By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Several years ago, Bryant Gantt had an idea. The former Georgia football player and longtime staff member wanted a photo taken of the five living Bulldog football head coaches: Vince Dooley, Ray Goff, Jim Donnan, Mark Richt and current coach Kirby Smart. It took some doing, but on May 4, 2022, about five months before Dooley passed away, Gantt was able to get them all together.

The men, all of whom called Athens home, signed balls and helmets, and they told stories and shared laughs. It was a special thing to watch, Gantt told a crowd of about 100 at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall on Friday afternoon.

“We are a pretty blessed community to have all these living legends in Athens,” said Gantt, who hosted the event.

The photo was up in Gantt’s office, a special keepsake for the man who played for Dooley and Goff, worked for Richt as Program Coordinator, and now serves as Smart’s Director of Player Support and Operations. He thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t.

Others encouraged him to do something with it, which led to Friday’s gathering at Butts-Mehre, called “Legends Between The Hedges.” With Goff, Donnan, Richt and Smart in attendance, along with Barbara Dooley, and dozens more family members and longtime Bulldog supporters, a large Steve Penley painting of the five men together was unveiled.

Before the big reveal, people close to the five coaches spoke for several minutes. Barbara Dooley opened her remarks by saying that she’d been told to hold it to five minutes. “I don’t even say hello in five minutes,” she joked, before going on to talk about her late husband and the life they built in Athens after arriving from Auburn in 1963.

“He stayed here because he found his heart here,” Barbara said of the time that Auburn, Vince’s alma mater, tried to bring him back to coach the Tigers.

Former U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss talked about knowing Goff as a Little Leaguer on the team in Moultrie, Ga., that Chambliss helped coach. He said Goff was a leader from the day he was born, and “everybody else on the team had such respect for Ray Goff.”

Ron Courson, Georgia’s longtime Director of Sports Medicine, who now serves as the Athletic Association’s Executive Associate Athletic Director for Athletic Health and Performance, talked about Donnan’s commitment to his family and his players. Richt’s brother, Craig, shared the story of how Mark initially turned down the Georgia job when Vince Dooley offered it to him. “He came to his senses and called Dooley back at 3 a.m.,” Craig said.

Smart’s mother, Sharon, talked about her son setting the goal as a freshman at Bainbridge High School to be the valedictorian when he graduated. He didn’t quite make it, having to settle for salutatorian. In his speech at the graduation ceremony in May 1994, Sharon said, Smart told his classmates to “be prepared to compete in whatever you do.” Words he’s certainly lived by ever since.

Penley, who spent part of his childhood in Athens and later studied art at UGA, has a couple of other works on display in Georgia’s athletic facilities. On the second floor of Butts-Mehre is a portrait of the late Larry Munson, the legendary radio voice of Georgia football. And in the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex is a painting Penley did of Magill in various stages of his life that was presented to the legendary coach on his 90th birthday, three years before he passed away.

As Gantt was about to wrap up the event, Smart interrupted him with his own special presentation. Smart and others had commissioned Penley to do another painting, one of Gantt, as a thank you for so many years of faithful service to Georgia.

“I don’t know a more selfless man,” Smart told the crowd, adding that he’s been “a right-hand man to all of us.”

Gantt later said that a permanent home for the Penley painting of the five coaches has not yet been decided. Wherever it winds up, it will be a special reminder of the bonds the five men shared. As Barbara noted in her remarks, “You all are part of Vince’s story.” And that story continues.

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.