It’s a sad weekend for college football fans everywhere, as legendary football coach Vince Dooley passed away at the age of 90 on Friday evening.
Dooley, who was head coach at the University of Georgia from 1964 to 1988 and served as the school’s athletic director from 1979 to 2004, coached the Bulldogs to the national championship during the 1980 season. During Dooley’s tenure as head coach, the Dawgs won six Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships as well.
“Legendary former University of Georgia football coach and director of athletics Vince Dooley died peacefully at his home in the presence of his wife and their four children Friday afternoon at the age of 90,” the university said in a statement. “A member of the College Football Hall of Fame, as well as the Georgia and Alabama Sports Halls of Fame, Dooley is Georgia’s winningest football coach with 201 victories, six SEC titles and the 1980 national championship in his 25 years leading the Bulldogs (1964-88). He was also the recipient of numerous awards for his service as director of athletics over a 25 year tenure (1979-2004).”
Vincent Joseph Dooley was born Sept. 4, 1932, in Mobile, Ala., and received a scholarship to play football at Auburn University, where he played quarterback. After graduating from Auburn, he spent two years in the Marine Corps and worked as an assistant coach under Auburn Head Coach “Shug” Jordan before UGA came calling.
It didn’t take long for Dooley to see success as Georgia’s head coach, as the Bulldogs won the first SEC championship of Dooley’s career in 1966. Of course, the year that fans remember most is 1980, when the Dawgs won the national championship. After that season, Dooley’s alma mater tried to lure him back to coach the Auburn Tigers, but he stayed at UGA.
After retiring as head coach, Dooley stayed on for another decade-and-a-half as athletic director. After that, he stayed in Athens and wrote books, taught horticulture classes, and continued to serve as an ambassador to the University of Georgia. The university erected a statue of Dooley outside the football practice facility in 2008 and named the field at Sanford Stadium after him in 2019.
Through it all, Dooley remained humble.
“I can’t say that I was the most well-received coach who has ever been hired,” ESPN reported Dooley saying in 2019. “When I look at those credentials, there’s no way as an administrator that I would’ve hired myself. A 31-year-old freshman coach at a rival school? Now suppose you had to hire somebody at an institution like Georgia and say this is the coach.”
Seth Emerson wrote in The Athletic, “He spent half his life burnishing his legend, then the other half acting like he wasn’t one.”
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