“Vince stood on his principles on this decision and Don left there, and I’m convinced—Vince is not convinced, but I’m convinced—that Leebern left there that day and made a pact with the devil—Adams. Because Vince told him no, and I’m not sure anybody had ever told Don Leebern no,” Barbara Dooley said.
6
Vince Dooley and Michael Adams
Senior faculty at Centre College say that while president there, Michael Adams had shown a keen interest in the school’s athletic programs. He not only attended games but became directly involved with NCAA matters. That was considered a plus by some members of the Georgia search committee.
Vince Dooley felt certain that he would hit it off with the new president and began to reach out even before Adams arrived on campus, telephoning him congratulations from a hospital bed where Dooley was recovering from knee-replacement surgery. As previously noted, Adams didn’t return the call. When Dooley called again and got through a few days later, the conversation was pleasant with Dooley offering congratulations and Adams saying he looked forward to meeting the legendary coach.
Dooley was satisfied that he would get along fine with the new president. “I’m a person that whoever is given the responsibility as president, my tendency is to go all out to support them,” said Dooley. “I am a good soldier in that respect.”
But Dooley and Adams were soon on a collision course which would reverberate across Georgia. Ironically, it was Adams’s fondness for athletics that led to the dispute, and Dooley now recalls that he received early warnings of trouble ahead.
Shortly after Adams arrived at Georgia, Dooley made a presentation to the athletics board about adding sky suites at Sanford Stadium. Dooley said he didn’t notice, but afterwards Dick Bestwick, the respected senior associate athletic director, commented on Adams’s body language and red-faced expression as Dooley was speaking. Bestwick warned him after the meeting that he had better be wary of Adams.
“That was the first indication that this person was going to be different than any [president] I had dealt with. And I’m glad he was the fifth one and not the second or third one or I might have had a much shorter tenure at Georgia,” said Dooley.
Bestwick later said Adams broached the subject of Dooley’s retirement soon after arriving at UGA. “He asked me when Dooley was going to retire. I said, ‘Why would the king want to abdicate his throne?’” Bestwick said Adams seemed disappointed with that answer.
Dooley recalled another early incident that gave him pause. In the fall of 1998 Uga owner and breeder Sonny Seiler asked Dooley to participate in a “changing of the dogs” ceremony at halftime of an upcoming Georgia football game. Dooley was to remove the collar from the retiring Uga V and ceremonially place it on the new mascot, Uga VI. A week before the ceremony, Dooley got a telephone call from Senior Vice President Tom Landrum saying that Adams wanted to participate in the ceremony. “Landrum said, ‘Mike sees it as a great photo-op.’ I said by all means but I thought to myself that the photo-op was typically political Mike Adams,” Dooley said.
When the cast of characters assembled on the field at Sanford Stadium during halftime, Dooley said he wanted Adams as president to have a prominent part in the ceremony. Dooley suggested that he remove the collar from Uga V and ceremoniously hand it to Adams to then place on Uga VI. Adams nodded his approval of the idea. But when Dooley knelt and removed the collar from Uga V, Adams snatched it from his hand and displayed it for the cameras before Dooley could even stand up. It was a trivial matter, but Dooley was taken aback.
“Up until then, I had not worked for someone whose primary motivation in all things would be so politically self-promoting and ego-driven,” said Dooley. “Prior to that incident, I had many people tell me about the ego and pompous attitude of [Adams], to which I’d paid little attention. But I have to admit that after encountering his display at the changing of the dog, I saw it firsthand.”
Dooley also encountered Adams’s famous temper early one morning in 2002 when he received an irate telephone call at home. Dooley recalls the testy telephone conversation thusly:
“Hello?”
“This is Mike Adams.”
“How are you doing, Mr. President?”
“Not good.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like what I read in the paper this morning.”
“What did you read?”
“I don’t like reading about an unauthorized stadium expansion.”
Dooley said he explained, as the paper stated, that it was only a preliminary study but Adams replied that neither he nor any members of the athletic board had authorized the study “and this kind of unauthorized action upsets them.”
Dooley said he was by this point in the conversation becoming irritated at Adams’s abruptness. He reminded Adams, who chairs the athletics board, that he had brought the matter up at the previous board meeting.
“I have no recollection of that,” Adams said.
“That’s your opinion.”
“My opinion counts.”
“Mine does, too,” Dooley responded.
After the conversation, Dooley said he researched the minutes of the athletics board and found reference to the study. He had a copy of the minutes hand-delivered to Adams’s office later that morning. Adams never again mentioned the matter even though the two men sat together that very night at a dinner event.
Dooley said he tried to convince Adams that to have good two-way communications between the president and athletic director they needed to meet monthly. The arrangement had worked well with Adams’s predecessors Fred Davison, Henry King Stanford, and Charles Knapp, but Adams rejected the idea.
“I think because I recommended it and it worked well with other presidents he didn’t want that kind of relationship. In fact he told me once that under different circumstances he would have had me reporting to a senior administrator. But the fact is this kind of communication between president and athletic director has become standard procedure among universities and is highly recommended by the NCAA. He didn’t want that. Now he does it with [Dooley’s successor, Athletic Director Damon] Evans and I am pleased that is the case.”
Adams’s tendency of not following traditions established by former presidents also showed up in other relationships. For more than fifty years it had been a tradition of Georgia presidents to join the Athens Rotary Club. Presidents O. C. Aderhold, Fred Davison, Henry King Stanford, and Chuck Knapp were all Rotarians. This association served them well in establishing good relationships in Athens. Adams wanted no part of any local civic group, and his critics allege that this attitude was a major reason for a less than friendly “Town-Gown” relationship that developed.
Dooley said it became clear early on that Adams would use his role as chair of the UGA Athletics Board to make his presence felt more than most presidents in intercollegiate athletics. Soon after Adams’s arrival, Dooley brought in two outside consultants to evaluate UGA’s athletics program and to make recommendations for improvements.
Eugene F. Corrigan, former athletic director at the University of Virginia and Notre Dame and retired commissioner of the