams and getting some interest going,” he said. “We don’t have anything predetermined right now.”
DSC recreation director Garret Burgner says the school already has club teams in sports such as soccer and softball and hopes to add more next fall.
“It gives students something to rally around. It gives them something to cheer for. Our soccer team was very competitive this year. We played Vanderbilt, Emory, UT-Knoxville, Georgia Southern, Columbus State,” he said.
At half time, officials unveiled the new graphic design for the Roadrunner mascot. Freshman Hannah Bowling, a student at DSC’s Ellijay campus, won a contest to design the new bird, which was judged by students and faculty. Her design is more fierce-looking than the old mascot.
“I looked at a lot of other school mascots, and many of them seemed like cartoons. I didn’t want it to be like the ‘beep beep” Roadrunner. Instead, I made him look angry,” she said. “I’m really excited. It’s a real honor. I understand they’ll be putting it on jerseys and things. It would be really cool to see sports come back.”
The next step will be to choose a nickname for the mascot. College officials have set up suggestion boxes around campus seeking ideas.
