Bill Dooley, former Tar Heel football coach, dead at age 82
Dooley became the head coach and director of athletics at Virginia Tech in 1978. He was head coach at VT from 1978-86 where he posted a record of 63-38-1. It was under Bill Dooley that Virginia Tech had its first #1 overall NFL Draft pick in Bruce Smith. Frank Beamer gets a lot of deserved credit for what he did to the VT football program, but Dooley did put us in a place where Frank could accomplish what he did. Before Dooley, there truly was no legitimate VT football history, and while he didn't necessarily put us on the map, he at least showed us where the map was.
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First ever bowl win in school/program history.
I was at that 1986 Peach Bowl! Chris Kinzer nailed a 40-yarder at the gun in the rain.
Bedlam and bourbon ensued...
I was also there!! Great game and Kinzer's single digit solute to the Wolfpack bench was classic.
I went down with about 20 fraternity bothers and we had three hotel rooms. Spent new years eve night at the Cheetah III downtown. Ahh good times....
I knew Chris back in the day. I remember his straight-on kicking style, that winning kick and the 1-finger salute like it was yesterday.
RIP Coach Dooley.
Dooley was a huge factor in our national relevancy. He also brought the NCAA knocking and saddled the start of Frank's career with reduced scholarships. Interesting to see that, while many of us now consider VT to be pretty clean as a program, it was not always that way.
Overall, we would not be where we are without him. RIP Coach.
I attended fb camp with coach Dooley a couple of summers. He was old school for sure. Part southern gentleman, part hard ass drill instructor. We did a lot of grass drills.... In fact, Billy Hite was either a grad asst. or had just arrived in Blacksburg and Coach Dooley had him stay out late with a few of us who had less than stellar behavior in the dorms. We did grass drills past dark and that was in the middle of summer.
RIP Coach
Rip..
Coach Dooley was coach while I was in school. The offense was known for tailback off-tackle (see also: Cyrus Lawrence). Three yards and a cloud of dust. The defense really brought it, though. Bruce Smith, Pedro Phillips, Ashley Lee, Robert Brown....some impressive defensive players. In addition to Cyrus Lawrence, Sidney Snell, Mickey Fitzgerald, Steve Casey, and Tony Paige were standouts on offense.
Coach Dooley also had (I seem to recall reading this) a grad student design the current "square root of one" VT logo, and had the old long-necked turkey mascot redesigned into the hokie bird. One thing he did that I wasn't fond of was the abandonment of the turkey call from the stadium. Glad Frank brought that back.
He also brought in Billy Hite as RB coach, which was a big factor in Frank's tenure as well. He brought about the expansion of Lane Stadium, had the first night game in Tech history, the first televised game with LOLUVA. He gave us a lot of the things we love about Tech football.
Thanks Coach.
RIP, Bill.
Thanks for your contribution to what VT football is today.
P.S. Nice writeup, Alum07.
To honor Bill, Fuente needs to call it run up the middle on the first play against Liberty!
Checkerboard endzones and Orange uniforms against Liberty would be cool as well
I think someone has the rights to that already.
Have to admit, I love how blatantly obvious that Photoshop is
That looks like a toilet bowl I threw up curry in.
I think a nice tribute would be a white star with BD inside on the back of the helmets would be fitting. Dooley handed out helmet stars for performance.
Nice writeup in the Roanoke Times. Talks about his impact on the program.
http://www.roanoke.com/sports/colleges/va_tech/former-unc-virginia-tech-wake-coach-bill-dooley-dies-at/article_3e02e8e1-0641-5859-b6ce-b8580edcc894.html
Coach Dooley recruited DL Morgan Roane, whose daughter was one of my favorite co-workers at a previous job. though she never went to VT, she'd always tell me stories about her dad knowing i was a diehard Hokie.
R.I.P. Coach Dooley and thank you for your contributions to the alma mater...