Vince Dooley, Billy Payne Talk UGA, The Masters and More
Legendary former Georgia head football coach and athletics director Vince Dooley joined Billy Payne, former CEO of the Atlanta Olympic Games and chairman of Augusta National, to discuss the naming of the William Porter Payne and Porter Otis Payne Indoor Athletic Facility and their 50 year relationship.
The two offered the following comments during Monday’s media session.
On what Vince Dooley thought of Billy Payne as a player …
Coach Dooley: “I remember him first of all as a quarterback in in high school. It was pretty obvious he was not a quarterback. But it was obvious that he was a football player, and I still remember those big ole hands. He had pretty good hands early on, so I recall that he was going to play and the question was where. I think that has always been the case with Billy. I have said many times that he was my 60-minute player because he could play so many different positions. We started him, as an example, on offense. Back then, the freshman teams were separate and we had a heckuva freshman team, probably the second-best recruiting class in the 25 years that I was here, because in addition to Billy we had Bill Stanfill and Jake Scott, just to name a few. So, it was a very good class. He (Billy) was an end. We did not call them tight ends or split ends because you had to do both, and he could do both. He could block at the line of scrimmage and he could typically block outside — pretty good size wide receiver — and he could catch the ball pretty dadgum good the few times that we did throw. He made, as I recall, two great touchdown catches — one against Kentucky where both of them went up in the end zone and he was able to use his competitive spirit and big hands to wrestle the ball away and end up with it. Then, he made a great catch in the Cotton Bowl in 1966. We then moved him to defense because we needed a defensive end, and I didn’t know if Billy was going to come back his senior year because Billy, as a I remember, you got cut from the side in spring practice. Back in those days, you could block people like this and you can’t do it now but he got a nasty blow to his knee and we were really concerned about whether he was going to come back. He came back, was on that great defensive team and made all-conference as a defensive end. So that is just a quick overview of Billy as a college player.”
On Coach Dooley as a coach …
Billy Payne: “I remember Coach Dooley recruiting me, becoming friends with my parents and coming over to the house, as coaches would in that day. It was pretty clear from the very beginning that his serious demeanor, which he is famous for, was pretty obvious. He started telling me — I recall specifically — the players who were lining up to go to Georgia in I think his first full recruiting class. The names were legend. I mean it was Bill Stanfill and so many great players from the state of Georgia. Jake Scott from prep school that everybody knew of. He was recruited by everybody in the country. Brad Johnson — there were so many great high school players, all of whom I might have played against or was very much aware of. So, you know, he was persuasive. I had a little background at Georgia, a natural connection, and I wanted to play on a great team, so that is what got me here. Coach, thanks to you, I was never disappointed. We had great teams throughout my three years on the varsity and great experiences.”
Coach Dooley: “That team won two championships — ’66 and ’68 — and we were pretty good, really. We were very good. One of our coaches was John Donaldson and John was kind of my guy in south Georgia. We kind of pulled him out of south Georgia to come up here and help in the recruiting of Billy because of his connection with his dad. I really knew his dad before I knew Billy, really. He was a football official. He was very active in the Touchdown Club of Atlanta and I would come over for that when I was at Auburn as an assistant coach. So, I knew him. It was a great combination of father/son. I have seen a lot of great father/son combinations but never quite like Porter and Billy Payne.”
On what facilities were like when he was a student-athlete at UGA and how the facilities now exceed his expectations....
Billy Payne: “I never even imagined there would be an indoor practice facility. I remember Stegeman at that time was relatively new, very new, and on a rainy day we would go in there and mess around in the basketball area- nothing more than staying out of the rain, really. We would walk through a few plays, but never even remotely thought you could practice football in an indoor arena. I think dispositive of that is when we went to Houston to play in the Astrodome when I was a junior. I think our first experience in an indoor football stadium. I remember unfortunately we got beat by an inferior team and the reason was that we were all just looking around and couldn’t believe what technology had done. We got beat by a good team and a great running back, Paul Gibson, who was an amazing player. So anyway, facilities have come a long way. I am glad to see that the University of Georgia is staying at the top. I commend the university and athletic association- it is very important. You recruit great players for a lot of reasons- one of which is the environment where they spend most of their time. And this is not a bad place to spend 12 hours a day.”
Coach Dooley: “You know at that AstroDome, Muhammad Ali was working out there. Facilities, if you go back to the history of leaps and bounds and how you don’t have them at all and all of the sudden you have them- and all of the sudden you’re proud of what you have and then you look around and somebody has passed you and you have to redo. There was a series of that. We did move into the Coliseum, which was big in those days. The Coliseum is where we had walkthroughs as an indoor facility. The Coliseum, if I remember, had 176 leaks. It had 176 buckets around to catch the water. But we did get an athletic dome, if you remember, and that was big and we felt like we had to have that in order to compete in the conference because they had done away with athletic domes at Georgia before we came. Alabama had one, Auburn had one and if you want to compete you better have one. Within two years we increased the stadium considerably. We doubled-decked it. We have always been fighting to try to get ahead of the next person, facility-wise. It’s still the case. I’d say today nobody has it better than Georgia.”
Coach Dooley on his reaction of Billy Payne telling him he’s going to bring the Olympics to the state of Georgia …
Coach Dooley: Well he didn’t exactly call me up to tell me that. He said he wanted to share something with me very confidentially at the time. I’ll never forget it because he stuttered around it a little bit and then finally I said, “What is on your mind?” He said, “Coach, I have saved enough money. I am going to bring the Olympics to Atlanta, Georgia.” And I’ll never forget it because I’m thinking at the time, “Atlanta, Georgia? Who knew where Atlanta was, internationally at the time.” And besides that, they have just had the Olympics in Los Angeles. They’re not going to bring it back to the same place, besides that, it was the centennial of the Olympics. And besides that, no city has ever won it on the first bid.”
Billy Payne: “But other than that…” (Laughter)
Coach Dooley: “There were a lot of great things going. And I said, “Okay, how can I help?” That dream is great, but trying to share it and get sponsors is another thing. Thank goodness to some really close friends who helped the thing get going. You beat out Minneapolis to earn the domestic bid city. I was in Tokyo that weekend.”
Billy Payne: “You cried.”
On Payne looking back on the different chapters of his life, specially this phase of retirement …
Billy Payne: “I felt a little guilty at the Master’s this year. I actually enjoyed it. It felt like, historically, it was work, work, work and then work some more. And this time I’m having fun with my grandchildren for the first time in 17 years. It was really fun, but I felt a little guilty, so that has changed. As far as career-wise, obviously, I am retired. I am still the executive chairman of the real estate company that my son and I own, Centennial Investment, that’s doing quite well. Occasionally they need my opinion. Hopefully I’m helpful there. Other than that, I promised Martha that I would not make any major steps or dives for a while. So I’m in that promised slow period where I’m thinking about what I want to do and so far the only thing that I’ve really accelerated is fishing. It’s my favorite of all sports, bass fishing. But, there will be something. She knows it and I know so we’ll wait and see.”
On which accomplishments stand out in Payne’s tenure as chairman of Augusta National..
Billy Payne: “First of all, Van Earl, you know I’m no longer chairman, so I don’t speak for the club, so I’ll answer that in a way that the chairman won’t get mad at me. And that is, the one that stands out – this is why he won’t get mad at me – my best decision is naming Fred Ridley, selecting him as my successor. So, he won’t get mad if you tell him that, I promise. He’s just fantastic, and he has so many great things planned for the future. I think you’re going to see Augusta stay on a very positive track, upward momentum, that I hope we’ve established the last 11 years. A lot of great things to come under his leadership.
Coach Dooley: “If you know Billy’s background beyond playing on the football field while he was at Georgia, he was a recipient of a number of incredible academic awards, including the National Football Foundation Scholar Athlete. He also was an NCAA Scholar-Athlete. He also won a Teddy Roosevelt Award, which is the highest honor that the NCAA gives to anyone in every field as an athlete. Then, he was a Scholar-Athlete here, he was the student vice president, he went to law school and coached a little…
Billy Payne: “At $15 a month.”(Laughter)
Coach Dooley: “He’s got quite a record, and early on, the leadership qualities were so evident. I’ll tell you a story – coaches always have challenges, and with that many great players, we naturally had some challenges. One of the challenges was our most spirited athlete, who was probably as good an athlete that’s ever played at Georgia, named Jake Scott. Jake was probably ahead of his time as a free spirit. So in being a free spirit, he was somewhat more of a challenge than just a normal student-athlete. One time, I had gotten so mad at him, I had to discipline him a couple of times, and so the last time he had exuded his free spirit, I had had it. I was getting ready to make the move. The seniors came and said, ‘Coach, can we meet?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ So Billy became the spokesperson of this meeting of the seniors about Jake, and a recommendation to me about ‘This is what we should do.’ So, I remember them coming to me and saying, ‘Coach, we don’t like what Jake did, and we don’t like his free spirit. But, we want to win a championship. Please give Jake one more chance. We can’t win it without him.’”
Billy Payne: “I think I said, ‘If you kick him off the team, we all quit.’”
On Payne’s gratitude for the recognition of the indoor facility…
Billy Payne: “I’m extremely honored to be associated with my dad, and unofficially, we’re associated with each other for so many reasons. Mostly because of the love we shared for each other. My dad was only 18 years older than me, so in a lot of respects, he was my dad and like my older brother as well. It’s a great honor, and to think that it will be there forever is very special. My whole family is quite honored."
On the status of the Georgia football program…
Billy Payne: “I think Kirby Smart – he’s not only reinvigorated the team, but he’s made us all so happy and so proud to be Georgia Bulldogs. And it’s just so much more fun when you’re competitive in every game. This is the first time ever I can remember, every day, I’m getting calls from scores of people – ‘Did you see who committed today? Did you see who signed today? Do you know how many five-stars we have? Do you know that Alabama only has X?’ It’s just an amazing, positive spirit that is over the entire football program, and it just makes us all proud. I’m proud to be a Georgia Bulldog, and I know it’s because of Kirby’s passion and his work ethic.”
On where the naming of the indoor facility lies in his list of accomplishments...
Billy Payne: “I haven’t thought of that, because I’ve never ranked it. You live everyday to do the best you can, and you make a lot of friends, and a lot of good things happen in your life. This is certainly one of those. It’s very special because – two reasons – it’s a permanent association with my father that everybody will see and will be aware of. Second, it is reflective of the generosity of a lot of our friends. So many of them had zero connection to the University of Georgia, so I am particularly grateful that we know have officially welcomed them as Georgia Bulldogs."
On female members being admitted to Augusta National under Payne’s tenure…
Billy Payne: “More specifically, those individuals in which you refer are great friends of mine and I am as proud of them as I am of any other 100 or so members that joined while I was chairman. As I said in the interview at my retirement, all our lady members are great and I suspect our chairman will continue the momentum that we have established over the past several years.”
On the legacy of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games…
Billy Payne: “I never had but one opinion and that is the Olympics is about people working together in a particular community, in our case the city and state. The objective is to welcome your guests and show them a wonderful time and this was an opportunity for us to truly introduce the American South to the rest of the world and I think we did that very positively and very effectively. The regret I have of the Atlanta games of course was the bombing at Centennial Park. As Andy Young said, ‘out of our greatest tragedy, the bombing, emerged our greatest triumph, that is the determination and the passion to continue this great celebration of humanity which had been taking place.’”
On looking back at the criticisms of the Olympic games…
Billy Payne: “The criticism of the games was very superficial. A couple transportation issues, the other ones were not even substantive. When you have the audacity to undertake something that big, criticism is a part of it. There’s never been an Olympic games that didn’t have similar criticism. It had no lasting effect on me at all.”
Coach Dooley: “And don’t forget Athens was a great point in the Olympic games. Those that came really enjoyed the experience here because it was so wide open because campus was wide open. Of course we had the medal games, rhythmic gymnastics. Billy called later and said ‘how about preliminary volleyball?’ I said absolutely. So, we really had a great experience here in Athens.”
On the hedges being removed to accommodate soccer…
Coach Dooley: “The purists did have concerns. And of course this was the first women’s soccer being played in the stadium and that was new for some of the purists as well. But it was a blessing in disguise because the botanists found the hedges had nematodes and because of that it was a blessing. We took the cuttings from the hedges and we stored them and replanted them as the sons and daughters of the original hedge, which became hedges II, which is in there now. So it worked out and I think the people that came, somebody said they were watching the game of soccer and big football fans and Georgia fans said they were watching for 10 minutes and said, ‘man, they still haven’t thrown the ball.’ It was an incredible experience.”
On the guests and dignitaries who will be at the evening’s ceremony…
Billy Payne: “I’m delighted, of course, that Jack Nicklaus will be there as well as Jim Nantz is going to emcee. I’m very honored that they chose to come.”