My Thoughts: Bill Dooley

I will never forget the first time I met Bill Dooley. I’m not old enough to remember much about his UNC teams, though my UNC-alum dad said I used to walk around the house saying “Boom Boom Betterson” all the time. So there’s a link, if you will.

I remember watching a couple of his Virginia Tech teams, and of course his Wake Forest clubs, most notably his last game, a win over Oregon in the 1992 Independence Bowl. Wake finished ranked that year. That’s how good a coach Dooley was.

But for me, my real memories, and the ones I reflected on Tuesday when I learned of his passing, were long after he stopped coaching in college. It was at a time when Dooley could walk through a crowd approaching a football stadium two hours before kickoff, and if anyone recognized him, they didn’t let on about it.

He was just an older man with a slight limp making his way to another game. But to me, he was much more than that. He was a legend, not just because of his coaching record given where he coached, but as a man.

You see, I first met Coach Dooley in a press box, not on a practice field or press conference room. I never covered him. His career ended about 4 years before mine began. But, he used to attend an instate ACC game just about every week. He did some light TV work and made his way to a game each Saturday.

I don’t even remember who N.C. State was playing that day, but in 2002, I sat down at my seat in the old press box (the Double-Wide In The Sky) at Cater-Finley Stadium to cover the Wolfpack and someone (it may have been Wake Forest). I looked over to see who was sitting next to me, a customary thing for scribes, and saw that it was Coach Dooley.

I was nervous. Football games are long, and there’s a lot of down time, especially before the no-huddle spread offense craze of today. So, I knew I was going to have four hours (give or take) next to a legendary former coach. Wow. Pretty cool. Also a bit nerve-wracking.

Now, I covered Dean Smith in his last season, asked him a few questions, and I had already begun covering Coach K and Duke. I wasn’t in awe of the scribe-coach dynamic, but it’s different when you have to sit next to someone such as Dooley for a long time. I mean, it’s not like sitting next to Brett Friedlander or Taylor Zarzour. (sorry, guys)

So, as the game grew into the second quarter, I made some remarks about this and that, and at one point he responded, and we then began to talk the game, more and more and more. And by the fourth quarter we were talking some serious football. How cool was that?

At the time, I was covering the ACC for the Wilmington Star-News. Coach Dooley had recently built a house in Wilmington (he knew who I was) and had a young son who played football. We also talked about then-UNC coach John Bunting, who played for Dooley at UNC and still does a great Dooley impersonation. I imagine he did a few Tuesday.

Bunting always had such tremendous reverence for Coach Dooley, and the feeling was mutual. They were very close.

I never sat next to Coach Dooley at a game again, but over the next several years we talked every time we saw each other, and sometimes on the phone. He became a go-to guy for me about college football-related stuff and later about Bunting.

I learned more about his son, who ended up playing at Hoggard and later at Elon. The Coach actually worked with the Hoggard JV one year when his son was on the team.

Can you imagine being in 9th or 10th grade and having the Old Trench Fighter coaching you up? Sign me up for that duty, please.

And we talked about Coach Bunting. More and more, as the losses piled up and his tenure came closer to a close.

I learned a lot about Bunting through Dooley, who defended his former linebacker but was also very honest about the state of his program. That connection hooked me up with legendary tailback and College Football Hall of Famer Don McCauley, a close friend of Bunting’s who also held Dooley in high reverence.

To be honest, from 2004 through 2006, I was usually fishing for information about Bunting and his job situation. After all, that’s what sportswriter’s do. But through it I saw how much respect McCauley had for Dooley in how he spoke about him and always yielded to him. “Coach knows better than I do,” he said a few times.

Bunting, of course, even during his most trying times at UNC, would always perk up when Dooley’s name came up or he recalled a story from back in the day when they were making football matter again at Carolina.

Wanna deviate from a 55-point loss at Louisville or Utah’s 669-yard performance? Bunting publicly had a place he could go, and it always had to do with Dooley.

So when I learned of Coach Dooley’s passing Tuesday, I thought back to those days, a fun time when I was still sewing my journalistic oats. I loved the stories and the high-level football chats, but I also enjoy the memory of growing in this business and how that relationship helped me do just that.

It gave me a lot of confidence, it filled me with pride, and it helped shape the journalist I’ve become.

I kind of think of myself as somewhat of a trench fighter. I was once an offensive lineman who loved run blocking more than pass blocking, I love to work hard, and don’t mind rolling up my sleeves to make sure I get a story right.

Okay, I’m not exactly comparing myself to Coach Dooley, few people can. But the thought of it is good enough for me. You can do a lot worse than emulating the professional and man that Bill Dooley was.