Content area
Full Text
Sometimes, when Vince Dooley talks to his plants, he sounds like one of those father-figure Confederate generals he admires so much, calmly redeploying soldiers, or a cool-headed football coach readjusting his team, moving players from one position to another.
"I'll tell them, 'I think you're in the wrong place,' " he says, talking about the plants in his famous garden. "Or I tell them, 'I apologize for putting you there,' cause you're not doing your thing like you're supposed to. So I'm gonna find another place for you."
Forsythia not getting enough sun? Move it over there, out of the shade. Big, strong wide receiver with good hands not fast enough? Move him to tight end.
Dooley the tactician, the aloof strategist; Dooley the field general, the leader of young men; Dooley the administrator, the gardener, the Georgia Bulldog, the Kennesaw State Owl football advisor, the historian is now Dooley the Georgia Trustee, so designated by the Georgia Historical Society. He joins former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn in this year's class and previous modern-age honorees, Ted Turner and Hank Aaron, who were inducted last year.
"I can think of a lot of other people that probably oughta be recognized before me," he says, though he'll gratefully accept the honor at his induction this month. "I'm in pretty good company. Senator Sam Nunn? Real good company."
Nunn could say the same thing.
For decades, Dooley was the symbol of University of Georgia football and remains an icon against whom every coach and athletics director in Athens will be measured: 201 victories in 25 years as head coach, six Southeastern Conference championships, a national title in 1980, 75 conference championships and 23 national titles for UGA sports teams while he was athletics director.
His football scorecard against bitter rivals Florida (17-7-1) and Georgia Tech (19-6) is probably enough to get Dooley lionized by the barking Bulldog cult, who long ago forgave him for considering the job at Auburn (against whom Donley's teams had a more sobering 11-13-1 record).
"I only ever considered two coaching jobs while I was at Georgia--Oklahoma and Auburn," says Dooley, who looks comfortable if a little odd in a small, spare office on the Kennesaw State University campus--there is a small football helmet...