The Game That Inspired
"Red Elephant" Lore!

It was a crisp October afternoon in 1935 when the drama ignited on the gridiron in Marietta, Georgia. Gainesville High School’s burly, crimson-clad warriors—undefeated and hungry—stormed onto the field like a thundering herd ready to trample everything in their path. Facing Marietta’s equally undefeated Blue Devils in a hyped showdown billed across Atlanta papers, the Red and White (as they were then loosely known) unleashed a dominant 26-6 rout. Star back Dean Evans exploded for a 71-yard touchdown and another 12-yarder; the Gainesville line powered for 278 rushing yards while holding their foes to a measly 88 total. The earth seemed to shake beneath their cleats.

The game’s true legacy exploded the next day in the Atlanta Journal. Big-city sportswriter Bill Blake, covering the clash, was mesmerized by the sight of those massive players charging down the field in their blazing red jerseys. In his post-game column, he famously penned the ten-word zinger that would echo for generations: “Here come the big Red Elephants of Gainesville High School.” (Some retellings dramatize it as the “big Red Elephants” stampeding through the door like an unstoppable crimson avalanche.) That vivid imagery—capturing their sheer size, fiery color, and raw, earth-shaking force—hit like lightning. Within weeks, hometown papers like The Gainesville Daily Times picked it up; fan chants thundered it from the stands; and by mid-season, “Red Elephants” had become the team’s unofficial, then fiercely official, moniker. Born not from boardroom decree but from pure gridiron glory, headlines, and roaring crowds, it was organic magic.

For decades, though, a colorful myth clung to the tale: that legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice—the “Dean of American Sportswriters,” immortalized for naming Notre Dame’s Four Horsemen and chronicling Southern football giants—had coined it back in 1925. Folklore claimed Rice, drawn to watch Gainesville’s powerhouse undefeated squad (which rolled to a combined 26-0 record from 1923-25, outscoring foes 1,045-70 with 19 shutouts), quipped that the team looked like a “herd of Red Elephants” as the ground shook beneath their feet. The story persisted in yearbooks, local lore, and even Wikipedia entries, tying neatly to Rice’s fame.

But meticulous archival digs by Gainesville historian Johnny Vardeman (and others) shattered the legend. No 1925 Rice reference exists for the high school team. The earliest documented use is Blake’s 1935 column. The mix-up almost certainly stemmed from Rice’s (and contemporaries like Everett Strupper’s) very real coverage of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide. In 1930, Rice and fellow writers popularized “Red Elephants” for Bama’s massive, undefeated national champions—describing their crimson-jerseyed linemen as elephantine behemoths thundering across fields (sometimes linked to oversized luggage tags from a Birmingham trunk company). That powerful Southern football imagery got tangled in local memory, wrongly attaching to Gainesville’s story years later.

Perhaps Bill Blake, a veteran Southern sportswriter steeped in the era’s gridiron legends, subconsciously recalled Grantland Rice’s famous 1930 description of Alabama’s thundering “Red Elephants” and unconsciously borrowed that powerful imagery when he watched Gainesville’s burly, crimson-clad players charge onto the field five years later. It would explain how the exact phrase resurfaced so perfectly in his 1935 column—turning a borrowed memory into Gainesville’s own enduring nickname.

Today, the nickname stands as rare and mighty as the beasts it evokes—no other U.S. high school claims “Red Elephants.” It endures as a thunderous badge of Gainesville pride, a living reminder that sometimes the greatest legends are born not in myth, but in one unforgettable, earth-shaking moment on a Georgia football field.

What we know about the game that inspired the mascot?

On October 25, 1935, the Gainesville High School (GHS) football team traveled to Marietta, Georgia, for a highly anticipated matchup against the undefeated Marietta Blue Devils. This road game, played under the lights at Marietta’s home field, drew significant hype from both local and Atlanta newspapers, marking it as one of the marquee clashes of the young high school football season. At the time, GHS—still known simply as the “Red and White” due to their red jerseys—entered with an unblemished record (barring a 6-6 tie against Anderson, South Carolina, earlier that fall). The victory that night not only boosted the team’s momentum but also immortalized them through the birth of the “Red Elephants” nickname–a mascot only one high school in America has, GHS.