WATCH: Dick Tomey interview from 1981

Tomey hits the themes that forge his legacy

I was roaming around the internet and came across this gem: An hour-long Dick Tomey Show from 1981, when he was halfway through his tenure as the University of Hawaii head coach.

KHON-TV produced the show, called "pressure, with class... Tomey: The First 5 Years"

The interview with Tomey focuses much more on the man than the coach, which I'm sure is exactly how he would have wanted it.

He says during the interview: "I'm much more interested at this point in that personal part of it rather than being thought of as a football coach, because I just think that is more of what I want to be, what I want to do."

Through the interview with Tomey -- and an extended chat with his first wife, Mary -- you hear echoes of the man and coach that Tucson got to know when he led the Arizona Wildcats from 1987 to 2000.

Said Tomey:

"I have had a hard time identifying with a player with great ability, although we'd like to have a lot of them. But I have had difficulty identifying with those guys because I wasn't one. I was somebody who was slow and fat and short, and there were a lot of reasons why I couldn't be an athlete. And I wasn't much of one, but I had a lot of fun at it. I had a lot of fun trying to be one. I identify much more with the guys who get it done with their perseverance and willingness to work."

Tomey talked about how he was fired twice for insubordination by Davidson head coach Homer Smith -- who later became Tomey's offensive coordinator at Arizona -- in 1965 and 1966. The first time, Tomey simply refused to leave; the second time he called Kansas head coach Pepper Rodgers.

"I knew he had a job and I told him I would fly to Kansas and see him the next day or two days from then," Tomey said. "If he hired me, then he would pay for the flight, and if he didn't, I would."

Rodgers paid for the flight.

In the end, Tomey, in 1981, showed the values that followed him until his death this May at 80: People over games.

"In the scheme of things, whether you make a first down or not really isn't that important," he said. "Now, it is on that night and it so to those people and so on, but in the overall scheme of things, it's not that important."