When Charles Dickens died in 1870, a child asked, "And will Christmas die, too?" This afternoon I wondered if the idea of the Southern Gentleman will be buried with Vince Dooley. A lot of people don't care about that kind of thing anymore.

Yet Dooley was not the soft, shy loner some suppose. He was a Marine, and hard as Elberton granite. When he arrived at Athens in 1964, he put the team through unmitigated hell. Things were not going to be the same anymore, Erk's forehead told you that, and the new staff, mostly Auburn buddies, utterly changed the character of the football program in one season.

We all love what our present coach did, but Vince didn't start with a nicely packed cupboard. He inherited a 3-to-4 win team that was ritually sacrificed to Georgia Tech every Thanksgiving. Vince won that game his first season and then took another four straight, in one case embarrassing an undefeated Bobby Dodd team so much that, the next morning in the WSB-TV studio, Dodd thanked Coach Dooley for calling off the Dawgs and not embarrassing him. Dodd then retired, having seen his dominance in the rivalry utterly demolished.

This was an age very different than now, when recruiting has become a cottage industry. Vince simply took what was available in the state (which in that era's demographics, was much less, talent-wise) and coached the hell out of the players until they were tougher and more fourth-quarter ready than most of their opponents. He never had the whole university conspiring with his efforts the way Bear Bryant did. Nobody was going to compete with that. (UGA Admin had discussed DROPPING football just a few years prior to Vince's arrival.)

But Dooley rivaled Bear Bryant during a great many of his years. In his opening game in 1964, his team was routed at Tuscaloosa. The next season, he upset #1 Alabama (which would repeat as national champion) on national TV--then took his team to the Big House to upset a massive favorite Michigan squad. The year after that, he won his first SEC championship. All this long before Herschel, mind you. He was a Dawg of more than one trick.

I still hear people saying they like ol' Steve Spurrier and the audacious things he says. They say it's entertaining and good for the game. Maybe. I'm personally glad Vince Dooley never taunted his opponent after a game in the locker room. The first words out of his mouth were to credit the opponent, win or lose. I grew up, my brothers grew up, with that as our model.

This is why he was placed at the head of NCAA rules committees, coaches' organizations, etc. Everyone recognized the dignity and professionality of the man, so that when Mark Richt arrived--hired by Dooley--there was a nodding of recognition from Georgia fans: yes, we recognize this kind of man. This is what Georgia coaches are. They're decent. They actually have a soul. And it's the reason I believe Kirby Smart, who is emotionally more exuberant on the field, who drops a few word-bombs occasionally, is still careful to comport himself as a gentleman before the press and fans.

It's because that's the legacy of Vince Dooley, something ultimately more than winning a game. It's about modeling what it is to be a Southern Gentleman, a winner on fields of every type.