Bud Dudley, Rest in Peace: Three Articles
Bud Dudley and Joe Signaigo at Universal Notre Dame Night 2006
receive lifetime achievement awards from the Notre Dame Club of Memphis
Liberty Bowl founder Bud Dudley dies at 88
Reputation built on salesmanship, loyalty
By Ron Higgins
The Commercial Appeal
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
AutoZone Liberty Bowl founder A.F. "Bud" Dudley, the only person in college football history to create and become sole owner of a bowl game, died after an extended illness at a Memphis nursing home early Tuesday morning. He was 88.
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Dudley, a Notre Dame graduate, World War II veteran and former Villanova athletic director, created the game in 1959 in Philadelphia, Pa. He kept it there for five years and moved it to Atlantic City, N.J., in 1964 before bringing it to Memphis in 1965. His original intention after he left Atlantic City was to move the bowl every year or so to various cities that didn't have a bowl. But, as he once said, "After I got to Memphis, I never got to the other cities."
Dudley retired as the bowl's executive director in 1994, replaced by current executive director Steve Ehrhart. "Bud was one of the giants of the college football world," Ehrhart said. "There wasn't a finer gentleman in the bowl business than Bud. "While he'll be remembered for being a great promoter and a progressive thinker, our intent is to always preserve Bud's mission for this bowl. And that's emphasizing patriotism and liberty."
As word of Dudley's death spread Tuesday, plaudits came from near and far. They all emphasized Dudley's brilliance as a promoter, as well as his class and civility. "Saying that Bud Dudley is one of Memphis' finest is probably an understatement," said Dick Hackett, former Memphis mayor who, in his former fundraising role for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, convinced Dudley the bowl should have a charitable tie-in with the hospital. "He loved his God, his family and his city. Those were the orders of his life and he lived them."
Former Notre Dame athletic director and Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Gene Corrigan said Dudley's salesmanship set an example for all bowls. Dudley was one of the first bowl executives to attend the annual business meetings of the various major college athletic conferences. Until the 1980s, most conferences didn't have contracts for bowl tie-ins, so it was up to the bowls to wheel and deal with schools.
"Back in the '60s, other than the four major bowls then -- the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Cotton -- bowls weren't a big deal," Corrigan said. "Bud was selling something that a lot of people weren't buying. "He was selling Memphis. He wasn't selling New York or Los Angeles. He sold Memphis, and there wasn't anybody who didn't walk away from that (Liberty) Bowl thinking Memphis wasn't a terrific city."
Dudley's personal touch was so strong that those in the college football world felt the Memphis game could have easily been called "Bud's Bowl." "Other bowls had corporate sponsors and many committees, but Bud was deeply involved in everything about his bowl," said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association and Baylor coach who led the Bears to a 21-7 victory over LSU in the '85 Liberty Bowl. "He made you really feel wanted in his bowl and when you got there you felt at home."
Bill McElroy, a former Liberty Bowl president, longtime scout and one of Dudley's closest friends, said the secret of Dudley's success was simple.
"Bud's loyalty stood out," McElroy said. "He was loyal to everything and everybody I can think of -- his family, his friends, his church, the city of Memphis and the game of football."
Dudley was preceded in death by his wife, Peggy, and is survived by his six children.
Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Canale Funeral Home. Services are 1:30 p.m. Friday at St. Louis Catholic.
Contributions may be made to Shelby Residential and Vocational Services, 3592 Knight Arnold, Memphis, 38118.
A.F. 'Bud' Dudley
Personal: Born Aug. 26, 1919, in Philadelphia, Pa.; graduated from Notre Dame in 1943; served in Army Air Corps; awarded Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with five clusters and seven major battle stars.
Family: Wife, Peggy (deceased); survived by his six children and 11 grandchildren.
Professional: Athletic director, Villanova, 1953-57; started Liberty Bowl in December 1959, serving as executive director.
Honors, awards: Inducted into Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1988; recognized by National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, Notre Dame University and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.
-- Ron Higgins: 529-2525
© 2008 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online
Dudley worked hard to bring best teams to Liberty Bowl
He maintained football relationships that lasted a lifetime
By Ron Higgins
The Commercial Appeal
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
For the longest time, when college football didn't rely on conference tie-ins to provide bowl matchups, the bowl business was the Wild Wild West with backroom, under-the-table deals commonplace between schools and bowls. And year in and year out, when some of the most storied programs in college football history, such Alabama, Nebraska, Notre Dame and Penn State, ended up in the Liberty Bowl, there was only one reason.
No one in the bowl business worked harder at establishing and maintaining relationships than master salesman and AutoZone Liberty Bowl founder A.F. 'Bud' Dudley, who died early Tuesday in a Memphis nursing home at the age of 88 after an extended illness.
"Bud was one of the original entrepreneurs who thought about how a bowl was important to a town," former Tennessee athletic director Doug Dickey said. "He picked out Memphis as sort of a start-up business and he hustled the Liberty Bowl name. Because every bowl season back then was like opening a new deck of cards, Bud was out there working the streets year-round."
It was Dudley who landed Alabama for the 1982 Liberty Bowl against Illinois. As it turned out, it was the last game in the legendary coaching career of Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant.
For Bryant, it all seemed logical. It was Dudley who gave Bryant his first bowl bid as Alabama's coach, inviting his team to the first Liberty Bowl in 1959.
"Bud and coach Bryant were very close, and the Liberty Bowl was always big in coach Bryant's heart," said Alabama athletic director Mal Moore, a longtime assistant under Bryant who was on the sideline for 'Bama's 21-15 win over Illinois that closed Bryant's 38-year head coaching career at four different schools. "Coach Bryant talked about Bud a lot and he loved Memphis. I think both those factors led to his sentimental decision to play his last game in Memphis."
Dudley's Notre Dame ties -- he played halfback for the Fighting Irish in 1940-41 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa as class president in 1943 -- helped him obtain Notre Dame for the 1983 Liberty Bowl matchup against Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Doug Flutie and Boston College. "Notre Dame almost didn't come to that Liberty Bowl," former Notre Dame athletic director Gene Corrigan said. "We lost our last game of the season to Air Force, and Father (Theodore) Hesburgh, who ran the school along with Father (Edmund) Joyce, came to see me and said, 'We're not going to go to a bowl.' I said, 'Father, this is Bud Dudley's bowl. He's one of our own. This will crush him if we don't accept their invitation.' He said, 'We don't want to do that to Bud.' So he let us go. "We played in that bowl because both Father Hesburgh and Father Joyce loved Bud. That's the only reason we were in the bowl."
Dudley didn't move the bowl to Memphis until 1965. He created the bowl in Philadelphia, where he had been Villanova's athletic director, and kept it there for five years before moving it indoors for one year in Atlantic City.
Current Ole Miss football radio analyst Pete Cordelli, a member of the 1973 Liberty Bowl champion North Carolina State team, grew up in Pennsylvania. He was about 10 years old when he attended the '61 Liberty Bowl in Philadelphia between Syracuse and Miami, and saw Dudley's promotional prowess for the first time. "The game was played in a blizzard, but Bud wanted to make Miami feel at home," Cordelli said. "So he brought in palm trees and had them placed along the back line of one end zone." Cordelli said the true football fans in Philadelphia didn't want the game to leave the city in 1963. "Philadelphia lost a good college football spectacle when the game moved," Cordelli said. "Even to this day, there are some old-time fans there that regret the Liberty Bowl getting out of Philadelphia. It was a business decision."
After the brief stay in Atlantic City in 1964, Dudley thought he might rotate the bowl between cities that didn't have a bowl. But on a tip from Memphis promoter Early Maxwell that Dudley was shopping his bowl, Bill McElroy, a Memphis insurance agent and University of Memphis Highland Hundred member, went to Chicago to meet Dudley at the College Sports Information Directors of America convention. "I invited Bud to attend the inaugural game in the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium between Ole Miss and Memphis," McElroy said. "He came here and the Highland Hundred really went all out to get him to move the bowl here. The next thing I knew, the bowl was moving here, and four months later we played that first bowl here."
Ole Miss beat Auburn, 13-7, in the first Liberty Bowl played in Memphis. On the Ole Miss sideline that chilly day as a graduate assistant coach was Warner Alford, who was the school's athletic director on two of its three subsequent Liberty Bowl trips. "Naturally with the Liberty Bowl being so close to Oxford and Ole Miss, we love playing in that bowl," said Alford, now executive director of the Ole Miss Alumni Association. "The Liberty Bowl means a lot to us and our program, and Bud knew that. "Bud might not have been born in the South, but he was a Southern gentleman. That's the truth."
Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton said Dudley's people skills were unrivaled. "Bud always made you feel like you were the most important person around when he talked to you," Templeton said. "He would always shoot straight with you, always tell you the truth.
"That's what you appreciate in this business. He was one of the greatest figures in the history of intercollegiate athletics."
Steve Hatchell, currently the president of the National Football Foundation, said one of his most treasured awards came when he was executive director of the Orange Bowl and chairman of the College Bowl Association. That's when Hatchell received the Bud Dudley Bowl Executive Award from the All-American Football Foundation. "Bud was good for college football," Hatchell said. "So often in the bowl business, we do things for heads and beds (making matchups strictly to drive commerce to a city), a chamber of commerce approach. I think Bud stayed away from that. He wanted to do what was good for college football. He was able to pull it off because of what he was -- a classy guy who shot straight."
Veteran Tostitos Fiesta Bowl executive director John Junker said that Dudley's emphasis on making sure that coaches and players had a positive bowl experience didn't go unnoticed. Junker recalled a speech made several years ago to 300 Fiesta Bowl volunteers by Kellen Winslow, a former All-Pro tight end who played for Missouri in a 20-15 victory over LSU in the 1979 Liberty Bowl. "He said being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame was the biggest honor of his career, but said the second-biggest moment in his career was playing in that Liberty Bowl," Junker said. "He said, 'We finally got to a bowl and I was able to give my Liberty Bowl sweater to my Mom as a gift for all her years of supporting me, and my bowl watch to my father for all his years of support. The bowl was a wonderful experience I'll never forget.' "To me, that says volumes about what Mr. Dudley did and it helped us put in a different perspective what we do. That wouldn't have happened for us if Mr. Dudley hadn't taken care of the bowl business for so many years. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude."
Liberty Bowl in the Dudley Era
1965: About three months after Bud Dudley decides to move the Liberty Bowl from Atlantic City to Memphis, Ole Miss beats Auburn, 15-7, before a crowd of 38,607. "It was a great day for our city when Bud decided to come here, because it brought national TV and everything else that had been here sporadically before," said Bill McElroy, a former Liberty Bowl president and scout.
1982: In the final game of Alabama's Bear Bryant's 38-year career as a head coach, the Crimson Tide holds on to beat Illinois, 21-15. "Illinois was probably better than us, but we had some guys that game that really played over their heads," said current Mississippi State head coach Sylvester Croom, a former Alabama assistant. "The players and coaches all felt, 'There ain't no way we're going to lose Coach Bryant's last game. We're going to live with this the rest of our lives.'"
1983: Dudley gets his alma mater, Notre Dame, to play in his game for the first and only time. On a brutally frigid night, the Fighting Irish edge Boston College and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Doug Flutie, 19-18.
"That's the coldest I've been in my life," former Notre Dame athletic director Gene Corrigan said. "I had my sons with me, and before the game we went and bought some liquor. That's the only thing that kept us alive during the game."
1993: Dudley gets a call early one Saturday morning from former Memphis mayor-turned-St. Jude's Children Research Hospital fundraiser Dick Hackett, who just stepped out of his shower after having a brainstorm. Hackett asks Dudley if the bowl would take the St. Jude name and work hand-in-hand to raise money.
"He committed right there on the phone," Hackett said. "He said, 'Dick, let's do it.' Bud didn't need to go to a committee. He knew what was good for Memphis and the bowl."
1994: After 35 years as the bowl's founder and executive director, Dudley retires with Steve Ehrhart replacing him. "The first Bowl Association meeting I go to, it's in Florida with the heads of all the other bowls," Ehrhart said. "I walk in the room wearing a suit and everyone around the table was wearing short-sleeved tropical shirts. I felt out-of-place until someone said, 'That's perfect. Bud always wore a suit, too.'"
David Smart/The Commercial Appeal files
Legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant's last game was the 1982 Liberty Bowl.
He was close friends with Bud Dudley, who founded the Liberty Bowl in 1959.
© 2008 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online 