Vince Dooley says that if it hadn’t been for athletics he would have probably spent his life working in the Mobile, Alabama, shipyards. But sports have played a large role in Dooley’s life—from his days growing up in Depression-era Mobile to being a basketball and football star at McGill Catholic High School, to being named a college all star football quarterback at Auburn University, to being named head football coach at the University of Georgia at the unprecedented age of 31.

Although it seems as if these same athletics would have made Dooley a one-dimensional man, the reality is much different. The same young man who was widely known in Mobile for his athletic abilities also served as special altar boy to the Archbishop of Mobile each and every morning from the time he was 10 until he went on to the University of Auburn as a freshman. This acclaimed player and coach has a bachelor’s degree in business management and a master’s degree in history.

His professional accomplishments are the stuff of legend: he has led UGA to 201 wins and six Southeastern Conference championships; he has coached college football greats such as Herschel Walker, Billy Payne, and Tommy Lyons; and he was named two times National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) “National Coach of the Year” and honored seven times as “Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year.”

His personal endeavors are equally laudable. Many would be surprised to learn that he has built by hand— in his own Athens backyard— a garden that rivals any botanical garden in the state. He even has a hydrangea named in his honor. This man who was instrumental in raising money to build many of the athletic facilities on the UGA campus, including Sanford Stadium’s skyboxes and the Ramsey Student Center for Physical Activities, also sits on a Civil War Roundtable in Atlanta and has walked numerous Indian, Revolutionary, and Civil War battlefields across the nation with his grandchildren.

Athletics have played an important part in the life of Vince Dooley, but he will tell you that his family, his church, and his life outside of football are the things most important to him.

There is nothing one-dimensional about Vincent Dooley. “Vince Dooley: Beyond Football” is a testament to that fact.