The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Marcus Stroud, a player for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, celebrates a missed field-goal attempt by the University of Virginia Cavaliers during the 1998 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Peach Bowl, renamed the Chick-fil-A Bowl in 2006, takes place each year in Atlanta. Established in 1968, the bowl draws the highest attendance of all the bowl games outside the Bowl Championship Series and offers the second-highest payout to participating teams.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Champ Bailey, a player for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, poses with the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl trophy in 1998. That year the Bulldogs defeated the University of Virginia Cavaliers in the bowl, which is held annually in Atlanta.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Turner Field, the home of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, was built as a track-and-field stadium for the 1996 Olympic Games. The first Braves game in the stadium, which was converted into a baseball-only facility after the Olympics, took place on April 4, 1997.
Image from Wally Gobetz
A bronze statue of Ty Cobb, created by Felix de Weldon in 1977, stands at the north entrance of Turner Field in Atlanta and depicts the baseball legend sliding into a base. Nicknamed the "Georgia Peach," Cobb, a native of Banks County, played for the Detroit Tigers from 1905 until 1926.
Image from David
The Georgia Dome in Atlanta was the home of the Atlanta Falcons football franchise for twenty-five years. Completed in 1992 and demolished in 2017, the dome held more than 71,000 seats and hosted a range of events, including basketball games, concerts, and religious conventions.
Image from Valerie
Fans gather for the Chick-fil-a Bowl football game inside the Georgia Dome, once the second-largest domed structure in the world. The facility was managed by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority.
Image from Gary Cope
The Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium hosts the opening night of the World Series in October 1995. The stadium, jointly designed by the architecture firms FABRAP and Heery and Heery, was completed in 1965 and attracted two professional teams, the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Falcons, to the city.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
An International League baseball game is played at the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1965, the same year in which the facility was completed. In addition to sporting events, the stadium was used for concerts and other large gatherings before it was destroyed in 1997 to make way for Turner Field (later Center Parc Stadium).
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Atlanta Braves player Hank Aaron celebrates at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on April 8, 1974, after breaking Babe Ruth's home run record.
Photograph by Major League Baseball
A promotional poster for the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York City features athlete Dan O'Brien performing the high jump over the Brooklyn Bridge. Established by Atlanta businessman Ted Turner, the games were held six times between 1986 and 2001.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Former Olympic speedskater Michael Plant, pictured in his Atlanta office in 1997, served as president of the Goodwill Games from 1995 until 2001.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame is the largest state sports hall of fame in the nation, boasting 43,000 square feet. Exhibits include artifacts, trophies, and interpretive history displays relating to the legacy of sports in Georgia.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
The inaugural Tour de Georgia in 2003 began its second stage at the front steps of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. The Tour de Georgia is an annual professional cycling stage race that covers the state and raises funds for the Georgia Cancer Coalition.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1963 the state archives building in Atlanta opened a public exhibition celebrating inductees into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, located in Macon, opened its doors in April 1999. In addition to collecting and preserving sports memoribilia, the Hall of Fame interprets the history of sports in the state and maintains the tradition of sports as a positive influence on the youth of Georgia.
Courtesy of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
The city of Atlanta hosted the Olympic Games during the summer of 1996. The games drew approximately 2 million visitors to Georgia, as 10,318 athletes from around the world gathered to compete in 26 types of sports.
Photograph from Wikimedia, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library
Georgia Tech hosted swimming and diving events in the Olympic Natatorium and boxing in Alexander Memorial Coliseum during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Courtesy of Georgia Tech Communications
The opening ceremony on July 19, 1996, attracted a capacity crowd of 83,000 to the Olympic Stadium for a display honoring southern culture and the one-hundredth anniversary of the modern Olympic movement.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Olympic Village, located on the Georgia Tech campus, was open July 6-August 7, 1996. The village was home to more than 14,000 athletes, coaches, trainers, and officials from 197 national Olympic committees, almost 10,000 employees (mostly volunteers), 4,000 guests, and hundreds of media representatives, with a daily population of nearly 30,000.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Centennial Olympic Park, one of the most enduring legacies of the 1996 Olympic Games, was carved out of a blighted area in downtown Atlanta. The twenty-one-acre swath of greenspace and bricks was closed after the games, redesigned for permanent use, then reopened in 1998.
Photograph by Wikimedia
Olympic mascot designer John Ryan with an illustration of Izzy, the official mascot for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The amorphous, abstract figure carried the name "Izzy," derived from "Whatizit?" because no one seemed to know exactly what "Izzy" really was.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Men's volleyball teams from the USA and Argentina competed in UGA's Stegeman Coliseum during the 1996 Olympic Games.
Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services
Commemorative bricks, which were sold for $35 before the 1996 Olympics began, were used to pave the plaza and walkways of Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. There are nearly 500,000 engraved bricks in the park, with names from around the world.
Photograph by Szilveszter Farkas
Georgia native Teresa Edwards has been recognized as one of the greatest American female athletes of the twentieth century. After beginning her career playing for the University of Georgia, she went on to play basketball in the WNBA as well as international leagues. Edwards is the first basketball player to have played in five Olympics, and she won gold in the 1996 Atlanta games.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
This first-class postage stamp celebrates a century of Olympic Games in 1996. The games were held in Atlanta, Georgia.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum
