One Old Dawg on Troy, Good Coaches, Playing Defense, and Not Giving Up

So here we are. One Old Dawg thought that at this point, His Bulldogs would be undefeated. He started to wear black on Sunday to preach, but he was afraid folks would think he was in mourning. He was for a short time, but not for long. He gets a look of determination in his eyes, “When you lose, there’s nothing to do but learn from your mistakes, put it behind you, and move on. Now we focus on Troy.”

He settles into the recliner. “In 1964, I think we were something like Troy. Most everybody who had us on their schedule expected to beat us. We’d only won three or four games a year for the past three years, and we were at the bottom of the SEC.

Everybody who played us thought they would have an easy week. We proved you can turn a team around in one year, and you can beat teams that are supposed to beat you if you have players who want to win, and you have good coaching.”

The team definitely had good coaching. The 1964 coaching staff left a lasting legacy at UGA and in the SEC. Of every one of these legendary coaches, so much more can be said, so click on the names to find more information.

Doc Ayers, Head Freshman Coach

Mike Castronis, Asst. Coach (UGA All American)

Ken Cooper, Asst. Coach, (later head coach at Ole Miss)

Dick Copas, trainer (later Hall of Fame UGA Golf Coach, scroll to page 11 of this link to find Copas’ bio)

John Donaldson, Asst. Coach
Bill Dooley, Offensive Coordinator (Later head coach North Carolina, Virgina Tech, and Wake Forest)
Vince Dooley, Head Coach
Sterling Dupree, Recruiting Coordinator Frank Inman, Head Offensive Backfield Coach
Hootie Ingram, Asst. Coach (All SEC, Philadelphia Eagles, Later Head Coach Clemson, Athletic Director Florida State, Alabama)
Jim Pyburn, Asst. Coach (Baltimore Orioles, Washington Redskins) 

Erk Russell, Defensive Coordinator (later head coach at Georgia Southern)  

“Back to the game this weekened,” One Old Dawg says,  “We can’t underestimate Troy.

You can rest assured they have something up their sleeve. We can’t let them do to us what was done to the ancient city of Troy and let our opponent slip a Trojan horse into Sanford stadium.”

On October 14 of 1964, Sammy Glassman at the Valdosta Times wrote a column entitled, “Bulldogs and Varnado Better than Expected.” At that point, the Bulldogs were 2-1-1. It seemed the Bulldogs and Jerry had surprised a few folks. One Old Dawg’s Mama proudly saved this article.

Glassman writes of Jerry’s determination, “The college scouts, well they weren’t so impressed with the Valdostan. 'He (Varnado) is too small and too slow to ever play any college football,’ one scout said flatly.

But Jerry wanted  . . . to play some more football. He . . . went out for the freshman team . . . impressed the Bulldog coaches. Georgia quickly awarded Varnado a grid scholarship.”

He goes on to quote Vince Dooley. "‘By college standards Jerry is small and slow to be a defensive end, but you wait and see, he’s going to play a lot of football for Georgia.

He has a determined attitude and he’s not afraid to hit. These are things you can’t teach a boy.’”

One Old Dawg is fond of retelling a joke from the Christian comedian Carl Hurley about a running back who decided after one too many crushing tackles that he wanted to play defense. The player explained to the coach in his backwoods accent, “I don’t want the ball. That’s what’s attractin’ ‘em.”

Well, that’s a little bit of what One Old Dawg thought, too. He liked defense. Glassman quotes Wright Bazemore, “When he played for us (Valdosta High), Jerry had a knack of being in the right place at the right time, and he wasn’t afraid to strike. That made him a really good player.”

But then Glassman includes an explanation from Jerry, “In explaining his fondness for a place on the stop’em crew, Varnado says simply, ‘I’d rather be looking for someone to hit than have them coming after me’”

In other words, “The ball’s what’s attractin’ ‘em.”



Wright Bazemore, Jerry Varnado, Vince Dooley

When asked what kept him going through all the negative comments about his abilities early on, One Old Dawg says, “Football was a big deal in Valdosta, and I was determined to be part of it.  As an encouragement to a good King, God spoke these words to him through a prophet: 'But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded'(2 Chronicles 15:7). Somehow I believed that in my heart even though I had probably never read the words at the time.

So, I kept at it. In my hunting circles, there's this saying, 'If he keeps looking, even a blind hog will find an acorn every now and then.'"

And there you have it straight from One Old Dawg.

One Old Dawg predicts no Trojan horse will get past Georgia’s Bulldogs on Saturday. He’ll be there to cheer them on, and he's confident Georgia will win big.

Go Dawgs!

There’s an excellent exhibit open through December 15, 2014 in celebration of Vince Dooley’s fiftieth anniversary at the University of Georgia. “Vince Dooley: A Retrospective, 1954 -1988” is at The Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries.