Photo by: ©UGAAA 2023
Dooley Remembered With Intersection And Exhibit
August 28, 2023 | Football, General, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
When fans head to Sanford Stadium on Saturday to watch the two-time defending national champion Georgia football team open its season against UT-Martin, they will watch the Bulldogs play the Skyhawks on Dooley Field.
A lot of those fans will walk or drive past the Vince Dooley Athletic Complex, which includes all of the main Georgia athletic facilities on and near Lumpkin Street, in Five Points. Maybe they will stop at the intersection of Lumpkin and Pinecrest Drive and take a selfie in front of the sculpture of Dooley being carried off the field by some of his players after the Bulldogs beat Notre Dame to win the 1981 Sugar Bowl and the 1980 national championship.
ÂGallery: (8-28-2023) Vince Dooley Intersection Dedication
As of Monday morning, there's a new spot where Bulldog fans can remember and celebrate the life and career of Vince Dooley, who spent 25 years as head football coach (1963-88) and 25 years as athletic director (1979-2004). Dooley died on Oct. 28, 2022, at age 90, having lived a life full of achievements both on and off the field, both in and out of athletics.
In May, the Georgia legislature passed a resolution designating the intersection of Lumpkin and Broad Street in downtown Athens as the Vince Dooley Memorial Intersection. On Monday, it was made official as the signs at the stoplights were unveiled after a ceremony that featured UGA President Jere W. Morehead, Gov. Brian Kemp, Rep. Houston Gaines, who initially proposed the resolution, and about a dozen members of the Dooley family.
"I think it's a great tribute to Coach Dooley and a great way to honor his legacy, for all he did. Not just with the football team and with athletics at Georgia, but with the University, the campus, but also our city and our state," said Kemp, a lifelong friend of the Dooley family.
Barbara Dooley spoke about what this intersection and this part of town meant to her and her husband. For years, pretty much ever since they arrived in Athens as a young couple, Dooley liked to cruise around town to see what was happening, she said.
"When we came back to town from a trip, the first thing he wanted to do was drag the main, and dragging the main was going up and down the three main streets of Athens, to see what was going on that night," she said. "And from 1964, to the day he died, we drug the main."
The corner of Lumpkin and Broad is one of the spots where UGA and Athens come together, and Dooley had a passion for both, and so much more. Outside of Georgia athletics, the Dooleys started an endowment fund for the UGA Libraries; he wrote books about history and gardening; he once served as chairman of the Georgia Historical Society and on the board of the American Battlefield Trust.
"It's emblematic of Coach Dooley's remarkable impact, not only on the University of Georgia but on Athens-Clarke County and on the state of Georgia," Morehead said of the intersection being named in Dooley's honor.
Starting Friday, a new opportunity to learn about and take in Dooley's life and legacy will be unveiled at the Richard B. Russell Jr. Special Collections Libraries Building on Hull Street. The Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library is presenting a new exhibit, Legacy: Vince Dooley, 1932-2022, which will be on display in the Rotunda Gallery until May.
"The goal of the exhibit is not only to focus on Coach Dooley's football career but to look at the whole of his career," said exhibit curator Jason Hasty, Hargrett Library's UGA athletics history specialist. "As someone who had such an extensive career on and off the field, it's kind of difficult to hit everything. But I want people to get a sense of some of the main areas where he was really active, whether it's football, his work as athletic director, his work as a historian, his interest in gardening, and to come away with a better feel for who he was as a person on and off the field."
Luckily for Hasty and for visitors to the exhibit, Dooley held on to a lot of what he acquired over the years, from football equipment to awards and important documents. Much of that has been donated to the library, including Dooley's letterman sweater from his days as an All-American quarterback at Auburn in the early 1950s, and the jersey he wore in a college football all-star game in Chicago against the Detroit Lions.
"Coach Dooley was very much a saver, and because he was, his presence in the Athletic Association archive is extensive," Hasty said. "This is definitely an exhibit where I'm working with a wealth of material and really trying to draw out things that people haven't seen before. Or if they have seen them, it's been a long time."
The library is open each weekday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., plus an additional two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hasty will conduct tours of the exhibit at 3 p.m. every Friday before Georgia home football games. For more information, visit libs.uga.edu/scl.
Â
Staff Writer
When fans head to Sanford Stadium on Saturday to watch the two-time defending national champion Georgia football team open its season against UT-Martin, they will watch the Bulldogs play the Skyhawks on Dooley Field.
A lot of those fans will walk or drive past the Vince Dooley Athletic Complex, which includes all of the main Georgia athletic facilities on and near Lumpkin Street, in Five Points. Maybe they will stop at the intersection of Lumpkin and Pinecrest Drive and take a selfie in front of the sculpture of Dooley being carried off the field by some of his players after the Bulldogs beat Notre Dame to win the 1981 Sugar Bowl and the 1980 national championship.
Â
As of Monday morning, there's a new spot where Bulldog fans can remember and celebrate the life and career of Vince Dooley, who spent 25 years as head football coach (1963-88) and 25 years as athletic director (1979-2004). Dooley died on Oct. 28, 2022, at age 90, having lived a life full of achievements both on and off the field, both in and out of athletics.
In May, the Georgia legislature passed a resolution designating the intersection of Lumpkin and Broad Street in downtown Athens as the Vince Dooley Memorial Intersection. On Monday, it was made official as the signs at the stoplights were unveiled after a ceremony that featured UGA President Jere W. Morehead, Gov. Brian Kemp, Rep. Houston Gaines, who initially proposed the resolution, and about a dozen members of the Dooley family.
"I think it's a great tribute to Coach Dooley and a great way to honor his legacy, for all he did. Not just with the football team and with athletics at Georgia, but with the University, the campus, but also our city and our state," said Kemp, a lifelong friend of the Dooley family.
Barbara Dooley spoke about what this intersection and this part of town meant to her and her husband. For years, pretty much ever since they arrived in Athens as a young couple, Dooley liked to cruise around town to see what was happening, she said.
"When we came back to town from a trip, the first thing he wanted to do was drag the main, and dragging the main was going up and down the three main streets of Athens, to see what was going on that night," she said. "And from 1964, to the day he died, we drug the main."
The corner of Lumpkin and Broad is one of the spots where UGA and Athens come together, and Dooley had a passion for both, and so much more. Outside of Georgia athletics, the Dooleys started an endowment fund for the UGA Libraries; he wrote books about history and gardening; he once served as chairman of the Georgia Historical Society and on the board of the American Battlefield Trust.
"It's emblematic of Coach Dooley's remarkable impact, not only on the University of Georgia but on Athens-Clarke County and on the state of Georgia," Morehead said of the intersection being named in Dooley's honor.
Starting Friday, a new opportunity to learn about and take in Dooley's life and legacy will be unveiled at the Richard B. Russell Jr. Special Collections Libraries Building on Hull Street. The Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library is presenting a new exhibit, Legacy: Vince Dooley, 1932-2022, which will be on display in the Rotunda Gallery until May.
"The goal of the exhibit is not only to focus on Coach Dooley's football career but to look at the whole of his career," said exhibit curator Jason Hasty, Hargrett Library's UGA athletics history specialist. "As someone who had such an extensive career on and off the field, it's kind of difficult to hit everything. But I want people to get a sense of some of the main areas where he was really active, whether it's football, his work as athletic director, his work as a historian, his interest in gardening, and to come away with a better feel for who he was as a person on and off the field."
Luckily for Hasty and for visitors to the exhibit, Dooley held on to a lot of what he acquired over the years, from football equipment to awards and important documents. Much of that has been donated to the library, including Dooley's letterman sweater from his days as an All-American quarterback at Auburn in the early 1950s, and the jersey he wore in a college football all-star game in Chicago against the Detroit Lions.
"Coach Dooley was very much a saver, and because he was, his presence in the Athletic Association archive is extensive," Hasty said. "This is definitely an exhibit where I'm working with a wealth of material and really trying to draw out things that people haven't seen before. Or if they have seen them, it's been a long time."
The library is open each weekday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., plus an additional two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hasty will conduct tours of the exhibit at 3 p.m. every Friday before Georgia home football games. For more information, visit libs.uga.edu/scl.
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Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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