UGA athletics administrator Dick Bestwick remembered as great coach, teacher

Lost amid the excitement of Georgia’s march to the 2018 College Football Playoff’s national championship earlier this month was news of the death of Dick Bestwick, who spent nearly 50 years as a college coach and administrator.

Bestwick, who died on Jan. 4 in Athens at the age of 87, was a native of western Pennsylvania, played football at North Carolina and began his college coaching career in 1967 at Georgia Tech. He worked in the University of Georgia’s athletic department on two occasions, from 1986-88 and from 1990-2003, when he retired.

He also served as the head football coach at Virginia from 1976-1981 and was on the sidelines for one of Vince Dooley’s most lopsided coaching losses when the Cavaliers defeated the Bulldogs 31-0 in 1979 at Georgia’s homecoming game.

“I always said the best testimony to Dick Bestwick is that I hired him after he brought his Virginia team down here and beat the heck out of us on homecoming,” said former the former Georgia coach and athletic director. “If I did that, I had to think a lot of him.”

Remembered by friends and associates as an excellent coach and teacher, Bestwick was also known as a no-nonsense individual who had strong opinions (and always had the documentation to bolster his point of view) and a heart for young people.

“Dick was the consummate teacher,” said Loran Smith, administrative specialist in the UGA athletic department and former longtime executive secretary of the Georgia Bulldog Club. “He believed in the learning process and he believed in football players being taught, not just to make the right steps to get to their blocking assignment or to underscore the right move to get to the ball carrier, but to learn the game as a team player and to learn the game from the standpoint of developing a team which together could achieve some great things.

“I know he had to love this past year’s football team, because that team really is one that had taken to teaching and coaching about as well a team could.”

“He was just the ideal person,” added Dooley. “He was from the old school. He would absolutely tell you what you’re not doing and what you ought to be doing. He didn’t cut any slack with anybody. He was tough and he was right down the line, and nobody could pull anything over his eyes. He told people exactly what he thought.”

Dooley says Bestwick impressed him when he coached the Georgia Tech freshmen, but he was never able to lure him to Athens as a coach. But Dooley was able to bring Bestwick on staff as an administrator.

“The first opportunity I had was to hire him as the one that would be in charge of student-athlete academics,” said Dooley. “He came in and wrote the policy book and set up the academic offices in the old McWhorter Hall and he did a terrific job there.”

Bestwick left Georgia and was athletic director at South Carolina for a year before returning to Athens to serve as senior associate athletic director.

“I hired him back here to become the senior associate athletic director and he was with me in two capacities administratively and was just terrific in both positions,” said Dooley. “I knew he was a great football coach because I watched him and then I saw him start our academic program and then come back to be the senior associate with me.”

In his career, Bestwick also served as an assistant athletic director at Missouri, executive director of the Peach Bowl and he spent several years as a scout for the Dallas Cowboys. Throughout his life he guided numerous student-athletes, many of whom are now major players in collegiate athletics.

“Coach Bestwick was always encouraging to me when I began my coaching career and once I became an administrator,” said Virginia athletic director Carla Williams, who played basketball and later was an administrator at Georgia, to the Roanoke Times. “He was a kind and caring mentor for so many young people. He will be missed dearly.”

“I belong to Rotary, and the motto is ‘Service Above Self’ and Bestwick epitomized that to me,” said his close friend Dick Hudson, also a native of western Pennsylvania. “He was always helping others and he was dedicated to his players – they loved him. There’s something I read years ago that said ‘your character is your fate’ and Dick and his family really exemplified that.”

Friends also remember that Bestwick was happily opinionated and for years wrote regularly to the Athens Banner-Herald on the issues of the day

“Dick could set the record straight,” quipped Smith. “If he had an argument, he could support it factually. He’d have a reason. He held the view that football officials and Republicans were the cause of most of the world’s problems.”

“Everyone who knew him would say the same thing – he was always positive, he always cared about other people and his character was solid,” said Hudson. “He was always willing to put in the work and he always cared about other people. I’m a better person because of his influence and I’m glad I had the good fortune to have the opportunity to spend time with him.”

According to an obituary (“Richard’s Story”) in the Shannon (Penn) Herald, he is survived by Phyllis, his wife of 67 years, three children, five grandchildren, three brothers and one sister.