Doug Dickey, walk-on turned winning player and coach, headed to Florida-Georgia Hall
Monday, July 23, 2012 | Football, Men's Golf, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Before Steve Spurrier came along and turned the Florida-Georgia series upside down -- in the Gators' favor, of course -- players that pulled UF uniforms over their shoulder pads rarely experienced the satisfaction of winning the so-called “Border War.”
Through the 1951 season, the Bulldogs carried a 24-5 advantage in the series, dating to 1904, including a 16-3 mark in Southeastern Conference play.
Doug Dickey was a walk-on defensive back from across 13th Street at P.K. Yonge. He was on the field for that '51 game, a tough 7-6 defeat.
But he was on it the next two seasons as a converted quarterback, leading the Gators to their first back-to-back victories over the Bulldogs in the program's 20-year SEC history.
“No, that didn't happen very often back then,” Dickey said last week. “And one of those games we pretty much dominated.”
Florida's 30-0 shutout in '52 was the most lopsided UF win in series history and stood as such for 39 more years until Spurrier bludgeoned Ray Goff and the Dawgs 38-7 in his 1990 debut season coaching the Gators.
Then in '53, Dickey ran for a touchdown, threw for another and from his safety spot tipped away a Zeke Bratkowski pass in the end zone for a key UF stop in Florida's 21-7 win in the first televised Florida-Georgia showdown.
For a Gator in those days, a 2-1 record against the Dawgs -- with a two-game winning streak and shutout -- was the stuff of legends.
Roll in three wins in the Florida-Georgia series during his nine-year tenure as UF's head coach and that's why Dickey, who retired to the Jacksonville suburb of Mandarin in 2006, was named earlier this month as half of the Gators' 2012 class to be inducted into the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame this fall.
Dickey, 70, will join former UF running back John L. Williams, along with Georgia representatives David Greene and Charles Wittemore, at induction ceremonies Oct. 26 in Jacksonville on the eve of the 2012 game.
“It's already brought a nice reaction from some friends I play golf with and see at church,” Dickey said. “I'm very appreciative of that.”
Make that four hall of fames for Dickey. He's already in the Gator Bowl hall, the Tennessee Sports hall, Knoxville Sports hall and College Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted into UF's Hall of Fame as a Distinguished Letter Winner in 2011. Dickey went 58-43-2 coaching UF from 1970-78, a run that included four bowl appearances and wins over Georgia in '70, '73 and '77.
Asked what was more special -- playing against the Dawgs or coaching against them -- Dickey answered simply, “Well, one came before the other.”
And he loved doing both.
“It almost always had some key eminence to it, but more than anything, I think the fact the game had the crowd feature of the split stadium -- like a bowl game, a special game -- really made it special. You just knew everybody was going to get booed as much as they got cheered,” Dickey said. “And because it came near the end of the season, it just had a different feel I think than it does now. It's still big, of course, but it's just such a different world now with television.”
The history of the season will always be there, with Dickey (alongside Williams) next in line for the game's list of immortals.
