Vince Dooley Was So Much More Than A Coach
One of the true joys in life is when you get an opportunity to meet your heroes. That joy grows exponentially when, later in life, your heroes become your friends.
And so it was with me and Coach Vince Dooley, who passed away on Friday at the age of 90.
Two stories will tell you everything you need to know about the Hall of Fame coach who won 201 games, six SEC championships and a national championship in 25 seasons:
**--It was 2001 and our daughter, Sara Catherine, was making her final decision on where she would go to college. Her finalists were the Honors Program at the University of Georgia and Duke. We wanted her to go to Georgia for a number of reasons but we didn’t want to push.
I mentioned Sara’s upcoming decision in passing during a meeting with Coach Dooley. He said: “Bring her to see me.”
A week later Sara and I were in Coach Dooley’s office. He began his recruiting pitch.
“Sara, I know you have a number of great opportunities but I would encourage you to take a hard look at the Honors Program at Georgia,” he said. “It is outstanding.”
When we got back to our car I asked Sara what she thought.
“Dad. It’s COACH DOOLEY! How can you say no to Coach Dooley?”
How indeed.
Our daughter graduated summa cum laude from the Georgia Honors Program and then graduated from the UGA School of Law. It’s fair to say that Coach Vince Dooley had a big impact on her life.
**--In 2015 Maria and I were asked to travel to Honduras where Honduras Outreach, Inc. had built a soccer stadium to serve two schools in the Agalta Valley of that county. They were dedicating the soccer fields to Coach Dooley. There was no way Maria and I were going to miss that.
Shortly after we arrived at the field in Honduras, I looked out into the distance to see a familiar figure. I walked over to Coach Dooley and shook his hand.
“We’re a long way from Athens, Tony,” he said.
I met Coach Dooley as a student at Georgia in 1975. From that point on, except for eight years when I lived and worked in North Carolina and South Carolina, he was part of my personal and professional life.
I was on the field at the Gator Bowl when he coached his final game on Jan. 1, 1989.
I was at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City when he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
When he was finishing up his career as Georgia’s athletics director, he chose me to write his autobiography.
When Maria and I became the hosts for the HOI charity golf event, Coach Dooley came every year he could, shook every hand, and posed for every photo.
I could go on. And I know I’ve already gone on too long. But it is only way I know to fully explain the emptiness I feel upon learning that Coach Dooley had died.
I heard from a number of his former players.
Kirby Moore was the quarterback on Coach Dooley’s early teams.
“I’m just so sad. Coach Dooley meant the world to all of us to played for him,” said Moore, a long-time Macon attorney. “I just can’t believe he is gone. What a great man.”
“My first thought was of Barbara (his wife) and the family,” said Buck Belue, the quarterback on Coach Dooley’s national championship team of 1980. “He was a great man and a great coach. But he was so much more than a coach.”
Coach Dooley was a true renaissance man with varied interest. He held the title of Master Gardner. People would stop at his home on Milledge Circle just to see his flower gardener.
He was a Civil War historian who could give you every detail of every major battle.
But his greatest accomplishment in a lifetime filled with great accomplishments, he told me, was his 62-year marriage to Barbara, which produced four children and 11 grandchildren. Despite his success, he always felt it was important for Barbara, with a great sense of humor and strong will, to have her wings.
“Having my own identity was very important to me and Vincent understood that,” she told me when I was writing Coach Dooley’s autobiography. Barbara, who made a stab at politics, still sells real estate in Athens.
I became aware of Coach Dooley in September of 1965, his second season at Georgia. The Bulldogs were playing Alabama, the defending national champions, in Athens. Trailing 17-10 with three minutes left, Coach Dooley called a trick play. Moore would throw a pass to tight end Pat Hodgson, who would lateral the ball back to running back Bob Taylor.
They called it “the flea flicker.”
“It never worked in practice,” said Moore. “I thought they were kidding when the play was called.”
It worked perfectly and Taylor ran untouched for a touchdown to make it 17-16. Coach Dooley immediately called for a two-point conversion attempt to win the game.
“Back then nobody had a two-point play,” said Moore. “But we did.”
The play worked perfectly as Moore found Hodgson in the back of the end zone. Georgia won 18-17. It would be the only game Alabama would lose all season.
The following season, 1966, Coach Dooley won the first of six SEC championships.
On such moments greatness is born. From that day on I was a Georgia and Vince Dooley fan. And that will never change.
Thank you, Coach Dooley, for everything you did for me and my family. We will never forget you.