ATHENS, Ga. — It could start in the morning. The average Athens resident might be at a Home Depot and see Vince Dooley, the winningest coach in Georgia football history, buying some plants. That same resident could then be driving around and see Ray Goff, out for his daily seven-mile walk. A bit later they might spot Jim Donnan coming off the golf course. Then in the evening, they might be driving near campus and see Mark Richt walking with his family in Five Points, and hop out of the car to take a selfie.
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That last thing actually happened, by the way.
“He left his car running, got the selfie, then hopped right back in,” Richt said.
If somehow this average Athens resident could track down Kirby Smart, harder these days because he has the actual job, they could say that they spotted every Georgia head football coach since 1964. Because they all, through different circumstances, still live here. That may say something about the town. Or it may just say something about the men themselves.
They don’t get together for breakfast or anything. Two of them – Richt and Smart – do text and call each other sometimes. Two of them – Donnan and Dooley – have had lunch on occasion. Goff is content to live a more solitary life, keeping his distance from the program he loved too much to work anywhere else, even after the painful ending.
They didn’t have great endings at UGA, honestly. Three were fired. Dooley was forced into early retirement. But all came to peace with it, for different reasons and on different timetables. And now they live the second act of their lives in the direct shadow of the first.
Vince Dooley (Georgia head coach from 1964-88)
“There’s everything you need here. If I had to make it most ideal I’d put it 20 miles closer to Atlanta. But no closer to that.”
The legend walks around freely, and without entourage or ado. Dooley drops in at Georgia’s football facility enough, whether picking up some mail or just visiting, that nobody thinks much of it. He still came around in the years after his acrimonious departure. When his nemesis, then-president Michael Adams, retired in 2013, Dooley seemed to be around the building and the press box even more.
There had always been chances to leave. Dooley, born and raised in Alabama, came close to leaving for Auburn and Oklahoma, but he didn’t and by the time he was done coaching he was the athletic director, and by the time he was ousted from that role he was firmly established in Athens, as was his family. There was no desire to go live at the beach.
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“I just like living in a university town. It’s got so much to offer,” said Dooley, who turns 89 this September. “And I guess I got kind of used to it.”
Dooley stayed involved in the football business: He advised Kennesaw State when it started a football program, driving about 90 minutes each way two or three times a week.
“I was really involved in it and thoroughly enjoyed it,” Dooley said. “This was a program that had no history, had never been in existence, so I enjoyed that challenge and that opportunity.”
But off-field pursuits dominated. Even while he was coaching, Dooley had other interests. He audited history courses as a student at Auburn and even as Georgia’s coach and athletic director. Then he retired — earlier than he wanted, with that push from Georgia’s administration in 2004 — and Dooley threw himself into courses on military history. One course would lead to another: He would visit cities around the world, and the museums made him interested in art history, so he and Barbara took a course. He also took a course on horticulture, the basics of identifying plants and trees, and he became interested in that.
In fact, the late Pat Dye — former coach at Auburn — and Dooley were both interested in Japanese maples, and Dye had some, so Dooley would stop at his house to look at those. And when Dye came to speak in Athens he would stop at Dooley’s house to look at his garden. Two college football legends, just admiring some flowers.
Ray Goff (Georgia head coach from 1989-95)
“I know a lot of people would say, ‘Why would you hang around Athens? You got fired.’ Well, a lot of people get fired. It ain’t just sports. I tell them: ‘This is home.’”
Goff may be known to the outside world as the man who replaced Vince Dooley and got fired, a cautionary tale. But he’s also a person, a father, a grandfather, the guy you may see walking in your Athens neighborhood, living the next three decades-plus of his life.
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“I had given my heart and soul to Georgia. It didn’t work out,” Goff said. “But that isn’t anybody’s fault but mine.”
That’s one of many self-deprecating comments you will hear from Goff. Another: “I’ve had nobody walk up to me and say, ‘You’re an idiot.’ Even though I probably am.” Another, on why he hasn’t attended a Georgia practice since he left: “They don’t need me at practice. They didn’t win (me) games.”
Actually, he did win 46 games as the head coach, and more as a player, when he was the SEC Player of the Year in 1976. But he’ll be remembered most for his head coaching tenure, and he knows and has come to peace with that because he’s made so much of his life since then.
There is the partnership with Zaxby’s, where Goff got in early as a franchise owner. That’s been as lucrative as it has been enjoyable, allowing Goff to travel around the state and get to know people. That’s one reason he never got back into coaching. But the main reason, Goff says, is he spent so much of his career telling recruits all the great things about Georgia that it would be hypocritical to take a job somewhere else.
“There were a lot of days that I wanted to leave,” Goff said. “You don’t have the job that you used to. And the people you were around, some of them wouldn’t be around you. They tried to just go somewhere else, so to speak, if you’re in a room. They wouldn’t come over and speak to you. Now that was some of them, not all of them. If you’re at the top, everybody wants to be your friend. But when you’re at the bottom, you’ll find out who your friends are.”
These days he’s quite happy with his friends, including Smart, the 18-year-old he recruited to Georgia. Several of his assistants also still live in Athens: John Kasay Sr., Mac McWhorter, Pat Hodgson and Dickie Clark.
And while Goff has never been back to a Georgia practice, he goes to lettermen’s events and has been to plenty of games, quietly purchasing a suite at Sanford Stadium, which he shares with two other families. Goff had been to almost every game until 2020, when he stayed away because of COVID-19 He said he’s remained very cautious, keeping mostly to himself.
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But almost every day he goes on that seven-mile walk. Goff, now 65, had a heart attack a few years ago and he makes a point to take care of himself. The daily walk often takes him to different neighborhoods, and on the day he talked he happened upon the first house he bought in Athens after he was fired. He’s bought and sold two more since then and now lives alone in nearby Bishop, alone and happy on a nice piece of land.
“It worked out,” Goff said. “Everything worked out fine.”
Jim Donnan (Georgia head coach from 1996-2000)
“It’s a real proud feeling to me to know that I was the coach at Georgia, and I felt like we did a lot of good things. There are some things that we didn’t get accomplished that I would have liked a chance to finish. But it’s still a big part of being involved in a program like Georgia.”
There was no long-term plan. When Donnan was let go by Georgia after the 2000 season he had been coaching since he was 21 years old, and had never thought far ahead on where he wanted to settle. So he just stayed in Athens for what he thought may be a year.
It’s ended up being two decades. And counting.
Donnan had few if any connections to the town when he arrived as Georgia’s coach. He had been the head coach at Marshall, and had been an assistant at six other schools in some great college towns: Tallahassee, Norman, Chapel Hill, Manhattan, Huntington. So he was perfectly at home in Athens and in no hurry to leave, even if it meant watching someone else run the program he’d built the past five years.
“If you move to the beach or the mountains or something like that, then have to move again, I didn’t want to do that,” said Donnan, who along with his wife had made a lot of friends outside of football. “In the meantime, I did have a couple offers, a couple head job offers and some pro offers. But I felt like I’d been at this level of winning, I didn’t feel like I wanted to go start over and resurrect somebody.”
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Kentucky was interested in Donnan in 2002, after Guy Morris had left, but at 10 p.m. one night Donnan decided to pass. Rich Brooks came in and did well with Kentucky, but Donnan doesn’t sound like he has any regrets. Donnan stayed in the game by working with ESPN, keeping him in the game. He enjoyed traveling out to Oklahoma to watch his grandson play in high school. They saw every game his senior year, including the playoffs. So he was getting his football fix while also spending more time around his family.
“I spent more time with my grandchildren than I ever did with my children,” he said.
Dooley and Donnan still have a good relationship, despite the way it ended, because Adams “was the one who pulled the trigger on me,” as Donnan put it. He was invited to practices by Richt, and then when Smart, his former player, got the head coaching job Donnan felt even more comfortable stopping by.
Donnan has also become a Georgia man when it comes to all sports. He formed relationships with coaches Jack Bauerle (swimming), Manny Diaz (men’s tennis) and Chris Haack (men’s golf), and was close with other people. So he’s become a follower of all sports, including men’s and women’s basketball. Donnan, who grew up watching basketball in North Carolina, became a fan and ticket-holder to Georgia’s basketball and baseball teams. Few people know more about Georgia sports — football and otherwise — than Donnan.
As time went on, Donnan and his family just never left. Athens afforded him a chance to play tennis and golf: He played an entire round with someone who didn’t know until it was over that he used to be Georgia’s head football coach.
“I never did really relish being in the limelight, and it’s good being around a lot of people who just take you for who you are,” he said.
Mark Richt (Georgia head coach from 2001-15)
“We didn’t lose any friends. We didn’t make many enemies here, if any, and didn’t burn many bridges, if any. We were well-received in town by the Georgia people, which is nice.”
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Richt has a book coming out. “Make The Call” will be a memoir that covers mostly Richt’s coaching career at Florida State (as offensive coordinator), Georgia and Miami (as head coach), and will detail the hard decisions he had to make, both on and off the field, some that worked and some that didn’t. It will be released in late August in time for this football season.
I wrote my first book. It’s been on my heart for years now. It comes out late August. You can pre-order on the https://t.co/vztzjWsMQO website. A lot of great stories about football family and faith! My hope is that it will entertain you and bless you! pic.twitter.com/0KKTWvc2hz
— Mark Richt (@MarkRicht) March 13, 2021
“If you’re a football fan, and you like the inside scoop on certain plays or moments, you’d enjoy it,” Richt said.
Moving back to Athens was not one of the hard decisions. There were no bitter feelings, no psychological need to spend a few years away before coming back. He was already there at his departure press conference, days before he took the Miami job. Three years later Richt retired from coaching and he and his wife Kathryn bought a condo in Destin, Fla. He joined the ACC Network and tweeted about cheese puffs, seeming to live the great life.
But the pull of family brought him back to Athens. During Richt’s coaching tenure so much of his family moved to Athens and never left: His mother. His father and his wife. His brother and his wife and three daughters. His sister, who is married to former NFL quarterback Brad Johnson, and their two children, including Max, an LSU quarterback. His other sister and her husband Kevin Hynes and their two children. Richt’s daughter Anya and his son Jon, his wife and two children.
“It’s hard to leave the grand-babies,” Richt said.
That kept pulling Richt and his wife back to Athens, staying at least a week every month with Jon and his family. So they finally decided to move back. They had sold their old house back in 2016, so this time they bought a house closer to campus, and have gotten in the habit of walking to Five Points, maybe getting something to eat, and running into plenty of people who recognize them.
It’s good to be back home near family. #AthensGa pic.twitter.com/WkoiZn6sz4
— Mark Richt (@MarkRicht) March 9, 2021
They still have the condo in Destin and are splitting time between the two. Lately, it’s been more in Athens, just getting the new house in order. They’ve also enjoyed the reception they’ve gotten in town, where time has made Georgia fans appreciate his tenure. Richt occasionally will be sent the charts showing the comparison between his first five years and Smart’s first five years, which is actually more a compliment to Richt than anything.
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“Obviously we started out well and didn’t finish as well as we started. But we still had quite a few 10-win seasons and all that good stuff,” Richt said. “I get it, I understand the business, and we all sign up for it. I’m not bent out of shape at anybody. They did what they thought was best for the school, and that’s okay with me. …
“We don’t look back and bemoan anything. We celebrate the life that we’ve had and the blessings that we’ve had. We’re thankful for the relationships we’ve gotten, and the opportunity to make a difference in a lot of guy’s lives. It’s been good.”
One more
There technically is one former Georgia head coach without a house here: Bryan McClendon is in the program’s official books as a head coach after serving as the interim in between Richt and Smart. McClendon went 1-0, beating Penn State in the Gator Bowl (then known as the TaxSlayer Bowl) before going on to South Carolina and then Oregon, where he is the receivers coach.
It’s more than just former Georgia head coaches who now call Athens home. Ricky Bustle, who was Louisiana’s head coach from 2003-09, settled in town a few years ago when he married a professor at UGA. McWhorter, the former Goff assistant, was Georgia Tech’s head coach for a brief period after George O’Leary left. And of course, there’s Will Muschamp, the former Florida and South Carolina head coach now back at his alma mater, where he’s a senior analyst for Smart.
“It’s a testimony to the university and Georgia and to Athens that you’d have all these head coaches that would like to stay here,” Dooley said. “It’s a good place to live.”
Someday the five living Georgia coaches may all get together, perhaps at a Georgia game. But schedules are hard to line up, especially with Richt’s duties at the ACC Network. For now, the connective tissue is more verbal, such as when Richt explained why he invited his predecessor to practice.
“I wanted them to feel comfortable, feel part of it,” Richt said. “I mean, obviously we benefitted greatly from the recruiting that coach Donnan had done.”
And, it was pointed out, Smart benefitted greatly from Richt’s recruiting.
“Yeah,” he said. “It all works together.”
(Top photo of Vince Dooley (left) with Kirby Smart: C.B. Schmelter / Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP)
