November 7, 2009.
This is the Wikipedia definition of a panty raid:
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A panty raid is a prank in which male students steal the panties (undergarments) of female students by intruding into their quarters.
The first documented incident occurred on February 25, 1949, at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. Around 250 men entered the women’s building through heating tunnels beneath the school. Although a few panties were taken, the goal was to cause commotion.
The next incident was on March 21, 1952, when University of Michigan students raided a dormitory. This led to raids across the nation.
Penn State’s first raid involved 2,000 males marching on the women’s dorms, cheered on by the women, who opened doors and windows and tossed out lingerie.
The spring ritual continued in the 1960s. Three students were expelled from the University of Mississippi for panty raids in 1961.
By the 1970s, mixed dorms and less inhibited attitudes to sex on campus led to a fading of panty raids.
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Panty raids were still in vogue, but on the wane, when I went off the college. When I arrived at the University of Georgia in 1960, fall quarter was devoted to football, winter quarter to muddling through, and spring quarter to hedonism — including panty raids.
Most of the time, the raids were spontaneous. Most occurred on a Friday or Saturday evening, under the comforting cloak of darkness, perhaps as a small group of idle students lounged on the steps of a dormitory.
A student whose girlfriend lived in a particular women’s dormitory might casually suggest a panty raid on that dorm. If the idea caught fire, as it often did, students would fan out to inform their friends.
Some would get on the phone, others would run the halls of the dorms, announcing the plan. Before long, the small group on the dormitory steps had grown into a hooting and whistling crowd of several hundred.
I was involved in five or six such events during my college years, but I was always a spectator — one of the multitude who watched the fun from the sidelines.
I had no intention of running pell-mell through a women’s dorm in pursuit of lingerie. I knew that if I were nabbed during a panty raid by the campus cops, or worse, by the Dean of Men, my life would be over. Dad would see to that.
So I enjoyed the spectacles from a safe distance. The events were great fun and virtually always harmless.
There was, however, one blood-chilling exception to that safe distance thing.
The University of Georgia has enjoyed many fine institutions over the years. But no campus institution is more revered than the longtime service of the steely-eyed Dean of Men, William “Wild Bill” Tate.
Dean Tate came to UGA as a freshman in 1920. After graduation and a brief period as a professor, he became Dean of Men in 1946.
During his tenure, the Dean presided over his share of panty raids, as well as the bumpy desegregation of the University and the years of the Vietnam War protests.
Dean Tate was a harsh disciplinarian. During the 1962-63 school year, he suspended 42 students, placed 257 on probation, and issued 1,430 student warnings.
When a student’s behavior was inappropriate, Dean Tate would confiscate the offender’s I.D. card. To get it back, the student was obliged to appear at the Dean’s office to discuss his actions.
But strict though he was, Dean Tate was widely known as an honorable and compassionate man, especially if you behaved yourself. He counseled troubled students, pushed them to be their best, and often loaned money to boys with financial problems.
He was, in short, a Georgia student’s best friend and worst enemy.
In Spring Quarter 1962, my Sophomore year at UGA, as a panty raid took shape in the gathering darkness one Saturday night, the specter of Dean Tate loomed large.
It loomed because it was Dean Tate who would be summoned to break up the raid and restore order.
Although the man was aging and portly, he was lightning fast.
No, seriously. Bill Tate was a track star as an undergraduate, and even in the 1960s, it showed.
At the beginning of my sophomore year, I had transferred from Reed Hall, the freshman dorm, to Lipscomb Hall, one of the new residence halls at the foot of Baxter Street near Sanford Stadium.
I chose Lipscomb because (1) it was brand new, (2) it was close to campus, and (3) it was the designated dorm for the football team.
I thought it would be interesting to be around the football players, and I figured that between the players and the coaches, peace and order would be strictly enforced.
That was indeed the case, most of the time. But it was on the lawn in front of Lipscomb Hall that a panty raid took shape that Saturday night in 1962.
The intended target was Church Hall, a women’s dorm 100 yards away on the other end of the quadrangle.
If I could relive that evening, I would climb to the roof of Lipscomb Hall and take videos to capture the sight of the churning humanity, the sound of the utter chaos, and the sheer joy of the youthful high spirits. Alas, I cannot share those images with you.
On the ground in 1962, it was a go-with-the-flowing-crowd kind of experience. For my part, nothing was planned. I just wandered around and gravitated toward the most activity and the loudest noise.
That meant moving steadily across the quad and closer to the epicenter at Church Hall.
I have no idea if any of the men entered Church Hall, and really, it didn’t matter. The night was already a success; chaotic merriment, after all, is its own reward.
Then, as I was standing in the middle of the quad, harmlessly watching the events unfold and harmlessly reveling in the merriment, everything changed.
From behind, a hand roughly seized my shirt collar and locked on with a powerful grip. I was startled, shocked, powerless.
“Quiet down, son,” growled the familiar voice of Dean Tate in my ear. “The fun is over for you.”
The good Dean strode purposefully across the lawn, dragging me behind him. I stumbled backwards, trying to stay on my feet.
The Dean began barking orders to the students in the quad. “You boys break it up, right now! I want this lawn cleared! Get yourselves back to your rooms, you hear me?”
I knew Dean Tate wanted to nab another student or two, but like a school of fish, the mass swarmed tantalizingly out of his reach.
Finally, when a nearby student seemed to let down his guard, the Dean lunged toward him, his free hand outstretched to make the capture.
When he did, his iron grip on my collar relaxed ever so slightly. That was all I needed. I yanked free and ran. I ran faster and farther than ever before or since.
Today, Dean Tate is remembered for much more than his role in thwarting panty raids. When UGA was racially desegregated in 1961, the Dean took it upon himself to escort the two black students, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, through the registration process.
Once, on a rainy night, he went to the scene of a car wreck, found a student’s severed ear, and took it to the hospital, where it was successfully reattached.
And in 1970, when Georgia students organized a sit-in to protest the killings at Kent State, Dean Tate donned love beads and sat with the protesters.
The Dean once said, “I’d rather be Dean of Men at Georgia than president at Harvard.” He loved the University and its students, and they, in turn, loved him.
In 1971, the Dean retired. He remained in Athens until his death in 1980.
By then, I was working in the Advertising Department at Lithonia Lighting in Conyers, Georgia, alongside my friend Larry, the Art Director, also a Georgia grad.
As a tribute to Dean Tate, we placed an ad in the UGA student newspaper, The Red & Black. It was a simple line drawing with no text — just an image of the Dean next to another Georgia institution, the University’s symbolic Arch.
Not long after our tribute ran, we received a letter from the Dean’s son, Jeff. He was not pleased. He threatened legal action for unauthorized use of his father’s likeness.
He had every right, I suppose. We were so determined to honor the Dean that we overlooked the legalities. It was very amateurish of us.
In the end, our boss wrote a letter and defused the situation. He convinced Jeff that our intentions had been to pay tribute to a man we respected, not to use his memory for corporate gain.
So the episode was forgotten, except for one small fact that sticks in my craw to this day: we could have used the Dean’s likeness freely if we had paid a fee.
This is the image that got us in trouble. I still think it’s an excellent likeness. I still think it was a fitting tribute.
