(air whooshing) -(audience claps and cheers) -(gentle suspenseful music) (audience continues clapping and cheering) (suspenseful music) (upbeat suspenseful music) [News Presenter] Officials at Auburn University are reacting swiftly to a news story that broke this afternoon when a man called into a sports radio program claiming that he had poisoned the famous oak trees at Toomer's Corner.

The 130-year-old trees are a landmark -on campus (speaks faintly).

-Toomer's Corner, generally the site of post-game celebrations at Auburn University, is now a place of shock, sadness, and anger as students and fans react to the news that its iconic oak trees were deliberately poisoned.

[News Presenter] The perpetrator has been identified -as Harvey Updyke.

-Ground crews have been doing all they can to save the debilitated trees, but now say it's unlikely they will survive.

[News Presenter] Dr. Gary Keever, a professor of horticulture at Auburn University, has been leading the effort to propagate live shoots from the roots of the original Toomer's Corner Oak Trees.

Today, he says they now have over 2,000 healthy clones.

Plans are being made to sell these young trees with proceeds going to support the university's horticulture department.

-(bird caws) -(gentle music) (birds chirping) (calm music) [Narrator] At some point after planting one of those Toomer's oak clones on his farm, Pat Dye decided he wanted his final resting place to be right underneath it.

It's kinda interesting if you think about it, the thing that him and those trees have in common, both of 'em are said to be gone, but, uh, there's evidence to the contrary.

You see, that fella with the poison, he may have thought he was killing something that night, but, uh, what he'd done was bring about new life.

That whole incident raised a new spirit in Auburn's people, which is exactly what Pat Dye did.

The man came along at a time when things were tough, when it was sorta hard to hold your head up and, well, he breathed new life into Auburn University, and I'm here to tell you, his spirit, (chuckles) it's alive and well.

(upbeat lively music) (upbeat lively music continues) ♪ Hey ♪ (upbeat lively music continues) ♪ Hey ♪ -(calm relaxing music) -(birds chirping) [Interviewer] Let me ask you this, if you had to describe Pat Dye in one word, what would that word be?

(Nancy laughs) One word, ooh.

(chuckles) Put me on the spot on this one.

You're asking a lawyer to just use one word, I don't think that's, that's not fair play.

One word to describe Pat Dye.

(Brett chuckles) There's a lotta words that apply to him.

[Narrator] Yeah, it's kinda hard to describe Pat Dye in a single word.

He was an academic all-American football player, a hall of fame college coach, a university administrator, a landscape designer, a storyteller, a father, a mentor, and a devoted friend and partner.

He was all those things and more, and when he died, he left a lot of folks with a hole in their heart and a head full of memories.

(air whooshing) As much energy as he put into his work, he put the same amount of energy into having fun.

(chuckles) And we had some great times together.

(upbeat music) He loved to laugh, he loved to dance.

He enjoyed himself.

And he enjoyed everybody around him.

And he made the mood very light and happy.

It was a joy to be with him.

Just, we had a lotta fun, a lotta fun.

I was living out here that summer, in 2016, I was coming back, I had a minivan, and I was coming back, it was pouring down with rain, and I was pulling up the drive and I got stuck in the mud.

(laughs) I called him on my cell phone, I said, "Daddy," I said, "you gotta help get me (laughs) out of this ditch."

I would get stuck all the time.

And I just remember, is this kind of an anecdote for life?

(laughs) You know, "I'm stuck in the mud, come get me."

He didn't sugarcoat anything, he told you exactly what he was gonna do, he told you what his rules were.

If you violated his rules, if you broke his rules, then you're gonna suffer the consequences.

And most of the time, those consequences was he's gonna introduce you to the dog.

And a lot of people say, "What's the dog?"

The dog is a Greyhound bus at the Opelika Bus Station.

-(upbeat music) -(horn honks) I was in charge of the defense, assistant head coach at Alabama and it felt like I had a pretty good job.

Well, now I'm going to leave Alabama, going to Texas A&M, so Coach Bryant has got to replace me.

So I felt like it's gonna be, you know, sort of a hard job to find somebody that could do what all I did, he hired Pat Dye.

-(calm upbeat music) -Pat hadn't coached a lick, and he replaced me and did an outstanding job at the University of Alabama.

But I like to tell that because I felt like Coach Bryant was gonna hire somebody that had a, quote, pedigree, but he didn't, he hired Pat and he hired the right man.

Sitting in the main cabin where we would all sit and eat and listen to his stories, right behind him, there was a picture.

I mean, this guy looked like a heavyweight boxer.

And I said, "Coach, who's that in that picture?"

He turned to look, and he, "Oh, hell, this is me."

And we said, "What happened to you?"

He said, "Hell, I got old."

(calm upbeat music) He had just taken the coaching job at Wyoming and hadn't coached yet, a game, hadn't coached a game, but they had set up a big welcoming dinner for him and a big crowd was there, and Pat was just meeting people.

He had on a cowboy hat that he liked, and some man there started making fun of his cowboy hat.

I guess it didn't look quite like the Wyoming cowboy hats did.

Anyway, Pat let it go, and the man would have another thing to say and Pat would let it go.

And after it went on long enough, now this is a Pat Dye reaction, Pat just finally had had enough, reached across the table, got ahold of the man, and just dragged him through the steaks and the potatoes and everything else.

Dragged him across the table and just whipped him.

And he thought, after all that was mopped up, he thought, "Man, I've lost my job, I ain't even coached a game, caused a commotion like this up there."

Well, those people loved it.

Those Wyoming people, that was one of their favorite things about him.

These call-in shows, people already, most of 'em are mad, you know, they wanna get some things, they're griping.

So I went to Coach Dye and I said, "Man, the people just wanna complain all the time."

He said, "I tell you what you do."

He said, "This is what I used to do."

He says, "I start agreeing with 'em."

He said, "I tell 'em, I say, 'You know, Joe, you got a great point there, I'm gonna look at that.

I'm gonna look at that and just see what I need to do.'

Well, the next thing you know, instead of him wanting to complain or argue, he's already on my side.

He said, 'Well, okay, Coach Dye, go get 'em next Saturday, let's go.'"

So I started doing that.

The best story is 1984 in Tallahassee, Florida, Auburn versus Florida State.

We did our homework as coaches at Auburn, that light burned, that light burned late in this kinda game.

We started off on Tuesday in a staff meeting, "Coach Dye, let me tell you what we found out about these officials for this game."

And he sat there and he listened, wasn't surprised.

And then he said, "That's enough.

Y'all coach the damn game.

I got the damn officials.

(gentle suspenseful music) Flash forward, it's first and goal to go on the 10, on one of those drives, we score on first and 10 -from the 10-yard line.

-(audience clapping) There wasn't any penalty, but the official closest to us, after they crossed the goal line, 15-yard penalty holding.

Pat run down there, and he said, "Was that flag out?

Not when I saw it, it wasn't out until he scored."

Pat Dye attacks that official with a lot of expletives.

That official immediately throws a 15-yard flag.

I grabbed him around the waist and I said, "Come on, you've done all the damage we can stand."

So we've gone from first and goal to go to the 10, to a 15-yard penalty for holding, to a 15-yard penalty against the coach.

We're at first and goal to go from the 40.

Walking back to the sideline and he said, "Oh, yeah, I did a lotta damage, didn't I?"

I said, "Well, you did a pretty good bit, Pat."

Pat starts walking back to me and he's looking over his shoulder at the umpire, who has not moved outta the middle of the field, the guy with the white hat.

And he starts screaming at him, "I need for you to come over," he demands that he comes over.

Well, he didn't budge outta the middle of that field.

And once Pat realized he wasn't coming to the sideline, Pat flipped and started going directly at him.

And he jumped in his face and, I mean, called him some god-awful names, and he threw his last flag at him.

"Listen, you blankety-blank, if I see one more damn flag, everybody in this country is gonna hear the story about who you are and where you come from."

He grabbed my arm and he squeezed as hard as he can, and he said, "How much damage did I do?"

I said, "I'm not sure, but I think it's first and 55 with those flags."

(laughs) He says, "Yeah, are you kidding me?"

And I said, "Hell no, I ain't kidding you."

He walks up to me, he says, "Well, I mean," just is, this is the shocking part, is calm, it's over with.

He says, "Well, Jack, first and 55, let's just get a field goal out of this."

(calm somber music) I think about him every day today.

He was, (cries) he was my brother.

He was my brother.

He didn't have much time while he was coaching football, but in his retirement, our phone calls would always end with, "I love you."

And I think he knew how proud I was of him, but, you know, I just wish I had told him more.

Because, you know, I took him for granted, he was my brother.

He was just my older brother that I loved.

And, you know, I don't know that I let him know how much I loved him and how proud I was of him.

I was very uncomfortable in 2010 when they asked me to do the National Championship game on ESPN and Auburn was playing Oregon, and I happened to be at the hotel and felt uncomfortable, you know, being an Alabama coach around a lotta Auburn people.

And just happened to see Coach Dye.

And he just came up to me and, you know, talked to me and made me feel so at home.

And, you know, he had a presence about him that I think a lotta the great coaches, the great coaches from the past had that, you know, you can't really explain, but you really know when you see it.

There's a great saying, "The moon and the sun don't shine at the same time, but when it's their time to shine, they shine."

And the thing I admired about Coach Dye was he didn't worry about Tuscaloosa, he didn't worry about Athens, he didn't worry about Knoxville, he didn't worry about Gainesville.

He like, "Just worry about yourself, don't worry about anybody else."

I learned as much about being a good person and a man listening to him talk to his teams as I did him being my dad.

I mean, I'd just hang on to every word he said.

And he was always preaching to them, again, about the importance of hard work and discipline and selflessness and team and good choices, making the right decisions, have dignity in defeat and be humble in victory, and have class, you know, at all times.

He was not only coaching his team, he was coaching young coachies like me that were eager to be like him.

Our game was at Auburn and it was with Coach Dye, and I just loved Coach Dye, but they were so good and we were so bad.

And it was packed and it was hot.

And we had our scraggly little bunch down there, and it was awful.

It was 33 to nothing at the end of the third quarter.

And Coach Dye took out everybody that had ever played in a game at Auburn, and it ended up 33-21.

And after the game, I walked over and I hugged his neck and I said, "Thank you so much.

What'd you do that for?"

And he said, "Number one, boy, I like you.

Number two, I want you to know your team's real bad.

They're real bad, they're not bad, they're real bad.

You're gonna have you a bad year.

But I wanted to pick 'em up a little bit leaving here and maybe that 21 points will give you a little spark and it'll help you down the road."

Now, that's the kinda guy that Pat Dye was.

I think to call Pat Dye the Bear Bryant of Auburn really is not fair to Pat Dye because he was so unique.

Pat Dye did not try to replicate Coach Bryant.

I mean, he took the best of what he learned from Coach Bryant, but he was very much his own man.

I think he was every bit the coach that Paul Bryant was.

There's no question that in those early years, I don't think there was a better coach in this country than Pat Dye.

(upbeat music) [Narrator] Pat Dye was Auburn University's head football coach from 1981 through 1992.

And during those 12 seasons, the Tigers won 99 games and four SEC Championships.

Dye was a National Coach of the Year recipient and a three-time SEC Coach of the Year, he also served as Auburn's Athletic Director for 10 years.

A bit later in 2005, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

In that same year, Auburn University honored him by naming the stadium's playing surface Pat Dye Field.

-(dramatic upbeat music) -(audience claps and cheers) But success was not immediate and Pat Dye's first season was not so stellar.

(upbeat music) Auburn finished the '81 season with five and six record, though it did include two wins against SEC teams.

They had the same record the previous year, but failed to win a single SEC game.

Doug Barfield was a good football coach, but he came at the wrong time.

He followed Coach Jordan who was a legend.

And (stammers) it wasn't a laughing stock on the field because they still had some good players, but it was just the psychological aspect of Auburn was so beaten.

-(audience claps and cheers) -Among Pat Dye's losses that first year was the hard-fought Tennessee game.

I think most people would say the Pat Dye era of Auburn football began in earnest when Bo went Over the Top against Alabama in 1982.

But I don't believe that's when it really began.

I believe the Pat Dye era of Auburn football began in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1981.

When after the game, oh, we fumbled on the goal line going in in that final seconds -and lost to Tennessee, 10-7.

-(audience claps and cheers) That's when the Pat Dye era began, when winning and losing mattered enough to really tear your guts out.

(calm tranquil music) That's life.

There's gonna be a lot of days when you lay your guts on the line and you come away empty-handed.

Ain't a damn thing you can do about it, but go back and lay 'em on the line again and again and again.

You'll keep fighting like you did today.

You keep playing like that, you can build a foundation that we can live a long, -long time on it all.

-(audience claps and cheers) [Narrator] Auburn also lost the all-important Iron Bowl in 1981, Alabama won the game, 28-17.

The '81 game was tight.

(stammers) That was Coach Bryant's 315 game.

And it took a tremendous fourth quarter for Alabama to beat Auburn.

[Narrator] But Dye had sent a message to Coach Paul Bear Bryant prior to the game saying, "We ain't scared of you anymore."

No, Auburn didn't get the wins they wanted in that first season, but they did get a hold of something that had been missing for a long time, hope.

(audience claps and cheers) You know, it was a good period of time and, you know, we had some work to do to turn the program around.

He knew it, I knew it, everybody knew it.

And it was gonna start with recruiting.

(calm upbeat music) When you recruited against Auburn, you had to recruit against Pat Dye, that was not very easy to do.

He would go in the homes recruiting and it didn't make a difference whether they're Black, white, rich, poor.

He always had the same demeanor, same approach, but he was always himself, he was genuine, I would say authentic.

[Narrator] When it came to people, Pat Dye didn't see color.

In 1971 when he was an assistant coach at Alabama, Coach Bryant recognized this trait and involved Dye in recruiting the first Black player to ever have been offered a scholarship at the university.

It was Wilbur Jackson of Ozark, Alabama, and he became a standout, playing split end for the Tide.

Around that time, Coach Bryant sent Dye down to Mobile on another recruiting mission.

The player was John Mitchell, also a star athlete.

Dye signed him as well.

Mitchell became the first African American to actually play in an Alabama game.

When it comes to recruiting, Coach Dye was probably the head coach that I trusted more in terms of how you recruited in the South.

He knew how to talk to their mamas 'cause their mamas understood discipline and he was going to teach 'em right from wrong, I promise you that.

I can remember when Coach Dye came to do the home visit and, you know, my mom had made a poundcake for him and all that, she gonna cooked for him.

And then after, you know, he's sitting in there on the couch, you know, he's got my mom in one arm, my sister in another arm, you know, then he gets up, my mom goes in to clean, he goes in there and wash dishes.

I think he had a uncanny knack to get along with people no matter whatever walk of life you were from.

And he just, I think, genuinely loved people and tried to find the good in all of 'em.

But I think to be an effective recruiter, there has to be a genuineness, there has to be a sincerity, there has to be a degree of understanding and empathy.

I think he tried to see the world through their eyes and that makes all the difference in the world.

He wouldn't come in there and say, "My God, we're the greatest, we're the best," he'd just say how good we were.

But it made a human connection.

And I think that's what all effective recruiters do.

And Coach Dye was certainly an effective recruiter.

He was out there mourning and night, and he wanted to win and he wanted to get the right kinda players, and he did.

(calm tranquil music) [Narrator] Pat Dye's tireless efforts paid off prior to his second season when he won a recruiting battle for a talented young running back outta Bessemer, Alabama.

His name was Vincent Bo Jackson.

And his decision to attend Auburn was quite literally a game changer.

(audience claps and cheers) Bo was at McAdory High School.

Ken Donahue was the football coach at Alabama, he goes into McAdory High School to visit Bo.

I think that Bo asked him if he could start and Ken did not answer that in a way that made him think that he could as a freshman.

And that's certainly not any knock on Ken, he was being what he thought Coach Bryant would say.

It was the big recruiting season, and every other day, a different coach was at the house.

And as I walked through the front door, I noticed to the right, my mom sitting at the table with two men.

I got my duffle bag across my shoulder with my dirty baseball uniform in it.

And I walk past the dining room and I look in and I speak, "Good evening."

And I go on downstairs and went down to the laundry room downstairs to put my baseball uniform in because I had a game the next day.

And this gentleman walks up and he calls me Vincent at the time.

He said, "Vincent," he said, "my name's Pat Dye."

First time I've ever heard the name.

He said, "I'm the new Head Coach at Auburn."

And he said, "I'm not going to beat around the bush, I'm just going to tell you like it is.

If you tell me that you will consider coming to Auburn," he said, "I promise you, I will give you every opportunity on the planet to be a starter next year when we open up against Wake Forest."

-He said, "Period."

-(dramatic music) And I put my hand out to shake his hand and I said, "I'm coming to Auburn next year."

(calm triumphant music) I remember Pat Dye called me on the phone after one of the first scrimmages.

He said, "You need to come over here," he said, "this is unbelievable."

He said, "I don't have anybody that can tackle him."

He said, "I'm afraid he's gonna hurt somebody."

He was actually at fullback when he first got to Auburn and we didn't know what we had.

I can never forget Coach Dye, who was coaching from a tower in the fall of 1982, coming down the tower saying, "Jack, Jack," calling me over there to tell me how wrong we were to have him at fullback.

Which means literally he had no chance to show all of those talents, he had no open field.

-(upbeat music) -I think we were always catching up with Bo.

I think his talents were always beyond our ability to coach him.

Bo, I think, was Pat's biggest joy, (chuckles) but I think he was his biggest challenge.

(audience claps and cheers) [Narrator] The turning point for Auburn came at the 1982 Iron Bowl.

It was Pat Dye's second season as head coach and they were seven and three.

Alabama had a nine-year winning streak over the Tigers.

Just prior to the game, Dye met Coach Bryant on the field and told his former boss and mentor, "Before you start hugging on me, you ought to know that my boys are fixing to get after y'all's ass."

(upbeat music) Well, when the game got underway, the two teams seemed fairly evenly matched.

Then halfway through the fourth quarter, Auburn took over, entered Bo Jackson.

Pretty soon it was fourth and goal with 18 inches to go.

Now known as the Bo Over the Top play, Jackson scored the winning touchdown, bringing the final score to 23-22!

-(upbeat music continues) -(audience claps and cheers) (upbeat suspenseful music) (players cheering) [Pat] I want to thank You for what Auburn University stands for.

Please let us be humble in victory, proud.

Most of all, we thank You for being at Auburn.

-Amen.

-[Players] Amen.

(players cheering) What I'd like for you to do is I'd like for you, the ones that want to, I'm going to go back out there -and thank our people.

-(players claps and cheers) -(upbeat triumphant music) -(audience claps and cheers) (audience continues clapping and cheering) (calm poignant music) [Narrator] The victory ended Alabama's winning streak and it would be Coach Bryant's last Iron Bowl.

Bryant announced his retirement soon afterward and died of a heart attack just two months later.

(audience claps and cheers) Over the years, Auburn University produced its share -of talented athletes.

-(upbeat lively music) Of course, there was Bo Jackson, but Dye went on to coach players like Tracy Rocker, Gregg Carr, Steve Wallace, Kevin Greene, and many others.

In his 12 seasons at Auburn, 21 Pat Dye's players were named all-Americans, 71 were all-SEC, and 85 of 'em went to the NFL, not to mention the first NFL draft pick in 1986 and 1988 -came right outta Auburn.

-♪ Hey ♪ (audience claps and cheers) (air whooshing) A lot of the things that he built here, like the garden, it was the roughest looking old spot on the place.

And little by little, he would plant maples here, he would add some more to the water feature.

All the names of these Japanese maples was amazing, but he studied them, and he wanted to learn and know more about Japanese maples and camellias and (indistinct).

And I'd get tickled because everybody would ask, "Well, coach, which one of these Japanese maples is your favorite?"

And it always was the same, the one he was standing by, (chuckles) you know, the next time he would be by another one and that day that one was his favorite.

(air whooshing) (calm upbeat music) [Narrator] Someone once asked Pat Dye why he decided on coaching as a career.

And he told 'em, "I had a high school coach that made me feel a certain way about myself.

And I wanted to give my life to making young men feel the way my coach made me feel."

Now, to fully understand that decision, we'll need to go back a ways.

(tape whirring) (calm music) Now, the experts tell us that childhood has a lot to do with a man's make-up.

And quite often, that's what's behind the wheel of destiny.

This theory certainly holds up when it comes to Patrick Fain Dye.

(calm music) He was born in 1939 to Wayne and Nell Dye, and was a product of a rural upbringing in Blythe, Georgia.

(dog barking) There in that little town, two things defined his youth, hard work and football.

I was born and raised on a farm.

It's in a small country town, population 200, 250, whatever.

Three cotton gins, two general stores.

Railroad ran right through the middle of town.

And I had two older brothers and a younger sister.

From the time the boys got big enough to work, he worked them on the farm.

Daddy was a cotton farmer mainly.

It was just really something growing up like we did, being right there on the farm all the time though, it's gotta be good for you.

He grew peanuts, watermelons, corn, grains.

Peas, picking peas, putting 'em on a big truck with high bodies.

15 years old, I was driving to Gibson and Gibson had a cannery.

And you'd get there, and I would pull in there and look, and there'd be 20 trucks in front of me.

(laughs) And I don't know how many times I would get up and get out the cab of the truck and get up on the peas on the back and just sleep 'cause couldn't go nowhere.

And he's damn sure wasn't gonna take 'em home.

But my father, he was hard on the boys in that he made them work (calm music) in a way that I didn't have to work.

He was tough.

He was tough on us.

There was no slack given anywhere, anytime, none, unless he wanted you to paddle a boat.

(laughs) Wayne was the oldest, Wayne, Nat, Pat, and then I was the youngest and the only girl.

A lot of people didn't know there was even a girl in the family.

'cause the three of them made a name for themselves in football.

And I was never mentioned, but I was there, I was there watching it all.

The way Mama and Daddy had met -and fell in love was romantic.

-(calm tranquil music) She was the beautiful city girl that came to Blythe, Georgia, to teach home economics in the high school there.

And my father was the handsome bachelor in town and they fell in love.

Now, they were from very different backgrounds in one sense, in that my mother's family were, she had never seen any alcohol, period.

And Daddy's parents were teetotallers too, but daddy was not, and Mama didn't know what that meant.

So there were some rocky times ahead, but they were very much in love.

And my father adored my mother.

But, as I said, there were some hard times ahead.

I knew him very well and he was open with us in a lot of his conversations and stories about his early childhood and how tough that was with his father.

You know, I think what made him such a great coach was he was tough.

Because of his home environment, a difficult home environment, and the way he had to grow up, he had to be tough.

He wouldn't have lived through what he did if he hadn't been tough.

But he was basically a gentle guy.

And one of my friends told me once, he said, "He's just a big teddy bear."

I said, "There's a grizzly in there too, (laughs) I've seen it."

Pat was competitive from the time he was born, being the third son, he always wanted to be as good as and to keep up with his brothers, and everything was a competition.

(calm upbeat music) My mother and father both were competitive people.

My mother was an athlete and she played on a high school basketball team and won three straight high school championships.

Never lost a game in high school in basketball, my mother.

And my dad quit school in 10th grade and started farming, started working.

When you're the third son, -you don't win at anything, -(gentle pensive music) you finish second or last at everything.

Oh, I didn't like finishing last and I didn't like finishing second, and I'd fight and scratch back, but ultimately, you'd end up getting whipped or defeated.

You can't beat your older brothers.

-As time went on, -(calm upbeat music) fighting with them and competing with them and losing made me tougher.

Finally, when you get grown, you're competing and you start competing with people your age and your talent and, you know, you find out that you got better, you're better prepared than they are.

[Narrator] Dye was a high school all-American who, like his brothers, went on to earn recognition and a bit of stardom playing for the University of Georgia under Coach Wally Butts.

I met Pat at Georgia, played at Georgia, and we graduated the same year and had a great time playing for Coach Butts.

I mean, he was a little bitty guy, but, boy, was he mean.

And Pat had had two brothers that played at Georgia before we got there.

And the Dyes were a household name in Georgia.

The thing that I remember most about Pat, he had a propensity to be able to make big plays.

(upbeat suspenseful music) Now, I was at Auburn, Pat was playing at Georgia, and the championship game in Sanford Stadium between the hedges, is Pat had made the big play, caused the fumble which gave Georgia the opportunity, with Fran Tarkenton throwing the pass, that up set Auburn to win the championship in 1959.

That was my first encounter with Pat.

And it wasn't good at the time, though being at Georgia now, it's a pretty good thing.

We won all the close games that year and that was sort of typical, I think you would say about Pat, he just always was around the football.

(audience claps and cheers) And he and I sat down and we talked a lot about Georgia 'cause he played at Georgia and I'd played at Georgia, and I thought when I saw him, I said, "You know, well, I'd like to work for him.

I mean, I'd like to coach for him because, I mean, he's a go-getter," and stuff like that.

And I never had the privilege to coach with him, but I did coach against him.

And so I saw things that, you know, I wish I'd never seen and most of 'em were on the scoreboard.

(laughs) (calm music) [Narrator] Dye became good friends with Georgia teammate Fran Tarkenton, whose talent as a quarterback would later put him in the spotlight as well.

Patrick Dye was part of my life from my junior year in high school all the way through college.

And we became best friends.

He was in my wedding, drafted in Canada, played in Canada, would always come from Canada back and stay with me at my house in Minneapolis.

And we just never lost contact for the rest of our life.

And there was nobody I respected more as a person and as a football player.

The two greatest football players I've ever played with, this will shock you, was Pat Dye and Mike Ditka.

I have wonderful memories of of Pat Dye.

First and foremost, my father was a great player at Georgia in the late 1940s, early 1950.

In 1959, 1960, my dad always would tell me, "Now, Billy, I want you to watch Pat Dye, Billy, I want you to watch number 60."

And what he meant by that was he wanted me to experience firsthand what effort and attitude, the difference that that made in someone's outcome and talent and possibility.

And I can remember through all those years I did and, of course, my memory of him and his play at the University of Georgia, outstanding.

And I've followed him all my life.

And I even have to admit that I pulled for him when he was coaching Auburn, except when they were playing the University of Georgia.

He was a hero to the University of Georgia.

And, amazingly, even though he had those many years in that great career at Auburn, he still remains an institution at the University of Georgia.

Now, that's hard to do.

Think about that.

Someone who had a 30-year career at one of our biggest rivals is still loved and admired by the university where he only spent four years.

(audience claps and cheers) (air whooshing) Coach Dye, you know, he may have retired from coaching football, but he never retired from coaching, just coaching people in general.

We moved out here together in 1998 and there was nothing but swamps and trees.

And over the years, I've just been learning as I go, a lotta different things from him and with him.

There was a lotta things we both didn't know that we were kinda learning together.

Anytime I was with him, no matter where we were, he never made me feel like he's just a guy that helps me on my ranch.

He always made it known to whoever was around who I was to him.

I used to tell people that, his exact words was, "Chico and I takes care of each other."

(chuckles) And that's what we did.

We just looked after each other.

(air whooshing) (calm upbeat music) [Narrator] Pat Dye's playing career at Georgia wrapped up with the 1960 season and then he went north to join his brother Nat, who was playing in the Canadian Football League.

(upbeat music) The team was the Edmonton Eskimos and Pat played as a two-way starter at tight end and linebacker.

I'm gonna tell y'all this, if you ever wanted anybody to make the first play on the downfield, he would've been it.

He went to it wide open, it was just unbelievable the stamina he had.

[Narrator] However, not long after his arrival there, the single life began wearing on him.

And so he rekindled a long distance relationship with an old girlfriend from his Richmond Academy days.

Her name was Sue Ward and Pat just proposed right over the telephone.

They soon got married, and shortly thereafter, the two started a family.

After two seasons at Edmonton, Dye served in the army at Fort Benning for another two years, which was part of an ROTC obligation.

He earned the rank of First Lieutenant and also played football for the Fort Benning Doughboys.

Little did he know that a few of those teammates would be instrumental in him landing his first coaching job.

[Reader] Dear Coach Bryant, I heard recently that you were looking for some assistant coaches.

I wrote Bill Rice to find out if this were true.

He called me last night and said I should -contact you.

(speaks faintly) -In 1965, Dye wrote a letter to Coach Bryant at the University of Alabama.

He heard that Gene Stallings was leaving for Texas A&M and that his spot was open.

Fort Benning teammate Bill Rice and a couple of others who'd played for Bryant, contacted their old coach and gave Dye their endorsement, and he was offered the job.

Pat Dye worked for Bryant as an assistant defensive coach for nine years.

During that time, a mutual respect emerged and a close friendship was formed.

He and Coach Dye were just really close.

They spent a lot of time together during the off season and they had a lot of respect for each other.

Coach Dye had tremendous respect for Coach Bryant.

(calm music) [Narrator] The Crimson Tide won two National Championships and five SEC Titles when Dye was at Alabama.

He learned a lot in Tuscaloosa.

He later wrote in a memoir, "I had an undergraduate degree from Georgia, but I got a master degree in football from Coach Bryant."

(calm upbeat music) It was 1974 when Dye struck out on his own, parlaying his success at Alabama into head coach position at East Carolina University.

He moved his family to Greenville, North Carolina, with high hopes.

And as it turned out, success had followed him there.

In his third season, the Pirates won the 1976 Southern Conference Championship.

Pat Dye coached a total of six seasons in East Carolina with a record of 48-18-1, which at the time ranked with the most wins of any coach in the university's history.

ECU later honored Dye in 2006, inducting him into the East Carolina Athletics Hall of Fame.

When Coach Dye was figuring out where he wanted to go after East Carolina, he had two job offers, and that was West Virginia and Wyoming.

Then he says, "Where y'all wanna go?

Y'all wanna go to Wyoming or you wanna go to West Virginia?"

And everybody's going, "Dang it, is there another one?"

You know, (laughs) do we got another option?

And he says, "No."

He said, "I'll tell you what we're gonna do," he says, "we're gonna go to Wyoming, we're gonna buy some cowboy boots and we're gonna go out there and check them out and see what we can do."

(upbeat music) [Narrator] In 1980, Pat Dye accepted the head coach position at the University of Wyoming, which had endured losing seasons for nine out of the previous 10 years.

Matter of fact, he took the job without even going to visit.

He told the assistant coaches headed out there with him, "We're fixing to find out if we can coach."

So anyway, we land there and the newspaper says that the day before, the wind blew so hard, it blew the cold cars off the track.

So that was our introduction to Wyoming.

I remember going out there and 20 degrees below zero, 30-mile an hour wind, snow.

And we get up the next morning and crying like, "What have you done?"

(laughs) It was a great experience for us.

I'm glad, you know, I got to do it, but I don't think I wanna go back.

It was cold, Laramie, Wyoming, not much going on, you know, about an hour and a half from Denver, and it was Cowboys now, it was them kids were Cowboys.

[Narrator] One of the reasons Dye wanted the job at Wyoming had to do with his predecessors.

He knew some great coaches had come outta that school, coaches like Bowden Wyatt, Bob Devaney, Lloyd Eaton, and Dennis Erickson.

He also accepted the position because the location appealed to his love of nature.

He was drawn to the land of Laramie, with its rivers, streams, and snow cap mountains.

Well, in that very first season, he found out he could indeed coach.

Dye led Wyoming to a six and five record that year.

But as it turned out, that would be his only season there.

It was the news coming out of Athens, Georgia, 1,500 miles away that changed the course of Pat Dye's career.

Vince Dooley, head coach for the Georgia Bulldogs, had many negotiations about the head coach position at Auburn, his alma mater.

And many were pretty sure he'd take the job.

But at the last minute, he decided to stay in Georgia.

And with that, Dye through his hat in the ring at Auburn and let it be known that he wanted to come back to the SEC.

In fact, I even recommended Pat because I was offered the job, but I had been at Georgia entirely too long.

All my children grew up at Georgia.

And I remember that I said that, "I hate to tell you, but I think Pat would be an excellent coach at Auburn."

[Narrator] Well, as you can imagine, this didn't sit too well with Wyoming's board of directors.

They gave Pat Dye an ultimatum, -"Stay or leave now," -(gentle suspenseful music) they told him, so without a sure job at Auburn, Dye resigned.

We had thought that we were going to hire Vince Dooley, but that didn't work out.

And so Governor Fob James said, "Y'all need to go find your head football coach."

And so a committee was formed, it was Dr. Funderburk, was president of the university, it was myself as I was president of the National Alumni Association, and there were three trustees on there.

And so we formed a committee and we started making a list of names.

[Narrator] Now, you've gotta understand, Pat Dye was nowhere near the top of Auburn's list.

They were more interested in Dan Reeves, who was Tom Landry's top offensive assistant with the Cowboys.

And they were also keen on Jackie Sherrill, who was coaching Pittsburgh.

Jackie Sherrill really wanted the job.

He was a much better known name and I just, I didn't think Jackie Sherrill was the right man for the job.

And, of course, I had been a longtime football fan and I knew Pat Dye's name.

And so I asked some of my Alabama friends about Pat Dye and one of my close friends told me, he said, "Well, you know, he's a good coach.

He's really good."

But he said, "Well, let me check on him."

Well, he came back about three days later and said, "Y'all don't need to hire Pat Dye," he said, "he's not any good."

So I figured if they didn't want us to hire him, that was a clue.

So Pat's calling me on the telephone saying, "They're fixing to fire me out here, what are you thinking?"

I said, "Well, Pat, I think we can get it done if you come on down here."

[Narrator] It came down to having an interview with the entire Auburn Board of Trustees and, well, (chuckles) in time, Dye just won their hearts over.

The first thing he said to us was, he said, "I'm the right coach for y'all."

He said, "Y'all can talk to other coaches that are more famous than I am and got better resumes than I," but he said, "I know, I know Southeastern Conference Football."

-(upbeat music) -It didn't happen overnight, but on January 2nd, 1981, Pat Dye was the new head coach at Auburn University.

It is what I consider one of the top jobs in the South.

It is a school that has tremendous football tradition.

And it is a school that I remember playing against and watching my older brothers play against back in the '50s, and having coached against the University of Auburn at times when they were certainly a feared football power in the South.

And I'm confident that with the support of the Auburn people, the alumni, the former players, the student body, the faculty, the administration, that we will be able to bring this great football tradition back to what it once was.

And we are looking forward to this challenge with great anticipation, a lot of enthusiasm, and realizing fully that it is gonna take a lotta hard work and probably a lot of patience on your part and our part, but we will get the job done in the end.

Auburn offered him the job, he accepted and didn't even ask them what they were gonna pay him.

And Bobby Lauder had to chase him down in the hotel lobby and say, "Coach, don't you wanna know what we're gonna pay you?"

He goes, "Oh, yeah."

And I said, "Well, the school's going to pay you $50,000 and I'm going to pay you 50,000, so you make $100,000.

He said, "That's fine with me."

And money did not mean anything to Pat.

I mean, that's amazing that we hired him with that kinda money, with the kinda salaries that are being paid today.

When Pat Dye came to Auburn, Auburn had suffered through one of the worst periods in its entire history, athletically, particularly on the football field.

Nine years, everywhere you went, the drug store, the barber shop, the grocery store, I mean, we were the butt of every joke.

And when he walked into that place, it was a depressed, beaten family.

But he immediately, immediately set the tone and said, "No, we're gonna be different," and he meant it.

And you knew he meant it because when that reporter asked him in that very first press conference, "Coach, how long is it gonna take you to beat Alabama?"

He never hesitated, he didn't blink, he said, "60 minutes."

That set the stage.

(air whooshing) I told him, I said, "Coach, Linda wants one of those Japanese maples to put in, you know, building a new house, we're gonna retire.

She wants one Japanese maple.

He said, "Oh, nah, nah, nah, no, no, where you live?"

I said, "Well, we're over here at the AU Club."

And he says, "Well, I'm coming over there to look at, to see what you need."

Well, the next thing I know, I got him and Linda are walking around and we have a little lot, we're right there on the golf course.

The next thing I know, I got 16 Japanese maples in my darn yard.

And a couple of months later, I'm out there drinking coffee about seven in the morning.

And the dogs are barking and he's out there pruning -the darn Japanese maples.

-(air whooshing) (calm upbeat music) [Narrator] Coaching football is just like anything else.

And there are different ways to go about it and different methods and approaches, but the character of a coach is paramount.

It matters to players and it don't take 'em long to figure out whether you've got it or not.

Pat Dye was loaded with character.

Now, he was tough on his players and he pushed 'em pretty damn hard.

Coach Dye was a hard nose SOB, to be honest with you, when you're talking about being a football coach.

We practiced the first week, shorts and shoulder pads, you know, four times a day.

So I mean, we got up at six o'clock, went from six to 7:30, came back, had breakfast, kicking practice from 12 to one, shorts, and then come back, eat lunch, main practice from, you know, 2:30 to about six, come back to eat dinner.

And then we had night, seven on seven, you know, from like, nine to 10.

We did that the first week, week and a half.

That was Pat Dye's coaching style.

If you made it through the week, Saturday's gonna be downhill.

(calm upbeat music) He was tough on his players for a reason.

The brain is not fully developed till you're 25 years old, I mean, it's not fully developed.

So these 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds, they may start thinking that they know it, but go back, to everybody that watches, go back to when you 18, 19, 20, some of us are lucky to be alive with some of the decisions we made.

So if you're not tough on these kids, then they may make some stupid mistakes.

The important thing for kids, and I think Pat did it and I tried to do it, is that as much as you fuss at 'em, as much as you try to coach 'em, you care about 'em as people, that's the key.

If they know you care about 'em as people, then they'll certainly play for you harder.

(upbeat music) It wasn't just the players, it was the coaches, too.

And he demanded results and wanted to see results.

And so he pushed the coaches just as hard as he pushed the players.

He just demanded that it be done right.

Either you do it the right way or the Pat Dye way, which is the way I want it done, or you ain't gonna be here.

Dad had this uncanny ability to push people beyond where they thought they could go.

And yet, he knew when to pull back.

He knew how hard to drive on the front end to demand excellence, and to get there, you have to come almost close to the breaking point.

And to be able to motivate a person to that point, then to come back and love 'em after that is the key.

Well, I've always said, you have discipline with no compassion and you get rebellion.

But if you mix discipline with compassion, you get love and friendship and unity.

(upbeat music) [Narrator] Because they respected him, they gave him their all.

(stammers) That's the similarity between Pat Dye and Paul Bryant, that it didn't matter whether you were a two star or a five star, you tried to please him.

He had that leadership thing that you're born with and he was the ultimate leader that I've ever known.

-(audience claps and cheers) -(upbeat suspenseful music) [Narrator] 1983 was the Tiger's best season under Dye's leadership and also its most disappointing.

That was really our second recruiting class, that year was magical, seeing those guys develop into a really, really good football team.

Now, we had one noose around our neck, we had lost to Texas.

And we went through 'em one at a time.

We went around Amen's Corner, we took Florida, then we took Georgia, then we took Alabama.

And I'm telling you, it was Amen Corner.

[Narrator] They went 10 and one, and were ranked number three before going on to beat Michigan in the Sugar Bowl.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) It's been a great year and you'll never, you won't realize tonight how big your win was.

I couldn't be any more proud of you if you'd have won 45 to nothing.

-Now, I'm telling you, -(upbeat suspenseful music) because what you did, what you did and the way you did it is what's so important.

And, men, you're gonna be in a lot of tough battles next year, year after year after year, individual battles with yourself.

You won't have teammates with you, but if you'll just look back and think about that, January the second night in New Orleans, gain a little strength from it, it'll help you down the road.

-(upbeat music) -Nebraska was the number one team that year, but they lost in the Orange Bowl to number five, Miami.

Also, number two, Texas, got beat by Georgia in the Cotton Bowl.

So it was logical to assume that Auburn would win the National Championship, but the major polls saw it differently and stepped over number three, Auburn, and chose Miami.

That one hurt.

The sort of curse of it was, we weren't pretty enough to win the prize.

We weren't pretty enough to win the prize.

I think "The New York Times" got it right.

Coach Dye had his National Championship, but only "The New York Times" would tell him.

And we saw that we got hosed on that deal.

But, hey, life goes on.

(chuckles) (gentle piano music) [Narrator] Pat Dye had a deep love for Auburn University, not because he was their football coach, but because of what the place stood for.

When Pat Dye came to Auburn, he came as a football coach, yes, but he signed on and Auburn got into his blood.

And I think that the finest thing you can say about Pat Dye's not that he was a football coach or athletic director, but he became an Auburn man.

He adopting Auburn and Auburn adopting him.

I don't remember anyone becoming an Auburn person as quickly as Pat Dye did, that's what impressed me about Pat Dye, he became one of us quickly.

I mean, he bled blue and orange.

If you cut him open, he'd have bled blue and orange.

I mean, it's just the way he was, you know, when he took that job, he became Mr. Auburn.

I'd come back from pro football and see him, and we went to a couple of deals together.

And I said, "Patrick, how," I used another word that we can't use or I don't wanna use it, "How could you, how could you be the coach of Auburn?

(chuckles) How could you do that?"

And Zeke Smith was there.

He said, "Zeke, tell him how much we like to beat those Bulldogs."

(laughs) People talk about an Auburn man and I think that's a real thing.

And I think Coach Dye embodied what that meant.

Like, I care about Auburn and I want us to be successful.

And to me, that was probably his greatest legacy.

Pat loved Auburn and I wanted to be, to the best of my ability, like Pat, 'cause Pat Dye's life and his work was what Auburn was all about.

And so I could see it, right there, it was embodied.

[Narrator] Dye personified the Auburn Creed, a treasured proclamation of beliefs in things like hard work, truthfulness, fearlessness, and walking humbly.

His unwavering support and devotion to the university was visible and it continued for the rest of his life.

(calm upbeat music) Early on, not long after taking the Auburn job, Dye was visiting with Coach Bryant.

And one of the first things out of his mouth was, "Well, I guess you're going to want to take the game to Auburn."

Now, the Auburn/Alabama game is one of the college football's greatest rivalries, known as the Iron Bowl.

At the time, it was played at Legion Field in Birmingham, a tradition which started way back in 1948.

Dye responded by saying plainly, "We're gonna take it to Auburn."

To which Bryant replied, "That game's not going anywhere as long as I'm coach."

And Dye said, "Well, the man can't coach forever."

That made the old guy laugh and he told Dye, (laughs) "We got a contract through '88."

Dye followed with, "Well, then, we'll play '89 in Auburn."

-(dramatic upbeat music) -And sure enough, they did.

(calm upbeat music) One of Dye's greatest accomplishments as athletic director was expanding Jordan-Hare Stadium and moving the Iron Bowl to Auburn.

Dye renegotiated the contract with Alabama, allowing Auburn's home games to be played at Jordan-Hare rather than Legion Field.

And on December 2nd, 1989, history was made.

-(upbeat music) -(audience claps and cheers) It was the Iron Bowl, and for the first time ever, the Alabama Crimson Tide traveled to Auburn to play the Tigers in their own stadium.

This place was electric.

That day, well, against Alabama and Bill Curry, they didn't have a chance, if it was up to the Auburn people.

-(upbeat lively music) -The vastness of the orange and blue fan base was almost more than the eye could take in.

And all of a sudden, there's just a terrible roar outside.

And I walked out the back and the Alabama team, buses were trying to come up the road to get to their dressing room.

And the road was full of Auburn people and they were rocking the bus.

I mean, the bus was just going, boom, boom, boom.

And I'm sitting there, "Somebody's gonna get killed."

[Narrator] Team spirit was high and the chanting was thunderous.

The 1989 Tiger Walk, where cheering fans line the streets as the players walk to the stadium, was like no other before it.

An estimated 20,000 fans took part in this event.

And it was one of Auburn football's most memorable moments.

-(dramatic upbeat music) -(audience claps and cheers) Alabama was undefeated and ranked number two going into the game.

I remember, we were watching the film (film reel clattering) and we'd sit there and, of course, I never said a word, I'd just sit there and watch.

And he'd sit there and he'd run the film, he'd back it up, run it, and he'd back it up, over and over.

"What the hell is he looking at?"

And after a while, he said, "Got it."

And when he went and met with the coaches, he called this play, it was a post pattern to Alexander Wright.

And he said he had watched John Mangum and every time on this particular post pattern, he turned a certain way, certain direction.

So he designed this play counting on him to turn that way.

(audience claps and cheers) The first play from scrimmage that night, an 80-yard bombed Alexander Wright.

(dramatic music) The ball wound up close to the goal line.

And James Joseph took it over, first score, right at the beginning of the ball game.

And I mean, it was on from then on, and he never let up.

-(upbeat music) -(audience claps and cheers) [Narrator] The Alabama Crimson Tide led 10-7 at halftime.

And Auburn took charge in the second half -and won the game 30-20, -(audience claps and cheers) ending Alabama's shot at the National Championship.

But the real achievement was that it all took place in Auburn, Alabama, the win was secondary.

-(all cheer and clap) -Yeah, Reggie!

[Reggie] Here we go, Boss!

-One, two, three.

-[Team] Two, three.

-(all clapping) -♪ War Eagle ♪ ♪ Fly down the field ♪ ♪ Ever to conquer, never to yield ♪ ♪ War Eagle, fearless and true ♪ ♪ Fight on, you orange and blue ♪ ♪ Go, go, go ♪ ♪ On to victory, strike up the band ♪ ♪ Give 'em hell, give 'em hell ♪ ♪ Stand up and yell ♪ ♪ Hey, War Eagle, win for Auburn ♪ ♪ Power of Dixie Land ♪ -(all cheering) -(gentle triumphant music) All right, listen, men, tonight's what our program's all about.

I want you to think about it and let it sink in deep.

This is the reason we work in the summertime, in January and February, and the spring.

This is the reason we push you beyond what you think you can do, to experience moments like this.

Ain't no easy way in life and it wasn't easy out there tonight, but you were prepared for the task at hand.

Every one of you players, I mean, I ain't smart enough to tell you how I feel about you.

I mean, and because, I mean, it's family.

Every one of you, I mean, you know it.

Sure I'd like to be, well, 11-0, and, you know, but I'm gonna tell you something, I wouldn't swamp this year for any year that I've been at Auburn.

I wouldn't swap it, men, because I've watched you struggle and I've watched you wrestle with them angels, but I watched you grow up and become men.

I watched you become men.

(cries) -Time, baby.

-All time!

(all laugh and clap) [Narrator] That one event in December of 1989 is said to have been the most transformative -in Auburn's history.

-(audience claps and cheers) (gentle pensive music) In September of 1991, a front page story in "The Montgomery Advertiser" spelled trouble for Auburn University's Football Program.

Eric Ramsey, a defensive back for the Tigers, had told some reporters that he'd received payments and benefits from coaching staff and boosters.

This, of course, was in violation of the NCAA rules.

To back his claims, Ramsey had secretly recorded conversations with assistant coaches and boosters.

While Pat Dye was not directly implicated in these recordings, there was evidence that he had assisted Ramsey with receiving an unsecured $9,000 bank loan.

With no signs of it going away, the incident eventually prompted Pat Dye's resignation.

He called me in my office to tell me that morning what he was fixing to do.

And I said, "Pat, don't do that, don't do that.

We'll get through this, I promise you, we-" And he said, "Jim-" And I said, "No."

And I was upset, I was mad, and I was, "Don't do that, Pat, I'm telling you, we'll get through this."

And he said, "Jimmy, this is what's best for Auburn.

I know we can get through it, and it might be best for me, but it's not what's best for Auburn."

The Eric Ramsey story (exhales sharply) is impossible to ignore.

But I've always felt that it was unfair.

And I said it at the time, I took Coach Dye's side during that because, you know, in the end, he was trying to help someone.

And this time it caught him and, you know, helped to expedite his departure from Auburn.

And it was sad because it didn't have to happen.

He tried to help the wrong player and the walls came crumbling down around him.

When the Ramsey thing went down and I had to go to Kansas City or wherever that is that we had to go when you're in trouble with the NCAA.

(calm music) And I went and told 'em the whole story.

It was all about trying to get more than you're supposed to get.

You know, once Eric Ramsey hired Donald Watkins to be his attorney and co-opted that into a 60 minutes piece, Coach Dye really had very little chance.

I will say this about the Ramsey case, if you could take that out and that had not happened, I think Coach Dye would have gone on to become one of the greatest coaches in college football history.

He was primed for it.

[Narrator] And on November 26th, he coached his last game at Auburn, which, ironically, was against the University of Alabama in the '92 Iron Bowl.

The Tigers struggled throughout the game and never scored.

I think there's been enough tears shed and enough emotions as far as the way I feel about you and what you mean to me and my life.

And the thing that, you know, I certainly didn't, I didn't want it to end this way.

And I thought we had a chance and we did have a chance.

And the thing that I ask you to do is just be loyal to Auburn.

Love Auburn and if you do that, be loyal to Auburn then they gonna look after you.

The person of a man may go, but the best part of him stays and it stays forever.

As long as they play football here at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Pat Dye Field, as long as that Auburn sunset is orange and blue on football Saturday, Pat Dye's spirit and his contribution to this place will remain and it will remain strong.

The years may come, the years may go, but his influence will remain.

(air whooshing) Well, he was just real, real intentional about his work.

And it'd be a Friday, I'd be at the Athletic Complex and he'd say, "David, you need to be at my house at 6:00 am in the morning and make sure you wear some long breeches."

I mean, we did all kinda work.

I'll never forget, we're pulling brush out of the woods and he's on a tractor, and I got a chainsaw and I'm cutting some trees up that are already down, and he's got a chain, and he's on a tractor and he's got a chain.

He's pulling 'em out and I'm cutting 'em up.

And the saw got stuck.

I mean, and I'm 22 years old and, you know, pretty strapping young lad.

And I'm yanking that saw, and I can't get that saw out for love or money.

And I just signaled to him to turn the tractor off.

And he gives me that look like, "You can't get the saw out of the tree?"

And I said, "You're gonna have to come back here.

And I think it's pinched real bad."

Well, he gets off his tractor and he takes that saw, with one yank, that saw was out of the tree.

And he said, "Now, let's get back to work."

(air whooshing) (calm upbeat music) (birds chirping) [Narrator] Around 1990, Pat and Sue moved to a 200-acre farm in the rural community called Reeltown, which was about 15 miles out from campus.

And it was the perfect retreat from the hectic world -of college athletics.

-(calm upbeat music) For both Pat and Sue, there was an upside to farm living, horses.

There at the Reeltown farm, the couple began to acquire horses and both took up riding.

Around 1981, not long after taking the job at Auburn, Dye attended a rodeo and was introduced to a fella named Woody Bartlett.

(calm music) Woody was a veterinarian who raised cows and bred ranch horses.

He started out with a ranch in Alabama called the Flying B.

Later on, he added the Texas Ranch for breeding cutting horses.

(calm upbeat music) Then, a working ranch in Wyoming covered about 90,000 acres.

But Bartlett took a liking to Dye at that first rodeo meeting and invited him to a Colt Starting Clinic that was being taught by Bill Smith.

Bill was a three-time World Champion Saddle-Bronc Rider, who was widely known as a bonafide horse whisperer.

Well, Dye accepted the invitation and ended up attending a number of Bill's clinics.

This guy showed up there, he was Woody's friend, Pat Dye.

Well, Pat Dye, I knew about Pat Dye 'cause a few years before that, he got the head coaching job for the Wyoming Cowboy Football Team.

And he'd come there for one year.

And then Auburn talked him into going back down there and being their coach.

I told him, when I got introduced to him, I said, "You're talking to the only guy in Wyoming that don't hate you because you walked out on us."

Just joking, but.

And then he started watching my clinics and seeing what I did with the horses and stuff, and he got fascinated by it.

And then we just grew to be friends.

(calm music) [Narrator] One year, Bill Smith took Dye up into the Beartooth Mountains on one of his annual week-long camping trips.

Now, this was an all-day ride and pretty darn challenging for even your most experienced cowboy.

He was tough, he didn't care.

He decided there one day that he wanted to take a bath, (gentle suspenseful music) and the lake was there, and them lakes up there in that mountain are cold, they come right off them snowbanks and they're cold.

And I said, "Well, go jump in that lake there and take a bath."

"I ain't gonna jump in that lake, it's freezing."

I said, "Ah, you big sissy."

He says, "If you'll do it, I'll do it."

So I said, "Yeah, I'll do it."

I took my clothes off, jumped in the lake and washed up.

He stuck his toe in the water and said, "I ain't getting in there."

(laughs) He wouldn't get in and take a bath.

He was quite a guy.

I'll really miss him.

[Narrator] Retirement has a way of revealing the weak spots in a marriage, which was the case for Pat and Sue.

And the couple soon filed for divorce and parted ways.

(calm upbeat music) In the mid 1990s, Pat Dye left Reeltown and moved down the road a bit to Notasulga, Alabama.

He'd bought some abandoned cattle land there, which at the time didn't look like much, but he had it in his head what it could be once he could clear it.

At first, he lived in a little old trailer on the property, but later moved into a custom built cabin that he designed himself.

Tucked away under the trees and nestled alongside a pond, the house was as unique as the man who lived there, but Dye's vision went far beyond a place to live.

He saw the entire property as a creative outlet of sorts, a place to get his hands dirty and work outdoors.

Pat started telling about this place that he was carving out of a swamp down here in Macon County.

And he said he named it Crooked Oaks because it had been logged way many years ago.

And the only trees, the only oaks left were crooked, that you couldn't use for timber, for lumber.

And he picked that name himself.

He did all of that all on his own, just struck out and made a place to live.

[Narrator] Dye's goal was to transform these acres of mud, rock and brush into an earthly paradise.

Early on, he envisioned gardens, water features and landscaping.

And he spent the rest of his life making these things a reality.

The most common feature of his landscape design was a Japanese maple, it was his favorite.

He was struck with its beauty and then became fascinated with how often it changes color throughout the year.

Dye planted something like seven or 8,000 of 'em on his property.

Somewhere along the way, Coach realized that he had an ideal location for a hunting camp and so a lodge was built.

And when that venture proved to be viable, more structures were added.

And it also became known as a special events venue.

Coach had two different careers.

The football was a career complete in itself.

And then he had a career in, I would say, nursery, tree farming, landscaping.

He had a visionary's eye.

We'd go down and he would show us what he was doing, and then he would describe what he was gonna do over here or over there.

And for many people that would maybe never be done, or for others it would take years, but we'd go back in six months and it would be completed.

He's a sculptor.

I mean, he would tell me, " I wanna put a pond here and a tree here and, you know, rocks here."

And he had an imagination and a creativity, but at the same time, a kind of efficiency and practicality.

Many times when I would be going home, home Mobile, I would go through Auburn, Notasulga, and I'd contact Pat and I'd go by and he would take me on a tour of his place.

And I always say that we both loved Japanese maples for pleasure, but Pat was a lot smarter than I was because he not only used it for pleasure, but he used it for profit.

(calm upbeat music) I knew he was doing less with, I mean, he was still doing some Auburn related things, but his day-to-day out here was, you know, up at dawn and ride around and get everybody on task.

And he'd go get a biscuit at the truck stop or a granola bar.

And, you know, we'd ride around and he would work all day, go to Elmer's for lunch, and then take a nap after, and then work a little more.

And around five o'clock, I'd meet him over here.

I mean, he had a routine.

As much as I hate that, you know, he didn't coach another 15 years and continue to have the success he had had, it gave him that opportunity to be on that farm, which was his passion, and to live a full day every day.

You know, I'm watching Coach Dye ride around his property, showing us these Japanese maples.

He's got a long pole saw hanging out the back of the truck and it looked like it was on its last leg.

He's dressed about like me, got some raggedy pants on, some old boots, but he was happy.

(air whooshing) There was a frog down there, a bullfrog that camped out outside my window.

I lived down there on the pond, it was attached to his house by a walkway, but it was separate.

My little house was actually out on pilings in the pond and there was a bullfrog that set up.

And after the second night of that bullfrog keeping me awake, I told Pat, I said, "You know, I've tried everything I can to run him off, but he's set up his territory and I'm gonna have to kill him."

Well, I ended up having to go out in the night with a flashlight, which I held between my knees 'cause I had to catch his eyes.

He was in a patch of water iris.

And I had my little 410 shotgun -and it was in the night.

-(frog croaking) Pat was in his bed, reading probably.

-And boom, that gun went off.

-(gun fires) And he came running out there, and I said, "You know, I hated it, but I had to kill that frog."

Well, some weeks later, Pat had misstepped real bad in my opinion, and I was really ticked off at him.

The next morning, I got up outta my bed, and taped to my front door was two yellow legal sheets that he had taped together.

And he wrote on those (laughs) sheets where I could see 'em as soon as I stepped in the hallway.

He started off saying, "Nancy, dear Nancy, I love you unconditionally.

I wanted to come over last night and apologize, but I was afraid I'd end up like that frog."

(laughs) (air whooshing) [Narrator] It was Woody Bartlett who brought Pat and Nancy together.

Years before becoming friends, they both rode in Bartlett's Horse Clinics.

That's where they actually met and they ended up being two peas in a pod.

(calm happy music) I am thankful for my life with Pat, (chuckles) and he would say the same.

I didn't know him while he was involved in football.

I told him up front, I said, "I just have to say, you're on your own.

Your status as a football coach is not gonna help you because I don't care anything about football."

(laughs) Living with his celebrity status was something new to me, but it was part of who he was.

It never bothered me when people came up to the table and either wanted his autograph or just wanted to introduce themselves and speak.

You know, we never married, and we discussed it and decided that the relationship we had was so good, we were afraid to mess it up by getting married.

And we maintained, at the basis of everything, a friendship, we didn't even live in the same house.

And I think that ought to catch on myself, (laughs) I think people would be happier if they had their own space.

Outside of working on his farm, one of his huge passion, probably biggest passion was reading.

Coach was a voracious reader.

You know, a lotta people probably find that surprising.

But, you know, when I met him, he was reading at least a couple of books a week.

Many times when we'd be on the plane together, he'd be reading, or we were on a train, he'd be reading, sometimes even on the boat, he'd carry a book out on the boat.

He liked "To Kill a Mockingbird" so much that he wanted to meet Harper Lee.

And he tracked her down in Monroeville and called her, and she said, "I don't know what you want to talk to me for 'cause I don't know anything about football."

But he went down there several times over a period of years and they got to be really close.

And she loved him, she really loved him.

She wrote him letters, -many letters.

-(calm tranquil music) My dear Pat, thank you ever so much for your most kind letter.

I am sorry to report that my most precious possession has been stolen, the only act of thievery I've experienced in this place, my picture of us.

It was in the corner of the mirror of my chest of drawers and it was my fault that somebody got it.

I just hope that we will have more photo opportunities.

You are certainly the most handsome coach in creation.

Exclamation point.

With much affection, Nelle.

P.S., I would write you some news, but in this place, there is none.

One of the things that I would hear him say and other people that knew him well would hear him say, would be, "Now, I ain't smart enough to understand all of what you're telling me."

And the ones of us that knew him would think, "Watch out.

(laughs) You better get your best hold."

(Nancy laughs) He was a literate man.

Very smart.

A lotta people don't know that Pat was an academic all-American, as well as a football all-American.

He was a smart, smart guy.

He would fool you.

(laughs) He played the role a lot of times of that bumpkin with his drawl and the way he would put his words together.

But he was a smart man and he had a great vision and he could see the potential, potential for not only our product.

And that was why I put him on the board of directors when he finished coaching, I think we put him on in '93 or '94.

And he served until the day he died.

But he was a great contributor to the company and he was a smart businessman.

(calm upbeat music) [Narrator] Pat Dye enjoyed good health for most of his life.

As a matter of fact, he was never even admitted to a hospital till he was 52 years old.

A hereditary blood disease was discovered and it brought about the need for serious vascular surgery, which was a success.

The procedure clearly extended his life, but liver and kidney issues would follow and worsen over time.

He really had kidney problems for years, but the problems became severe.

You know, he was such a dynamic and larger than life figure to me.

But, you know, those last several years, and I'd have people ask me, you know, friends, "How'd he look?"

"He looked great."

You know, and the next time, "How'd he look?"

"He didn't look so good."

You show up one day and, yeah, he just didn't look the same.

(calm somber music) We knew Pat was really beginning to decline, the family needs to get together one more time.

And Jerry and I went over.

We knew that he, yes, was really declining, but he held court just as he always loved to do.

You know, getting a group together and talking, he loved to do that, he loved to entertain.

And he did that that weekend also.

And I had no idea that that would be the last time I would see him.

Well, I stopped and bought us takeout dinner and went to the hospital.

And it's truly one of my fondest memories of his last six, seven months, we just sat there for four hours talking about football, life, and growing up, just everything.

It was beautiful.

He and I had a different relationship.

You know, we didn't talk about football, we talked about life.

And being on this porch, we spent many hours talking after him working on the farm and I was working on the farm for a time.

And we'd sit out here and have cocktails and tell stories and listen to music.

And that's what I really enjoyed, you know?

I called the ambulance and he was not in the same mental state that he had been because his blood work, his creatinine levels had gotten high and he was somewhat confused.

I just had to kinda get down in his face and say, "Pat, Pat, we're taking you to the hospital."

He said, "Who are you?"

(laughs) And I said, "Nancy."

And he said, "That don't mean a thing to me."

By that time, we were out to the ambulance and they were putting him in.

And I really felt like that was the last time I'd ever see him.

And I said, "I love you, Pat."

He didn't say anything.

I thought, "He doesn't even know who I am."

And they had put him all the way in the ambulance by that time.

And I called to him, I said, "Pat, do you love me?"

And he raised his head up and the last words I heard him say were, "I do."

And so he contracted COVID while he was in the hospital for the kidney issues.

So he goes back in, he got out on a Friday, went back the following Tuesday, and tested positive for COVID.

And it just went downhill from there.

And I talked to him on the phone, and his kids and other people did while he was in the hospital and then went to Bethany House.

And he couldn't respond toward the end, but we continued to talk to him.

I went in there, I mean, I looked like an astronaut, I was in a hazmat outfit.

I mean, mask, shields, full bodysuit, gloves, booties, the whole thing.

And in fairness to Dad, I'm not sure he would've recognized me 20 years ago with the way I was dressed, but he did not know.

He was just, you know, he did not know who I was.

But I got to sit there with him for an hour, an hour and a half and tell him everything I wanted to tell him, you know?

(gentle somber music) (crying) How much he meant to me, his family, his players, his fans.

And I knew when I walked out of there, that was the last time I'd see him.

People say before their loved ones go, they say that they wanna make sure that everybody is okay.

And the morning he passed, I called down to the hospital and Miss.

Nancy put the phone to his ear, and she said, "Bo, he can hear you, but he can't speak because of the tubes."

And I talked to him for about three or four minutes, told him how I loved him.

Told him how everything's gonna be all right and he's gonna get better, and I can't wait for him to come home so we can sit out on the dock.

And I told him that I'm gonna let him rest.

And I hung up the phone, told him that I loved him.

Less than four minutes later, Chico calls me and said, "He just left."

I knew that I was one of the last people voice that he heard.

(Bo exhales sharply) And I wanna think, from a selfish reason, for my own selfish reasons, that he was waiting to hear from me, 'cause I was the last one to call.

(calm somber music) [Narrator] On June 1st, 2020, Patrick Fain Dye passed at the age of 80.

And he was laid to rest near his home underneath that Toomer's oak tree that he himself had planted and nurtured for that very occasion.

The last time I saw him, I don't know, it was strange, really strange, 'cause I talked to him on the phone the day before and he didn't sound just right to me.

And I said, "What you doing tomorrow?"

He said, "I'm just gonna be here."

I said, "I might ride up there in the morning."

He said, "Okay, come on."

So I got up and I drove up there and I got there, I don't know, 9:30, 10 o'clock.

And immediately when I saw him, I knew he didn't look good.

And I started right there and I said, "Pat, you feeling all right?"

And he said, "Well, I'm not the best in the world."

And he was in a golf cart.

And I said, "Well, won't you let me call Doc Goodlett?"

"No, no."

And I said, "Well, I'll drive.

Let's ride over, let's just get a checkup.

Just see what he says."

"No, no.

Get in the golf cart."

I said, "All right."

So we get in the golf cart, he's driving and I'm sitting here and we crossed the dam at the pond.

We got on the other side, pulled up to this tree, it was a oak tree.

And he stopped.

And I was sitting there and he looked over at me and he said, "You see that tree right there?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "That's one of those Toomer's oaks."

He says, "I've nursed that tree from a baby."

He said, "I've fertilized it, I've watered."

Hell, that tree, it was pretty big, I mean, it was, I'm guessing 20-feet tall or better.

And he looked up in that tree and he said, "Jimmy," he said, "I'm gonna be buried right here under this tree.

My body's gonna fertilize this tree and I'm gonna live up in this tree forever."

He said, "This is where I'll always be when you want to come find me."

(calm somber music) And it stuck with me every damn day.

And I tried as hard as I could before I left to get him to go to the doctor.

Before I got home, Nancy called me, said the ambulance was there and they were, and I talked to him on the phone, of course, even then, "Oh, I'm fine, I don't know what," you know.

But anyway, that was the last time I saw him really.

I talked to him once or twice in the hospital, but that's my last day with him.

At first it was shocking, but then you go into the mode you have to get into, like he would do for game-time.

And at that point, there were certain things that had to be done to honor his wishes and to carry out the things he told us to do when he passed.

And one of 'em was, we would have a ceremony very quickly, it would be very small and it would be at the farm, and that's where he was going to rest.

And he'd planted a tree years and years ago.

And to make sure we were honoring the family.

You know, they'd given so much of him all their lives.

I mean, they gave more of Pat Dye, they gave up more for him to serve everybody else and to serve Auburn.

(birds chirping) (calm somber music) (calm somber music continues) (calm somber music continues) ♪ Oh, how we cried ♪ ♪ The day you left us ♪ ♪ We gathered 'round ♪ ♪ Your grave to grieve ♪ ♪ Wish I could see ♪ ♪ The angels faces ♪ ♪ When they hear ♪ ♪ Your sweet voice sing ♪ ♪ Go rest high ♪ ♪ On that mountain ♪ ♪ 'Cause, Son, your work ♪ ♪ On Earth is done ♪ ♪ Go to heaven ♪ ♪ A-shouting ♪ ♪ Love for the Father ♪ ♪ And the Son ♪ ♪ Go rest high ♪ ♪ On that mountain ♪ ♪ 'Cause, Son, your work ♪ ♪ On Earth is done ♪ ♪ Go to heaven ♪ ♪ A-shouting ♪ ♪ Love for the Father ♪ ♪ And the Son ♪ ♪ Go to heaven ♪ ♪ A-shouting ♪ ♪ Love for the Father ♪ ♪ And the Son ♪ (calm somber music continues) [Interviewer] Let me ask you this, if you had to describe Pat Dye in one word, what would that word be?

-Loyal.

-Classy.

Real.

Authentic.

Love.

Gracious.

Granite.

Unique.

Competitor.

Unbelievable.

Fearless.

Competitor.

Loving.

Genuine.

Worker.

Class.

Loyal.

Loving.

Brother.

Tough.

Relentless.

Tough.

Noble.

Great.

Tough.

Magical.

Relentless.

Loving.

Enthusiasm.

A winner.

Humble.

-(birds chirping) -Mighty.

(calm tranquil music) (calm upbeat music) Pat Dye was what every young boy dreamed he would be, and what every old man wished he had been.

(crowd clapping) ♪ Follow me ♪ ♪ To my favorite tree ♪ ♪ Well, I'm offering a steady hand ♪ ♪ I could be your security ♪ ♪ But there's no guarantee on anything ♪ ♪ And I'll take care of you along the way ♪ ♪ My love, one day at a time, we'll leave ♪ ♪ Our troubles behind ♪ ♪ And you'll take care of me along the way ♪ ♪ My love, one day at a time, we'll leave ♪ ♪ Our troubles behind ♪ ♪ Here with you ♪ ♪ In our treetop view ♪ ♪ Well, it takes me to when I was young ♪ ♪ I fell before ♪ ♪ But I can't ignore ♪ ♪ That it's nothing like I'm falling now ♪ ♪ No, it's nothing like I'm falling now ♪ ♪ And I'll take care of you along the way ♪ ♪ My love, one day at a time, we'll leave ♪ ♪ Our troubles behind ♪ ♪ And I'll take care of you along the way ♪ ♪ My love, one day at a time, we'll leave ♪ ♪ Our troubles behind ♪ ♪ And you'll take care of me along the way ♪ ♪ My love, one day at a time, we'll leave ♪ ♪ Our troubles behind ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time ♪ ♪ One day at a time, we'll leave ♪ ♪ Our troubles behind ♪ (frog croaks)