AU's field of dreams now Dye's

AUBURN - David Housel believes it was the spring of 1987, maybe 1988. Then the Auburn sports information director, he was riding around town with Pat Dye on a Sunday morning.

"You know what that day is going to be, don't you?" Dye said, glancing in his direction. "That day is going to be the most emotional day in Auburn history."

Housel was puzzled. "What day are you talking about?" Housel asked him. The Auburn football coach looked his way again.

"When they come," Dye said.

From the time he arrived in early 1981, Dye was determined that the day would come when Auburn would no longer play Alabama at Birmingham's Legion Field every year. On Dec. 2, 1989, that day came. Auburn beat undefeated Alabama 30-20 at Jordan-Hare Stadium on what indeed was the most emotional day in the history of Auburn athletics.

"As the years go by, Auburn people of this generation and later generations will never really know," Housel said. "They won't ever understand what that meant. It really was the most emotional day in Auburn history."

Dye won a share of his fourth Southeastern Conference championship that day. But it was much more than that. It was the most memorable and meaningful day in his 12 Auburn seasons. Alabama, which had kept Auburn under its heel for a quarter of a century, had been dragged kicking and screaming to Jordan-Hare Stadium.

There wasn't a lot to the Auburn head coaching job when Dye, a former Georgia All-American who had spent nine seasons as an assistant to Paul "Bear" Bryant at Alabama, left Wyoming after one year. The athletic department was in the red and was being subsidized with $1 million a year from the university's general fund. Sellouts were rare.

Dye, who soon was also named athletic director, led the charge that changed all that. In 1983, Auburn won its first SEC championship since 1957. The stadium was enlarged to seat more than 85,000. The red ink dried up.

On Saturday, 20 minutes before Auburn plays Alabama again, Dye will receive the honor of a lifetime when Pat Dye Field is dedicated at Jordan-Hare Stadium. He will also be honored for having been elected to the national College Football Hall of Fame.

Dozens of former players, family and friends will be at his side.

Kurt Crain grew up in Birmingham and transferred from Memphis to play for Dye. He went on to become an All-America linebacker in 1987.

"I think it's forgotten sometimes what Coach Dye meant to Auburn," Crain said. "He turned the program around. It's so fitting that it's happening at this game. I really feel like every Auburn fan that walks into that stadium should understand we are playing Alabama there because of Pat Dye and what he believed in."

Jimmy Rane is one of the Auburn trustees who voted to name the field in Dye's honor. They've been friends for years.

"He rolled up his sleeves and went to work," Rane said. "He transformed that place from a loser and a dead end to the pinnacle of the SEC. It was rock-bottom, in-your-face football."

Dye's career came to an unhappy end. He resigned in 1992, after two non-winning seasons, as the scandal sparked by former defensive back Eric Ramsey and his tape recordings mushroomed. But Dye left with 99 wins, 39 losses, four ties and four championships. He left a legacy of hard work, determination and dedication.

Ben Thomas, now Auburn's director of athletic events and resident counselor at Sewell Hall, had already committed to Auburn when Dye was named to replace Doug Barfield. He was part of it all at the beginning. "Yeah, I was on the ground floor, and it was a tough ground floor," Thomas said.

But more than that, Thomas said, Dye taught his players to do things the right way.

"I can't describe the impact he had on me," said Thomas, who had a seven-year career in the NFL. "He taught me things along the way that I still use today. He was like a father to us."

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