Editor’s Note: This is the final installment of “Lasting Legacies,” a series examining historical aspects of the University.

They wore long skirts and wool sweaters.

They held pep rallies on Friday nights, where students, cheerleaders and football players would gather in anticipation of the coming game.

And, of course, they rang the Chapel bell when the Bulldogs won.

In the 1950s, when Nancy Butts Thompson, daughter of former UGA football coach Wally Butts, attended the University, things were different.

Thompson, who spent three years cheering on the Bulldogs from the sidelines in ’57, ’58 and ’59, will be between the hedges once again for Saturday’s Homecoming game against Tennessee Tech.

“It’s amazing how many [cheerleaders] are coming back,” said the 72-year-old alumna. “There are quite a few from my original squad.”

As the daughter of the Bulldogs’ legendary football coach, Thompson said cheering on the team held a special meaning for her.

“For me personally, it was a wonderful thing because at that time my father was the football coach at Georgia. So I was essentially cheering not only for the Georgia Bulldogs, but for my bread and butter, I suppose,” she laughed.

Thompson, who now lives in Athens, said she enjoys coming back to campus, especially when it’s to cheer on the Dogs. In the 50 years since she earned her journalism degree, students and faculty have molded the University into an institution much different from the one she remembers.

“The student body wasn’t nearly as large,” Thompson said. “It was such an honor [to be a cheerleader] because there were so few of us.”

While her alma mater evolved throughout the years, her sport has taken on a new face as well.

“We actually led cheers, you know. We had to have a big mouth,” Thompson said. “[Cheerleaders now] don’t actually do the types of cheers that we did, but I really love the dancing . and the realgymnastics involved with it now that we didn’t do [then].”

And though their form of cheerleading did not involve as many acrobatics as it now does, they were loyal to the craft. Standing in the sun for hours during the end of the summer months, with the notorious Georgia humidity lingering in the air, the “long skirts” bellowed their cheers from the sidelines.

“I guess you can say pride knows no pain, because we did it. It could be 95 degrees and we were in the sweater,” she said. “That wool though, woo, when those things got wet, they really had a stench. But we had a really good time.”

And the longtime Georgia fan still enjoys rooting for her favorite men in silver britches. Thompson, who will be swathed in her original uniform Saturday – one she herself purchased all those years ago – anxiously awaits to lend her voice to the already deafening yells of more than 92,000 Bulldog fanatics.

“With the long skirts from the ’50s . those skirts can cover a multitude of sins. We can still come back in our uniforms,” she said.

The tradition of alumni cheerleaders returning to Sanford Stadium to cheer on the Bulldogs began during the tenure of head cheerleading coach Mike Castronis.

Castronis coached Georgia cheerleaders from 1972 to 1986, and Thompson said she’s been coming back for Homecoming ever since the revered coach called to invite her to pick up the pom poms once again.

Now, the University cheerleaders have a cheerleading association, CHEERS, which is responsible for informing alumni cheerleaders of the year’s Homecoming events.

Joining Thompson in carrying on the tradition is 1947 University graduate and former cheerleader Curtis Beall, who cheered at UGA in ’42 and ’43 – the year the Bulldogs won the Rose Bowl.

“It was great,” Beall said, referring to the Bulldogs’ 9-0 victory over UCLA on Jan 1., 1943.

Beall, who now lives in Dublin, Ga., will be sporting his 67-year-old cheerleading sweater this weekend, and said he is ready to be back in the Classic City.

“I’ll be leading the Dogs out on the field Saturday, and I want to get word to coach [Mark] Richt that this 87-year-old Marine Dawg, that’s D-A-W-G, is going to slow down so I won’t get too far in front of his football players,” Beall said with a chuckle.

The former basketball player, converted into a cheerleader, who was eventually shaped into a U.S. Marine, intends to teach students a thing or two about cheering on the team.

“[A cheer] we used a good bit was, ‘Glory, glory to ol’ Georgia . and to hell with Georgia Tech.’ I think that’s kind of frowned on now; it’s not politically correct,” Beall said. “But I led the student body in that cheer last year, and I intend to do it again Saturday.”

Thompson, in a sing-song voice, recalled the melodies the cheerleaders of the ’50s would employ to pump up the crowd.

“We had great songs that you don’t hear now: Georgia, Georgia hear the Bulldog growl, scrapping, snapping hear him howl .,” she sang. “We did a lot of silly things looking at it now, but, you know, it was a more innocent time and we would do things like, ‘Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, way back.’”

But as the years roll by, and Thompson’s days at the University drift further and further away, it’s increasingly more difficult for her to join in on all of the Homecoming festivities.

“You kind of pray you don’t fall down, or drop dead out there,” she laughed. “The one year I went to the parade I was just so worn out. It’s better for me to just jump around – you start thinking you’re young and cute when you’re out there.”