On Deck

For more than 60 years, Aaron was a larger-than-life hero and an institution in Atlanta. Through baseball, he managed to attract and unite the city’s Black and white populations, a feat that was remarkable in the South in the 1970s. Aaron was a portrait of courage and humility, reasons his legacy will never be swept into the city’s historical dustbin.

But there’s another reason Aaron’s story will endure: Caretakers, like Georgia State University President Mark Becker, are continuing the work of preserving his achievements.

When talk of a housing development planned for the site of the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium surfaced, Becker took a stand. To him, the idea that the very dirt where Aaron hammered out his historic homer could ultimately be covered up by someone’s toilet was abhorrent. Becker felt he had a duty to see to it that the property would be developed in concert with the history that was made there.

“One of the greatest moments in baseball history happened right there. We decided we were going to find a way to bring baseball back to that site, and we never wavered,” he says.

Today, Georgia State is planning for the storied setting to become the home of its baseball and softball programs, which Becker says the Panthers will use to “immortalize” Aaron and his game-changing hit on April 8, 1974. Plans call for the majestic bronze statue erected in Aaron’s honor in 1982 to be relocated from the plaza in front of Center Parc Credit Union Stadium
(formerly Turner Field) to the baseball and softball stadium complex.

The new ballparks will also honor the place where the Atlanta Braves won their first and only World Series championship in 1995. The team moved into Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium from Milwaukee in 1966 and called it home for three decades before moving across the street to Turner Field after Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics. Turner Field had been constructed for the Olympic Games, then repurposed for the Braves, who played there until 2016, making way for Georgia State to convert the facility, yet again, into the home of Panthers football.

PRESERVING THE PAST
“I’m a math geek by training, but I’ve always loved history,” Becker says. “Particularly in a city like Atlanta, which has a reputation for not necessarily paying attention to its history, when you have an opportunity like we have to honor Hank Aaron, you want to do it.”

Aaron died on Jan. 22.

“It’s just heartbreaking that when we open our facility, Hank won’t be there,” Becker says.

The details of the stadium complex are still being worked out, and the plan is for Aaron’s statue to be a centerpiece in recognizing the history that Hammerin’ Hank and the Atlanta Braves made at the site.

The plans for the stadium complex, which will include a baseball stadium and a separate softball stadium, are part of a larger vision Becker has for the 67 acres south of Interstate 20, which Georgia State purchased in 2017. He needed to find a home for the university’s football program with the demolition of the Georgia Dome on the horizon and saw a huge benefit to bringing baseball and softball in from its outpost nine miles east of campus to create “an athletics precinct.”

“The Braves did us a favor when they left the one parcel large enough to realize our dreams,” Becker says.

Becker and Georgia State Athletics Director Charlie Cobb share the same concept for Panther Athletics to play a part in preserving Atlanta sports history.

“It’s been part of the vision in the repurposing of the football stadium to honor the memory of the Olympics. It’s the same with the baseball complex being in proximity to the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron’s 715th home run and the World Series win,” Cobb says. “It’s Georgia State being part of the fabric of the city, of downtown and its history. We’re building a baseball stadium to help our programs be successful, but we couldn’t completely do this if we weren’t honoring the Braves, Hank Aaron and the legacy of what we have.”

A rendering of the new Georgia State baseball and softball complex looking north toward downtown. The plans call for the incorporation of the Hank Aaron Wall, the section of the outfield fence left standing after the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was torn down in 1997. The Hank Aaron statue, now standing in front of Center Parc Stadium, will also be relocated to the complex.

ANCHORING A COMMUNITY
The goal is to achieve more than an athletics foothold, Cobb says. It’s also to nurture the ethos of Georgia State, which is about diversity and opportunity. The university annually graduates more African American students than any other nonprofit institution in the country. To continue that work, the school wanted to establish a lasting presence in the Summerhill community around Center Parc Stadium and the diverse enclaves on the city’s south side, where many of these students live.

“All of our athletic teams represent the diversity of the university,” Cobb says. “The opportunity for kids from all backgrounds to use baseball as an opportunity to get a college education and to better themselves would resonate with anyone, especially those who understand the legacy of what Hank Aaron brought to Atlanta. For kids to have the ability to play baseball in a first-class facility, get an education and create a better life is a real simple message.”

For many residents of Summerhill, the two previous stadiums — Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (1966-96) and Turner Field (1997-2016) — were outliers. With them came acres of asphalt parking lots, which sat as empty wastelands most of the year. Community members never felt attached to the venues, nor did they feel they benefitted economically from them.

That’s why Becker and Cobb want to create a partnership among Georgia State, its stadiums and neighboring residents.

“The goal from the beginning was to do something to lift the area, and at the same time achieve our goals of having an athletics department that can compete at the highest levels,” says Becker. “We don’t want to put up walls and fences to separate us from the city.

"So, we are developing an athletics precinct at the same time our partners are catalyzing residential, retail and commercial development in a neighborhood that has been a desert.”

Becker said Georgia State has increased the number of employees and students who come from the neighborhoods around the stadiums.

Tim Kellison, an associate professor in the College of Education & Human Development and a national expert on stadium design in urban settings, says Becker’s vision for the area is appropriate.

“Some mistakes we’ve seen in other cities or regions have been an unwillingness to look back and to embrace the history of the local community. In many ways, I’ve seen projects that have tried to erase that history,” Kellison says. “It would be a grave mistake to ignore that and not celebrate the many historic successes there.

Kellison points to new commercial development along nearby Georgia Avenue, including shops, restaurants and a brewpub.

“My impression is that they are serving a new community that is emerging in that area,” Kellison says. “There’s great potential in the Georgia State project and stadium development to respond to the needs of the community that is already there.”

Summerhill was a flourishing community before the construction of neighboring Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium wiped out whole blocks of homes in the 1960s. Kellison said being conscious of what came before the stadiums is key to Georgia State’s acceptance in the area today.

“We are responding to the history of Hank Aaron and his legacy, but there is a much wider legacy in the community that is equally important in many ways to creating a thriving community — not just with the student population, but with the people who live next door,” Kellison says.

Building signs and banners proclaiming the area “Summerhill” are on many of the renderings provided by Carter, the developer partnering with Georgia State.

Right down the middle of the neighborhood, binding it all together, is Hank Aaron Drive.

When construction gets underway at the new ballpark complex, Georgia State will pay homage to the great Hammerin’ Hank, refreshing his memory through physical details. But the university will also celebrate him by instilling an Aaron-like culture in its own baseball program.

CONTINUING A LEGACY
Georgia State Head Baseball Coach Brad Stromdahl says he and the Panthers met Aaron in 2007, when Stromdahl was an assistant coach. Aaron told the story of being a young boy lugging blocks of ice up stairways with metal grips. He said it strengthened his forearms for bashing home runs, but it also built his work ethic.

“What I’ve always taken with me through all the teams that we’ve had is really that same hardhat, lunch bucket-type of attitude of Hank Aaron,” Stromdahl says. “‘Come to work.’ It’s our mantra for how we play the game every single day.”

Georgia State’s ambitious plans will help ensure the story of Aaron, and the significance of No. 715 will be renewed as tourists, city dwellers and neighbors walk up to the statue to admire Aaron’s corkscrew figure and the home run flying off his bat.

“When our coaches recruit young men and young women to play baseball and softball, to be able to recruit them to a place of history gives them a sense that the game is larger than just them,” Becker says. “You need to fit into that history, and for the young men and women who will play baseball and softball at Georgia State, that will be really cool.”

Timelapse video by Riki Prosper Kujanpaa (B.A. '17)