ATHENS – The Georgia Bulldogs were mad. Furious, actually.
The Georgia football team had just put a bow on an undefeated regular season with a resounding 38-20 win over Georgia Tech in 1980 when the players awoke the following morning to news that coach Vince Dooley reportedly was leaving to become coach and athletic director at Auburn. The players gathered together on the steps of the old McWhorter Hall athletic dormitory and seethed.
“How could he do this? The timing was awful,” Buck Belue writes in his new book, “Inside the Hedges.” “Most of the players thought it was a selfish move to even do an interview. We were in position to win the national championship and he is about to jump to our rival? It was infuriating.”
That passage appears in Chapter 18 -- titled “The Dooley Drama” -- of the 199-page book. Obviously, that did not happen. Dooley stayed, Georgia went on complete the last perfect season in school history, and Belue and his coach are just fine.
Credit: AJC archive
Credit: AJC archive
But Belue’s retelling of that episode during Georgia’s 1980 championship season is just one example of the honest account the former star quarterback shares of playing for the Bulldogs from 1978-81.
Subtitled “The Quarterback’s Journey to the National Championship,” Belue’s book also shares frank recollections of the recruiting trail as a two-sport star out of Valdosta, the tense quarterback competition he endured with Jeff Pyburn, an intimate conversation he had with Lindsay Scott the night before their historic play to beat Florida in Jacksonville, the Herschel Walker phenomenon and much more.
After years of typing and saving his reflections, Belue finally decided to put them together in a self-published book that was released earlier this year. Sales have picked up over the summer as Belue – often with family in tow – has embarked on a book-signing tour around Georgia and in Bulldogs strongholds outside the state.
Books can be ordered at InsideTheHedges.com or in person at one of Belue’s appearances. His next signings currently are planned for July 22 (6-8 p.m.) at Padriac’s in Vinings and July 24 (4-6 p.m.) at Rosati’s Sports Pub in Belue’s current hometown of Cumming.
Belue said he “flirted” with shopping his book to outside publishers, but opted instead to publish it himself.
“I basically wrote it on a Word document with the help of an editor,” Belue said in a telephone interview this week. “I wanted the freedom to do what I wanted to do, you know? It’s been written and put away for five years, then re-written and put away for 10 years and then re-written again. It’s gone on for 30 years.”
The book has become a family affair. Belue credits his wife, Kelley, for “kicking me in the butt to finally get it done.” His daughter, Audrey -- who will attend Mississippi State as a freshman this fall -- serves as his assistant at signings and with daily logistics.
Generally, they build in signings around their everyday lives. On their annual Fourth of July vacation to Florida last week, the Belues made stops at the Marshside Grill in Brunswick and the Coach’s Corner in Savannah to peddle books. They already had been to Jacksonville, Fla., Macon and Columbus.
Events are being planned for Atlanta, Augusta and Marietta, among other cities. There will, of course, be signings at the UGA Bookstore before Georgia football games this fall.
Probably the most successful event to date was a couple of weeks ago in Valdosta. Hundreds of people turned out at the The Salty Snapper, including former Valdosta High classmates and UGA teammates. Belue devotes several chapters to his high school days pursuing state championships under coach Nick Hyder.
“I definitely wanted to share the Valdosta experience because I’ve had thousands of people ask me over the years, ‘What was the secret to Valdosta winning all those games all those years?’” Belue said. “So, that’s up front in the book. A lot of my motivation was to brag on some players and coaches at Valdosta and at Georgia that never got the credit they deserved.”
All the 1980 UGA stars are mentioned, but also prominently featured are teammates such as Nat Hudson, Hugh Nall, Jimmy Womack, Amp Arnold, Jimmy Payne, Eddie Weaver and Nate Taylor and assistant coaches Mike Cavan and Wayne McDuffie, among others.
The book has not been life-altering for Belue. He hasn’t given up his day job, which is to conduct a daily sports-talk show on Atlanta radio station The Fan. For him it simply was a passion project that needed to be done. The Bulldogs winning a national championship last season also served as an impetus.
As for “the Dooley thing,” Belue makes no apologies.
“I just wanted to be real with that,” Belue said. “I’d be interested to know how he’ll react, though.”
Reached by phone this week, Dooley said he has not yet read Belue’s book. He has ordered it, however.
“I’m looking forward to reading it,” Dooley said. “Nobody would have a better perspective from a players’ standpoint than Buck as the quarterback of that team.”
Told of the passage about his Auburn flirtations, Dooley laughed and said he doesn’t begrudge Belue for including it.
“I don’t blame the players for feeling that way,” said Dooley, who will turn 90 in September. “When I finally got a chance to talk to them, I told them I hoped they’d understand that the governor of Alabama, Fob James, was my roommate at Auburn and was involved in trying to persuade me. I had other friends there, too, just like they did that day in that room. So, I felt like I needed to respect (Auburn) by taking a look at it. But I never in any way committed to them.”
Belue said he and most of his Georgia teammates understood after hearing Dooley’s explanation about his deep relationships at Auburn. The Bulldogs would go on to defeat Notre Dame 17-10 in the Sugar Bowl four weeks later.
“I have nothing but respect for the man,” Belue said of Dooley. “We had some tense moments during those years, but I sort of wanted a hard-to-please coach. That’s the way it was at Valdosta. And when it came to recruiting, he was the only coach I felt like I could trust with the baseball thing. He came through for me on that, which was huge.”
Belue played all four years on Georgia’s baseball team. He hit .447 for the 1982 season and his .356 career batting average (he also hit 30 homers and scored 114 runs) remains among the top 10 in school history.
Belue also details in the book how he balanced his baseball pursuits while competing to be the starting quarterback on a team that won back-to-back SEC championships.
“It was fun to finally get it all down on paper,” Belue said of the writing process. “I thought long and hard about what I was going to put in there.”
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