Remembering Coach Vince Dooley

Even after being part of a state championship team under Coach Wright Bazemore at Valdosta, a college scout once said of Jerry Varnado, “He’s too small and slow to play any college ball.”

But Jerry did go on to the football program at the University of Georgia. Early on, in his words, he was mostly a blocking dummy. Then in 1964, a new coach arrived—Vince Dooley. Jerry believes Vince Dooley changed the trajectory of his life.

Jerry Varnado, Coach Vince Dooley

Wright Bazemore, Jerry Varnado, Coach Vince Dooley

In the fall of that year, Dooley would speak at an event in Valdosta, Jerry’s hometown. He said of Jerry, "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.” 

And play he did. He rose with the team to play on that 1966 SEC championship team which was fourth in the nation. Coach Dooley’s belief in him made all the difference.

As the Fellowship of Christian Athlete Chaplain for Athens Academy football team, Jerry recently said in a talk to them, “ I remember like it was yesterday Coach Dooley’s first address to the team. He said we would endeavor to do three things: 

"First, Work Hard. That involved giving your best effort every day. Second, Conduct ourselves in a manner that honors our families, our school and our community. This meant endeavoring to do the right thing, on and off the field. Third, Love one another. Care about and support one another, again, on and off the field, which included coaches, players, trainers, managers, support staff . . . everyone. 

"He said if we would do those three things, we would win our share of the football games. That was the standard for the three years I played and we moved from ninth in the SEC with a 2-4 SEC and 4-5-1 overall record, to SEC Co-champions with Alabama with a 5-0 SEC and 10-1 overall record and were ranked fourth in the nation in just three years. It worked for the quarter-century Dooley was the coach! I’m convinced that any team on which the players truly love each other will play twenty to thirty percent above their ability level. Love, the greatest power on earth, motivates and empowers us to play better than we are.”

 A few years ago, when we were writing One Old Dawg, Jerry wrote a piece about Coach Dooley on the fiftieth anniversary of his first year at the University of Georgia. We include that piece below as well as an epilogue Jerry wrote this week.

On Coach Dooley’s knowledge of the game of football: 

“The first year Vince Dooley was here, many people misunderstood him and didn’t know what he was like, particularly players, because he had the good sense to let his assistant coaches do their jobs. He was always there, but he didn’t do a lot of one on one coaching with players on the field.

“I had the fortunate experience of playing for Coach Dooley for three years, but I also served as a graduate assistant coach for three years. I found out then, he indeed did coach, but he did it in staff meetings. He was the mastermind behind the Georgia Bulldogs. He set guidelines and parameters for what we were going to do, and let the assistants execute them. He was an astute student of the game of football. He knew what he was doing and how he wanted things to go.

“The first coaches' meeting I attended, there sat Erk Russell, my hero since I played defense, with a notepad taking notes on what Vince said. I knew then Vince commanded respect from people who knew him and how much he contributed to the ongoing growth and development of a winning football team.”

On Coach Dooley’s fairness: 

“My junior year, I ruptured a disc, had to have surgery, missed half the season and all of spring practice. In the summer, because of muscle spasms, I couldn’t work out much to get in shape for the next year. At fall football practice, Coach Dooley told me I’d reported overweight.

"‘What do you mean Coach, overweight? I’ve been trying to gain weight the whole time I’ve been at Georgia.’

"He said, ‘You’re reporting weight is 188.’

"I was at 196. ‘Reporting weight? I didn’t know I had a reporting weight.’

"‘Nobody gave you reporting weight in the spring?’

"‘No, sir.’

"He sat there and thought a minute. ‘Well, you’re still overweight; you’ll need to go to the 6:30 P.E. class for two weeks.’

"This made me angry, because I was disciplined for not doing something I didn’t even know I was supposed to do. But later, when I started coaching, I understood. He knew he wouldn’t be able to explain why I didn’t receive the same treatment as others who reported overweight. If he didn’t discipline me, it would seem he was inconsistent. And who knows, I could’ve forgotten I was supposed to be 188 pounds. Plus, I wasn’t in good shape, and those P.E. classes got me ready to play.”

On how much Coach Dooley cared about players: 

“I learned when I coached how much Vince Dooley cared about his players. He had a personal interest in them and did things we didn’t know about. Again, because he didn’t have one on one contact, many players didn’t realize how much he cared. We’d have discussions in coach’s meetings about players and difficulties they might be having, and it’s then I saw he wanted players to be successful in football, in the classroom, and in life.

"He was always liberal in giving graduate assistant jobs to those who needed them. The graduate assistant job is what enabled me to go to law school.”

On Dooley’s dedication: 

“After the midday game on Saturday, sixteen-millimeter film would be flown to Atlanta by helicopter to be developed. Later a helicopter brought it back, landed on the practice field next to the coliseum, and the film taken to Vince Dooley’s house.

“After games, there’d be a party at the Dooley’s for recruits that were in town.  Since I lived near Vince when I practiced law, often, a friend and I would go over to the Dooley’s at 10:00 p.m. after everyone left to watch the film with him, as he prepared for The Vince Dooley Show, which aired on Sunday afternoon. He’d leave about midnight and go to the UGA television station.

“Anytime you wanted to find Vince, you could find him at the Five Points Waffle House around 4:30 on Sunday morning after he filmed his show. Then he’d go home, change clothes, go to 8:00 mass and then come to practice at 9:30. Our Sunday morning practices were more of a training, than practice— just a little exercise to get players loosened up. Vince had it early Sunday so players could still attend church. I don’t know when he ever went to sleep.”

On Vince Dooley’s encouragement: 

“In the early 1980’s, a friend from Valdosta asked me to be a lay speaker at a downtown church one Sunday. When I was in Valdosta, I visited a friend there, and didn’t know Vince was staying at their home. The Dooley’s daughter was a cheerleader at Valdosta State and they were there to see them play for the small college championship. What I didn’t know is they’d made plans to hear me speak as well. They went to 8:00 mass and then came to church to hear me. It’s also a blessing that Wright Bazemore, my high coach was there as well as my freshmen position coach, Ken Cooper.

"Later on, I ran into Barbara Dooley. She said, ‘As soon as the service was over, Vince looked at me, and said, “Jerry is really an evangelist, isn’t he?”’

"Keep in mind that at that point in time, I was still a lawyer. I wasn’t a preacher. And I was beginning to deal with a sense of calling to preach. To have Vince Dooley recognize a quality in me that lent itself to preaching was one of several factors which led to me leaving my law practice and entering full time ministry.”

So, in many ways, Coach Vince Dooley’s influence has moved far beyond the football field in Jerry’s life. Many players would have this same testimony. Coach Dooley’s life reminds us of a verse in Psalm 1, “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” (Psalm 1:3)

We were thankful to join other lettermen a few weeks ago to celebrate Coach Dooley's ninetieth birthday. What a joyous time that was, and we treasure the memories.

Jerry adds these words today, “Thank you Coach for the many ways you helped me in life. Your faith in God, your integrity, and your selflessness have been a model for me and challenged me to live a life that makes a difference for good in this world. I love you Coach, and I’m glad to know you’re in heaven, but I’m sure going to miss having you here on earth.”

Also, we want to remember perhaps the greatest college football player of all time, the legendary Charley Trippi who died at 100 earlier this month.

Jerry Varnado with Charley Trippi

 

After leaving UGA, Trippi played pro ball for the Chicago Cardinals. Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as well as the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he is the only professional inducted with 1000 yards rushing, 1000 yards receiving, and 1000 yards passing. It was an honor to have known him.

Please join us as we continue to pray for the Dooley and Trippi families.  

For more from us on Coach Dooley, we invite you to visit the One Old Dawg blog and check out the archives. 

 

 

One Old Dawg moving on and getting the game ball

One Old Dawg’s comments last week were eerily on target. “Every year several big schools get beat by some smaller school underdog,” he observed and then said, “They have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and we’re just the opposite and that makes for a dangerous situation.” A dangerous situation, indeed. Georgia barely squeaked out the win 26-24.

One Old Dawg says, “The only good thing about last Saturday is we got a W; it wasn’t pretty but it’s still a W. I received a text from my Louisiana cousin, whose son is a Nicholls alum, and he politely abstained from gloating, but I could sense that inside, he was mighty proud. He said, ‘We Cajuns call Nicholls, Harvard on the Bayou,’ so those Thibodaux Colonels are not only tough but also smart. We found that out.

“You might try what I did― watch the replay of the North Carolina game to clear the Georgia mind of bad memories. The apostle Paul tells how he dealt with unpleasant things in the past in Philippians 3:13:  ‘But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead’. This is not true just in spiritual matters; it has a general application as well. If we are not careful, yesterday’s miscues can contribute to tomorrow’s failure. We need to forget about last Saturday and move on to the preferred future that is ahead.”

Now to the third game in the season against South Carolina back in that 1966 SEC championship year.

“We are going to have to play our best game in order to beat them,” Coach Vince Dooley said in an interview leading up to the game. In several news reports, apprehension was expressed about the match up as in this vintage account.

 

One Old Dawg remembers, “I feel I have to remind you young’uns that the Gamecocks were in the ACC not the SEC back in those days. However, we had played them regularly since 1900, so the rivalry was intense. They had lost their first two games to LSU and Memphis State so I guess we were favored― but not by much. The game was a slugfest. Our offense moved the ball up and down field, amassing 247 yards rushing but bad breaks and mistakes kept us out of the end zone.

"We held the Gamecocks to 115 yards rushing and 80 passing but more impressively, we shut them out. Kirby Moore and our offense rose to the occasion and drove it in late in the game for a touchdown, and we won the game 7-0. It was a memorable game for me for two reasons: I was named defensive captain for the first time in my career and at a team meeting the next week, Coach Erk Russell Defensive Coordinator (later head coach at Georgia Southern) gave me the game ball; pretty dawg gone special.”

Jack Davis was the offensive captain for the game. Later, news reports highlighted Kirby Moore, Craig Elrod, Bill McWhorter, Edgar Chandler (All American, Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots ), Donald Hayes, Ronnie Jenkins, and Jack Davis on offense. On the defense, Happy Dicks, (All SEC, All American) Larry Kohn (All SEC), Dicky Phillips, Jerry Varnado, Jimmy Cooley, Bill Stanfill (All American, Miami Dolphins, Super Bowl Team) , and George Patton (All SEC, All American, Atlanta Falcons) made significant contributions to the win.

In fact, another Atlanta Journal article began, “’. . . you are a real All American football player.’ The speaker was Georgia end Jerry Varnado. The complement directed to George Patton.”

One Old Dawg has always been a big Patton fan.

The article continues with Patton’s response, “We all did it out there tonight.”

Dooley agreed when he was quoted in another Atlanta newspaper article after the game, “I want you to know that it took a fine effort to beat that South Carolina team.”

One Old Dawg offers his prognostication about this week’s upcoming game against Missouri.

“This Saturday we have to walk into the Missouri Tigers den which is a dangerous thing to do, even though we have been very successful at skinning these tigers in their own backyard. Since Mizzou joined the SEC, we are 2-0 in Columbia and 1-1 at home. This year they lost at West Virginia 26-11 but then walloped Eastern Michigan 61-21at home. At 2-0 with a win over a ranked team, I guess the Dawgs get the nod, but we all know none of that matters when you start barking in the Tigers ‘den. But I’m confident these young Dawgs are growing fast and at the end of the day their bite will prove to be as bad as their bark and Uga will have another Tiger skin to adorn his doghouse. Gooo… Dawgs! Sic ‘em.”

So that’s it for this week’s One Old Dawg, but we’re here again next week for the both the 1966 and 2016 games against Ole Miss, both the fourth game in the season.

A few pictures from this past week’s 1966 reunion events:

Happy Dicks and Jerry Varnado

Larry Kohn and One Old Dawg, Jerry Varnado

Wayne Ingle, Terry Osbolt, Jerry Varnado
 

 Go Dawgs!!

Getting ready for Alabama

One Old Dawg is wearing a Georgia logo shirt at every opportunity this week preparing for the matchup with Alabama this week. He returned smiling ear to ear from the Athens Touchdown Club meeting Monday night (he’s the chaplain), and this served to further bolster his optimism about this weekend’s game. The 1965 team beat Alabama the first game in the season for an astounding win as Alabama was national champions in 1964 and went on to be national champions in 1965 as well, with Georgia being their only loss. We wrote about it HERE. As he pours coffee into his Georgia logo cup, and takes a seat at the kitchen table, One Old Dawg offers his thoughts on the similarities between what happened in 1965 at this point in the season and what’s happening this week.

 

“It’s finally here, what we’ve been waiting for since last January, the week the Alabama Crimson Tide rolls into town. Bama’s loss to Ole Miss two weeks ago will be a damper on the media hype for this game but that doesn’t change a thing for the Dawgs. This is a BIG game.

“As this game relates to the fiftieth anniversary of the 1965 team, there are some similarities. Back then, we were 4-0 and ranked # 5 in the nation. We were not facing a ranked opponent that week, but it was a dangerous one, Florida State in Tallahassee, at night. In 1964 the Seminoles whipped us 17-14, finished 9-1-1, including a Gator Bowl victory over Oklahoma, and were rank eleventh nationally in the UPI poll. Graduation had decimated their offense but their highly touted defense was still solid. We were entering the game minus several key players due to injury.”

 

One Old Dawg grimaces as he recalls the details, “It was one the longest, most miserable nights of my life. Our bench was right in front of the FSU student section. Many of the students were intoxicated and obnoxious. We could not take our helmets off on the sidelines because they were throwing ice and cups of ice at us all night. On one occasion, one of our players jumped the fence and went after a guy who was yelling profanity at us. Coach Russell had to drag him back to the bench. Bob Taylor, our running back and my former roommate, suffered a broken leg that ended his career. After a very rough, hard fought game, we lost 10-3. It was a long trip back to Athens and a sad day Sunday.”
 

One Old Dawg puts his coffee cup down and pauses a moment before continuing. “I was spiritually ignorant at the time and had no idea what it meant to turn to God or how one could even do that.  This was football and it had nothing to do with church. Reminds me of a story Coach Dooley told at a charity dinner I attended. He and his wife, Barbara, were at a dinner the day before Georgia played Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl for the national championship in 1980. Being devout Catholics, they were excited to meet a well-known Notre Dame school representative. Barbara said to him, ‘I know you’ve got all the Catholics in America praying for Notre Dame tomorrow!’

 

“He, rather piously, responded: ‘No, my God doesn’t have time for football.’

 

“Barbara said, ‘Well that’s good, because mine does!’ We should take note that Georgia won the national championship that year.

One Old Dawg with Barbara Dooley at a Letterman's event

 

“I agree with Barbara, God is interested in everything we do, including football. Listen to Romans 8:28 (NASB):  ‘And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.’  Paul’s reference is not to just religious or spiritual things, but all things, good or bad, even losing football games. Somehow, it is easier for us to accept a setback and move on, if we know that this failure will somehow work for our ultimate good, and that is exactly what God does, if we will let Him.

 

“Our coaches didn’t quote the Bible to us but they did paraphrase it. Learn what you can from your failures and mistakes. Then forget them and move on. Don’t let today’s failure keep you from tomorrow’s success. So we tried to swallow our wounded pride to get ready to travel to Lexington for a fight with the Kentucky Wildcats the next Saturday.”

 

As One Old Dawg drains the last of his coffee, he wraps up his thoughts for this week. “There are also some significant DIFFERENCES between 1965 and now. The Dawgs are healthy and at the top of their game. We’re not traveling; we have the Tide between the hedges. All of you know in advance that I’m going to pick the Dawgs to win every week. If you don’t expect to win, why even bother to play. This is not just wishful thinking on my part, we have the goods and we can whip this bunch of Alabama pachyderms. It will be low tide at Sanford Stadium about 3:30 this Saturday and the Dawgs will roll that Tide right back to Tuscaloosa carrying with it the bitter taste of defeat . In fact, I believe this just might be the year of the Dawg. Gooooo Dawgs, sick ‘em, woof, woof, woof.”

 

The year of the Dawg, indeed.

 

If that doesn’t get you pumped up for this Saturday’s matchup, we don’t know what would.

 

Join us again next week here at One Old Dawg for more mostly true Bulldog lore. And once more, Go Dawgs!

One Old Dawg is back for another fiftieth anniversary celebration

One Old Dawg is back! He’s holding court and raring to go for the fiftieth anniversary of the 1965 University of Georgia football team. Vintage news accounts are spread all over the dining room table, and there have been quite a few jogs down memory lane. So here we go with another year of more mostly true Bulldog lore.

We begin with one of the most amazing wins Georgia has ever had.

When One Old Dawg is asked what the average Georgia fan would have said in pre-season 1965 if they had been told that the Bulldogs would beat reigning National Football Champions Alabama in the opening game, he declares, “They would have said no way.”

Alabama, coached by the legendary Bear Bryant was a powerhouse in the SEC and in the nation. Georgia had lost the last five match ups against Alabama and not by a little. By a lot. In fact, as  mentioned last year in One Old Dawg, when Vince Dooley’s first team at Georgia, the 1964 Bulldogs, deboarded the bus in Tuscaloosa, a senior Georgia player said, “Alabama always beats us by thirty points.” And in this player’s memory they always had. No one imagined that this young Georgia team in only the second year of Vince Dooley’s tenure would garner front page headlines in the Sunday edition of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, “BULLDOGS STARTLE TIDE, 18-17.”

In the first half, After a field goal, George Patton (All SEC, All American, Atlanta Falcons) returned an interception 55 yards putting the Bulldogs ahead 10-0.

But the win wouldn't come easy. It was hot that day in Sanford Stadium. When players returned to the locker room during half time, One Old Dawg says his feet squished in his shoes. “Trainer Dick Copas (later Hall of Fame UGA Golf Coach) was about to have a fit.  He was doing all he could to cool us off. They had to lay us out on benches and training tables and drape ice cold towels over us to try and get our body temperatures down.”

In the third quarter, Alabama scored twice bringing the score to 17-10. Next, three Georgia players pulled off a play that has gone down as one of the greats in UGA football history.

News accounts laud Kirby Moore, Bob Taylor, and Pat Hodgson (All SEC, Washington Redskins, Coach at San Diego Chargers, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets) for the Flea Flicker.

 

One Old Dawg got a little pre season press himself in 1965 along with his good friend Larry Kohn (All SEC) in the Atlanta Constitution. 

 

And here they are in an emotional greeting at the 1964 Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration.

In fact, news reports quote assistant coach Jim Pyburn (Baltimore Orioles, Washington Redskins)  as saying One Old Dawg played the best he’d ever played in that Alabama game. But at a price. During the game he received a severe hit in the back. It would result in problems for weeks to come and eventually lead to back surgery at the end of the season.

Spiritually speaking, One Old Dawg draws this conclusion from that celebrated 1965 opener, “It’s like I said last year when we talked about the 1964 game in Tuscaloosa. It was a day of "small beginnings" (Zechariah 4:10). And beating Alabama in 1965 was the culmination of that. We had a small beginning last year. We reduced our loss from 30 points to 28. But something happened in that game. We began to gel as a team and believe in each other. That small beginning in 1964 resulted in a big win in 1965. We beat the reigning National Champions.”

The AP poll would again name Alabama as national champion in 1965. Their only loss? To a team that believed what they had been taught by young Coach Vince Dooley―that they could win. And win they did.

And now back to 2015 and who will win the Bulldogs’opening game against the University of Lousiana at Monroe. One Old Dawg says, “The Bulldogs, of course. I believe we have a high quality team that that has the potential to be a great team. And ULM should present no serious threat.”

We’ll see everyone here next week for One Old Dawg’s account of another startling win in 1965.

And in the meantime, Go Dawgs!

 

Dan Magill on the 1965 Georgia-Alabama game