One Old Dawg's Tailgate with Fred Barber

 

As promised, here on the sixtieth anniversary year of Vince Dooley’s first football team at the University of Georgia, One Old Dawg is interviewing the seniors from that team. Our first interview is with Fred Barber as told to his wife, Julie Barber. Fred was Jerry’s roommate in 1964, and they had plenty of adventures together.

Grab your hot wings and have a seat as we welcome Fred Barber to One Old Dawg’s Tailgate.

Tell us how you got started in football and your high school career?

If you lived in Bainbridge, Georgia in the sixties, you played football. When I was ten years old my football career came to a temporary halt when I was taken to Emory University Hospital for the removal of the lower half of my right lung due to a bicycle accident. Rehab and a team of young men got me on my feet and back on the football field.

In high school, Coach Spencer Davis wrote “Life Lessons” in the margins of our play books next to the X’s and O’s—things like, “show respect to your mother and father, keep up your grades, and how are you getting along in your life?”  I believe Coach Davis would rather have seen his players mature into caring husbands and solid citizens than to see us play a winning football game. He fathered us, hugged us, and gave us the knowledge about life—things like trusting others, doing your job, and  helping a teammate. We were an outstanding group of young men that challenged each other to be their best. Several players on my team received football scholarships.

What is your most memorable play from the 1964 season?

My greatest honor was playing for Coach Dooley and his staff for one year. They reestablished my love for the game of football. In the Sun Bowl game of 1964, my run of fifty-eight yards set up the winning and only touchdown of the game. I also scored the first touchdown against Florida for Coach Dooley.

Can you remember anything amusing that happened in 1964?

Everything about the trip to the Sun Bowl in 1964!!  Best trip to a bowl game EVER. I was told never to repeat those stories. (One Old Dawg was Fred Barber’s cohort in some of those stories and he’s not talking either).

What is one important lesson you learned from your time as a college athlete?

In Psalm 40, David said,” He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip.”  There are many rocks in this world, in all shapes and sizes. An important rock for me was sports, because without sports, I would not have known the lessons of life that I have needed through the years. A field that measures fifty-two yards by one hundred yards was high ground for me. It took me where I needed to go. But the field alone was not enough. It was also the people that stood with me and guided me and my teammates through life’s lessons.

Who were your inspirations or role models in your college career?

Coach Dooley once told me that when he called the first meeting of his new team, it was, “just to find out where we all were” and he soon realized that we were all over the place. The second meeting started our story. Coach Dooley and his staff taught us to show up, reach out, and be the person that will make a difference by encouraging each other, and creating a spirit of winning.

What advice would you give to someone just beginning their college football career?

1. Encourage your teammates– leave the criticism to the coach.

2. Show your enthusiasm by practicing like you play.

3. Challenge yourself to fulfill your commitment.

4. Be polite regardless of the number of wins or losses. Those that care and stay committed will be remembered for their effort, participation, and successful seasons year after year.

Thank you, Fred, and Julie, for taking the time to share your 1964 memories with the readers here. I’m sure your wise words will mean much to many in all kinds of endeavors.

And now, One Old Dawg weighs in on the Clemson game this Saturday:

“Just three more days to the College Kickoff Game in the Benz at High Noon, when Georgia and Clemson square off to see who will emerge as the team to beat in 2024. Clemson has been on a roll since Dabo Swinney took over as head coach. In the last decade Clemson has made six playoff appearances and captured two national championships. They were 9-4 last year ending a ten-year streak of at least ten wins and their winning percentage the last fifteen years is over eighty percent. So, Clemson struggled a little last year, but Dabo Swinney and staff have not forgotten how to coach, and these Tigers are looking to claw their way back to the top.

But look on the bright side. The Dawgs have lost only one game in the last three seasons, the SEC championship game last year by a lousy three points. Kirby Smart’s winning percentage at Georgia is eighty-five percent and the Dawgs are still nursing a mad for being excluded from the playoffs last season. In addition, fifteen Dawgs are listed on the Coaches Preseason All SEC team (five are first team) and Georgia’s quarterback is a front-runner for the Heisman Trophy. All that adds up to Saturday being a sad day for the Tiger faithful. Go Dawgs!”

Well, that’s it this week for One Old Dawg. We’ll be here next week interviewing Barry Wilson, also a senior on the 1964 Georgia football team. The next week we’ll have pictures of the letterman’s reunion and especially the sixtieth anniversary gathering of the 1964 team. You don’t want to miss it. If you’d like to receive this post by email, please go HERE to subscribe and watch for the follow-up email to confirm. 

Who is One Old Dawg?

Jerry Varnado played defensive end at the University of Georgia on Vince Dooley’s first three teams, which included an SEC championship in 1966, placing Georgia fourth in the nation. He helped coach the UGA football team while in law school, and practiced law for over a decade. Later, after a series of tragedies, he gave his life to Jesus Christ. After much soul searching, he left his law practice and has preached the gospel for forty years. He’s still at it every Sunday.

Inducted into the Valdosta/Lowndes County Sports Hall of Fame, he is also the recipient of the Athens Athletic Hall of Fame Fosky Henderson Award for community service. He is a past president of The Athens Touchdown Club and is now the chaplain. He has been an FCA chaplain for the Athens Academy Football Team for ten years.

He is the proud father of four children, and one sweet girl now with Jesus, as well as Bapa to two of the best grandkids ever.

Check in every Wednesday through football season or better yet sign up to receive these posts in your inbox HERE. You don’t want to miss any of his mostly true Bulldog lore.

 

One Old Dawg is Coming Back

Jerry Varnado at 2024 kickoff Touchdown Club, Photo Courtesy Barry Mobley

In the fall of 2014, 2015, and 2016, Jerry Varnado (along with his wife Beverly) wrote a fiftieth anniversary blog here about his years playing on Vince Dooley’s first three teams at the University of Georgia in 1964, 1965, and 1966. Here as we approach the sixtieth anniversary of the 1964 team, we are coming back with One Old Dawg and his mostly true Bulldog lore. But this time, we will have lots of Old Dawgs by interviewing some of the seniors on the 1964 team as well as a few others from those years. Sadly, several of the team members have passed, and we’ll be remembering them, too.

We’re calling this One Old Dawg’s Tailgate, so get your potato salad and hot wings ready, because we’re starting on August 28 with Fred Barber as told to his wife Julie Barber and we will continue throughout the season with a post every Wednesday.

Jerry Varnado will also be weighing in with his take on each game throughout the season.

If you followed us before, you need to sign up again for email, because we lost the email platform through Blogger. Click HERE for the email link or you can just put One Old Dawg in your browser every Wednesday.  Also know, that when you sign up, you'll have to watch for a confirmation email to complete the process. Many thanks. 

The 1964 Sun Bowl and moving into a new era

For all of you getting ready for the Belk Bowl, here’s our final post for the year as One Old Dawg  concludes his memories of playing on the 1964 Georgia Bulldog football team.

After all the uncertainty of the 1964 season with new head coach, Vince Dooley, a young team, and so much nay saying, all of those hardworking Bulldogs captured a trip to the Sun Bowl.

 

From El Paso, Texas, Furman Bisher wrote of the game’s beginning in the Atlanta Journal, “Wayne Swinford returned the kickoff from the end zone to Georgia 20, and the Bulldogs set out on an impressive offensive that left the crowd agog. They ground out six first downs in the kind of strangling attack that has been typical of the Bulldogs this season.”

Of the game deciding touchdown, Bisher wrote, “Ridlehuber . . . flipped one . . . to Barber, who ran as hard as he can run down the west sideline, but was grabbed from behind the Tech six . . . . The play, however, covered 52 yards. On third down Frank Lankewicz crashed across the goal line from the two, and Bobby Etter made the score 7-0 with 7:57 left in the half.”

Sadly, Fred Barber suffered a pulled hamstring in that 52-yard run which would be the last run of his college career, but what a legacy he left.

 

Bisher commented on how Texas Tech struggled to move into Bulldog territory, and that “Mainly, this was because of tackle George Patton . . . “ Of course, Patton went on to be All SEC and All American as well as playing for the Atlanta Falcons.  

Also highlighted were Don Porterfield , Bob Taylor , Jim Wilson(All SEC, All American, San Francisco 49rs, Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Rams) , Leon Armbrester,  Vance Evans , Lynn Hughes (All SEC, All American), George Nowicki, and Pat Hodgson (All SEC, Washington Redskins, Coach at San Diego Chargers, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets) for their outstanding work.

The Sun Bowl win would help the Bulldogs complete the 1964 season with a 7-3-1 record.

Hidden away in the box of clippings One Old Dawg’s mama saved, we found a small clip from an unidentifiable newspaper entitled, “Varnado way well earned.” None other than a very young Lewis Grizzard who went on to be a nationally known Southern writer and celebrity wrote it.

Grizzard writes, “Varnado, a native of Valdosta where he played on two AAA state champions, came to Georgia without a scholarship. However, his love of football, especially the defensive phase, enabled him to get his grant-in-aid and become one of the Buldogs’ most promising ball players.”

 He quotes Jerry as saying, “You should never let any runner get to the outside, and this requires a lot of effort sometimes when they send two or three blockers at you. This is the toughest part about defensive end, but it really makes you feel good if you can do your job and make a good play that will stop the other teams offense.”

Grizzard goes on, “From the sounds that a mass from the Georgia cheering section when the Bulldog defensive corps comes off the field, it looks like Jerry Varnado is not the only one who feels good when the opposition’s offense is thwarted.”

The truth is the fans would continue to rally around these young players, many of whom would persevere and still be playing in 1966 when the Bulldogs won an SEC championship for only the second time since 1948 and which ranked them fourth in the nation. But it is this 1964 team which moved Georgia football into a whole new era. Each one of these players is truly a legend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Old Dawg concludes, “It has been a lot of fun sharing bulldog lore with you these last few months and I want to be sure that you all know that none of this would have happened if not for my incredible wife Beverly. This was her idea, and she made it happen. Not only has she freely shared her award winning writing skills with us but also spent many hours researching, gathering, and organizing a lot of information she used to produce these blog posts; and that’s in addition to putting up with me and my story telling for all these years. Thank you Beverly from all Bulldawgs everywhere, but especially us Old Dawgs, for remembering and preserving something of our story and the part we were privileged to play in the history of Georgia Football.

"The Belk Bowl is fast approaching; hunker down Dawgs; let’s close this season on a winning note and get on the right track for next year.

"Hope to see you back next fall for more “mostly true” bulldog lore from One Old Dawg."

 

And if you'll forgive a bit of author intrusion from One Old Dawg's wife, it has been my privilege to partner with One Old Dawg for this nostalgic trip back to 1964. It's been a joy to get to know many of you through the years, and the fiftieth celebration was a fabulous experience I and my children and grandchildren will never forget.

 

We end here in our traditional way with a great big loud, "Go Dawgs!"

 

The 1964 Georgia-Florida game, quite a story

One Old Dawg has been pigging out on barbeque ribs and pulled pork since the Arkansas game, but says he’s getting tired of it. He’s decided some fried gator tail would be real tasty.

In 1964, Georgia went to Jacksonville for the Georgia-Florida game having only won two of the last ten games there. What would happen that day still stands as one of the most amazing victories Georgia has ever enjoyed. Georgia beat ninth ranked Florida and rose to second in the SEC behind Alabama. It’s quite a story.

One Old Dawg says this, “The days before the ’64 Florida game were just electric in Athens. We’d had a couple of strong victories over Kentucky and North Carolina, and had only lost by a few points against Florida State, which was a powerhouse. Florida was 4-1 in the SEC and had lost to Alabama by only 3 points. Alabama, of course had beat us 31-3. It was by far our biggest challenge in conference play. We had nothing to lose when we played our first game of the season with Alabama—but now our stock had come up a little bit with our impressive early season. It was a big game, not to mention Florida had an up and coming star in their quarterback, Steve Spurrier. This was for many of us, our first trip to play the annual Florida game, and it would be a challenge for us to turn the tide after a string of losses to Florida.”

It didn’t start well. Florida dominated the first half by being the first to score and amassing forty offensive plays to Georgia’s twelve.

One Old Dawg remembers what happened at half time. "Defensive co-ordinator, Erk Russell, pointed out the obvious to us, that Florida had kicked our rears, but we were only down seven points. He said we could turn this around. We could beat this team, that we needed to get out there, do our jobs,and cut them off. If they can’t score, they can’t win, he said. The emotional turn in the game in my opinion for the defense was at halftime when Erk in his usual fashion made it clear that we had not done our best, but we had it in us to beat these guys.”

In the second half, when Bruce Bennett (One Old Dawg’s teammate from Valdosta high) signaled for a fair catch on a punt, a Florida player hit a Bulldog without cause. Moments later, that same gator found himself the object of a fierce tackle, and he fumbled. Ray Rissmiller (All-American, Philadelphia Eagles, New Orleans Saints, Buffalo Bills) recovered. And thus began an intense second half struggle, of which Preston Ridlehuber(Atlanta Falcons, Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills, New York Jets) , Bob Taylor, George Patton (All SEC, All American, Atlanta Falcons),Vance Evans, Wayne Swinford, Frank Lankewicz, and Doug McFalls(All SEC, Chiago Bears)  were all key players. Ultimately, it was One Old Dawg’s roommate, Fred Barber, who carried the ball into the end zone for a touchdown. Bobby Etter(Atlanta Flacons, Memphis Southmen) kicked the extra point and tied the game with thirteen minutes and eleven seconds left in the game.

 



One Old Dawg with Fred and Julie Barber at the '64 reunion

Florida fumbled on the ensuing kickoff and the dogs drove the ball to the Gator’s five-yard line. On fourth down, Barry Wilson (All SEC, Captain of the team,  Coach at Ole Miss, Georgia Tech, Tampa Bay Bandits, Duke, Florida) held the ball for kicker Bob Etter, but the snap was low, and Wilson somehow managed to move the ball towards Etter, who recovered it and  raced into the end zone, scoring the decisive touchdown. Atlanta Journal Constitution sportswriter, Furman Bisher, wrote, “It was the first time in his whole life that he (Bob Etter) ever carried a football, except to get it pumped up.”

One Old Dawg with Bob Etter at the '64 reunion

 One Old Dawg says, “That first half, we were a bit like a deer in the headlights. There were a lot of people there and the game was loud. We were a little star struck and didn’t play as well as we were capable. Even though we got pushed around, we were able to hold them to one score and that was a good thing. Our defense was bending, but it had not broken. We had gotten some breaks and made some breaks. Erk convinced us that we could stop them. He was right.”

One Old Dawg notes "The Gators are not off to a great start this year (3-3; 2-3 SEC), but that makes them very dangerous. I was raised in South Georgia and I’ve been around gators all my life. They lie still, submerged in the water; they look like they’re dead. But they’re just waiting for something eatable and dumb to get close enough to grab.

They remind me of the wicked man David described in Psalm10:9: 'He lies in wait like a lion in cover; he lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off into his net.' Any Gator would love a Dawg for supper, so we’d best be smart and alert. These Gators ain’t dead yet, but I’m confident our coaches will have the Dawgs outfitted, alert and ready for swamp fighting. When it’s all over but the shouting, there will plenty of fried Gator tail for the whole Bulldawg nation."

 

And that, friends, is classic One Old Dawg. One Old Dawg won't be at the game, but he's sent his son to cheer on the Bulldogs and make sure they bring back the win.

 

Join us here, again, next week for the Kentucky game and more mostly true Bulldog lore.