John Shearer: Remembering Pat Dye And Briefly Getting To Know His Son

  • Monday, June 8, 2020
  • John Shearer

Like many SEC football fans, I was additionally saddened last week amid the not-so-good local coronavirus numbers and the racial conflicts to also learn that Southern college football giants Pat Dye and Johnny Majors had died.

 

And death for them came only two days apart, coach Dye on June 1 at the age of 80 and coach Majors on June 3 at age 85.

 

Although I have always been only a part-time sportswriter and did not have the contact with them like some of the others who have written great tributes and personal reflections for chattanoogan.com in recent days, I did have a couple of unusual experiences.

 

I interviewed Johnny Majors several times over the phone in recent years while living in Knoxville and hope to write a brief recap of those memories in the near future, and I also briefly crossed paths with the Pat Dye family years before.

 

Regarding the coach Dye connection, when I was in my third year as a student at the University of Georgia in the fall of 1980, I had moved into the University Gardens Apartment after two years of living in the men’s athletic dorm, McWhorter Hall, by the school’s tennis complex.

 

I still had a few friends I had made while getting to live in the 1960s-era, motel-style dorm as a walk-on football player the previous two seasons, and one of them was Bob Wolcott, a standout member of the Georgia golf team.

I had befriended him the year before when he was a freshman, in part because he was also from Tennessee, although he had started out at Wake Forest.

 

During one of my visits that fall, I met Bob’s new roommate, who was a freshman. His name was Pat Dye Jr.  

 

I was aware that his father had been an all-American lineman at Georgia years before and was an up-and-coming coach at Wyoming after a successful stint at East Carolina. At that time, of course, Auburn was not on the father’s or son’s radar.

 

I had also played JV football at Georgia the year before with a likable son of one of Pat Dye Sr.’s brothers, who said that his father had been one of the football players used in the famous Burt Reynolds movie, “The Longest Yard.”

 

I enjoyed meeting Pat Jr. and partaking in two or three good-but-brief conversations with him that fall when I would periodically visit Bob W. And I think I also saw Pat Jr. on campus or one or two other places and enjoyed a short verbal exchange as well.

 

I also remember visiting Bob another time in his dorm room when Pat Jr. was not there, but Bob was on the phone with Pat’s mother explaining in an amicable conversation that Pat was gone. (This week, I learned after the coach’s death that Pat Jr.’s mother, Sue Ward, and coach Dye had unfortunately later divorced).

 

I gathered back at that time that maybe Pat Dye Jr.’s golf game was not quite ready for the SEC level as a freshman, but that then-golf coach Dick Copas had possibly allowed him to be a part of the team, maybe even on scholarship. Perhaps the coach – with whom I had become acquainted slightly while he also ran McWhorter Hall -- either saw some potential in him, or he was simply being kind to a famous athletic family with Georgia roots and giving him a chance to play.

 

As a former walk-on football player who was also in my first year trying to break onto the track team as a dreamy walk-on, I understood the frustrations Pat Jr. might have felt – if any actually existed for him. And I could have seen myself becoming a good friend with this young man, who seemed to be a serious-minded student and whose facial features did resemble his father.

 

But it was not to be. Georgia was having a memorable football season with freshman Herschel Walker – who lived just a few feet away on the other side of the dorm from Pat Dye Jr. – that fall, while Auburn was struggling a little under Doug Barfield.

 

Sometime late in the season, Auburn announced that coach Barfield would not return after that season, and the Auburn movers and shakers began courting Vince Dooley as their next coach, largely because that was his alma mater. And the word was also out that Georgia would probably try and get Pat Dye Sr. if that happened, unless a groundswell of support suddenly developed for the popular and ball-headed Bulldogs defensive coordinator Erk Russell.

 

It was quite a disruption, albeit temporary, to a magical – and undefeated -- season Georgia was having.

 

I know coach Dooley spent several days seriously pondering the offer before ultimately turning it down, saying he had invested too much of his life – and heart – into Georgia, and that Athens was home to his children.

 

And as fate would have it, I happened to be visiting Bob in his dorm room that night when the news hit Athens that coach Dooley would be staying at Georgia. I cannot remember if Pat Jr. was in the room that night, but Bob and he both knew the likelihood of coach Dye ever coaching at Georgia now seemed unlikely – at least over the next few years.

 

Instead, coach Dye suddenly found himself as the leading candidate for the Auburn job, and he quickly accepted it when offered, I think.

 

He would not have to spend another cold winter in scenic Wyoming, and instead he quickly went to work in the hot weight rooms and practice fields of Auburn trying to build up a program that had been competitive but not championship caliber in recent years.

 

During his first two or three years at Auburn, I think coach Dye ran the wishbone offense he had learned coaching under Paul “Bear” Bryant at Alabama, the legend who had hired coach Dye after meeting him outside his office building very early one morning.

 

But what coach Dye seemed to be best known for at Auburn was working his players hard and getting them to play disciplined.

 

I remember as a student at Georgia in early 1981 hearing whispers of several Auburn players who were not completely committed to the program being run off, or they decided not to keep playing under such harsh training.

 

And when I watched Auburn play that fall against Georgia in Athens, they were obviously in a rebuilding mode, but I could just tell by the way they lined up in the huddle with such precision before a play that they had a lot of discipline and were likely going places.

 

I remember getting that same feeling watching Alabama during Nick Saban’s first year there in 2007.

 

Coach Dye would also start getting in a few big recruits, including of course Bo Jackson, and the Tigers would soon be riding high.

 

After Georgia would sneak away with a victory at Auburn in 1982 in a memorable game in which I and several friends in my dorm of Myers Hall frantically listened to the incomparable radio announcer Larry Munson, Auburn began to dominate Georgia.

 

From 1983 to 1990, Georgia only had one win against coach Dye’s Tigers. And that was in 1986, when the Bulldogs snuck up on them at Auburn as yet another underdog, a game best known for the fact Auburn’s field staff turned on some hoses after the game to get Georgia students and fans off the field.

 

Because of all his success, I have always thought that Pat Dye was the best coach Auburn has had in the post-Shug Jordan years. While the Tigers have since had a number of good coaches and good individual seasons and whipped Georgia a few times – even when the Dawgs were supposed to win – I never felt as frustrated about Georgia’s chances of competing against Auburn over multiple years as when Pat Dye was the coach.

 

Yes, it worked out well for him going to Auburn, and the situation worked out OK for Vince Dooley at Georgia, too, even though a few honest and demanding Bulldog fans have always wondered what it would have been like if coach Dye had come to Georgia.

 

The now-beloved coach Dooley had a lot of good-but-not-great teams after the 1982 SEC championship season until his retirement after 1988, while Auburn was soaring until coach Dye abruptly resigned at the end of the 1992 season after recruiting irregularities. The end for coach Dye had also come after his last three seasons were not quite to the caliber of his previous four or five.

 

I could not tell you what coach Dye was like. He seemed to have some charm despite a tough demeanor when he was interviewed, and he had one of greatest Southern accents among SEC coaches ever. And he used this Augusta, Ga., brogue in some homespun sayings like mentioning that having to play Florida, Georgia and Alabama at the end of the season was the Amen Corner of Auburn’s schedule, a reference to some important finishing golf holes at Augusta National.

 

Coach Dye also looked like a coach who really knew how to get his players to respect him and play for him and produce. The Tigers were never underachievers under him, although for some reason Bo Jackson was not able to elevate Auburn’s team as a whole nearly like Herschel Walker did for Georgia.

 

If I were an athletic director and could pick any coach in SEC history to be my coach, and Gen. Robert Neyland, coach Bear Bryant, Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer were not available, I might just pick coach Dye after finding out more details about the 1992 recruiting violations.

 

Regarding his son, Pat Jr., I never saw him again after the fall of 1980 and Georgia’s memorable run to a Sugar Bowl win over Notre Dame and a national title.

 

I ran into Bob Wolcott not long after that, I think, and he said his old roommate had transferred to Auburn, understandably, to be where his father was. He would go on to finish his degree there.

 

Bob, by the way, would enjoy some success on the PGA Tour, almost winning a couple of tournaments, and would see two of his sons, Ben and Hunter, play at Ole Miss and Tennessee, respectively, with Hunter a redshirt junior this past year.

 

I would later read that Pat Dye Jr. became a sports agent, due no doubt to doors that opened with his connection to his father. And a glance online shows he has evidently done quite well in the years since on his own, with a number of famous NFL clients.

 

Whether Pat Jr. played golf at Auburn or whether he is a serious or accomplished golfer today, I don’t know. And I am not sure whether he thinks much about that one quarter he spent in Athens.

 

But I have not forgotten that time four long decades ago and those last few days when the Dyes were still Bulldogs above Tigers!

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net

Sports
UTC Sofbtall Hosts ETSU In Friday Doubleheader
  • 3/28/2024

The Chattanooga softball team returns to Frost Stadium for a seven-game home stand that begins Friday afternoon against East Tennessee State in Southern Conference action. The Mocs are 21-8 ... more

Covenant Men's Tennis Loses 6-3
  • 3/28/2024

The Covenant Scots looked to boost their nonconference tennis resume with a win on the road at Oglethorpe. Covenant was unable to get the job done, as it fell 3-6. Final: Covenant 3, Oglethorpe ... more

7 Football Mocs Participate In Annual Pro Day
  • 3/28/2024

The Chattanooga Mocs had a 7-man contingent go through their paces in front of NFL scouts at the annual Pro Day. It started in the Wolford Family Strength & Conditioning Center before shifting ... more