On Dean Tate, and Hunting with Dogs

      Generations of University of Georgia matriculants knew Willam Tate (1903-1980), who served as Dean of Men there from 1946 through 1971.  Wise in a wonderful way, he and his wife, the late Susan Frances Barrow (1908-2003), were Athens fixtures for decades – in fact, Mrs. Tate’s grandfather Barrow had been president of the university for a good while around the turn of the Twentieth Century, and was so beloved that a Georgia county just west of Athens was named for him.

      Dean and Mrs. Tate lived in a modest old family home on Dearing Street in Athens for all their married life.  Dean Tate had a ground level home study in which he loved to spend time and in which he refused to take student or parent calls.  It had a sign over the door that read, “Oglethorpe County,” which is Athens-Clarke’s neighbor to the southeast. This sign enabled Mrs. Tate to report truthfully to callers that, “The dean is down in Oglethorpe County now, but I’ll give him your message when he gets back.”

      One  Saturday in Sanford Stadium, the Tates were sitting behind a young alumnus (or a hanger-on) much in his cups, who spent the entirety of  the game obnoxiously criticizing every call the Georgia coaching squad made.   In the last quarter, some play went wrong for Georgia, and the young man jumped up and hollered, “Well, I’ll just be a son-of-a-b$&%!”  Mrs. Tate – that repository of so many generations of good breeding that she exuded elegance – caught his eye as he sat back down, and said, “Young man, that’s the first time I’ve agreed with you all day!”

     Dean Tate handled the university’s integration in the early 1960s, and some hippie unrest later that decade, with wisdom born of long experience and God-given insight. About the sexual revolution and permissiveness of the 1960s, he was once heard to observe that many of the day’s students were “enjoying all the rights without the rites,”  which is a truly profound turn of phrase when one thinks about it for a second.    But your compiler’s favorite Tate-ism is what the good dean said about dealing with young university matriculants who wouldn’t give their best. “Working with a boy who won’t try,” said Dean Tate,  “is like going hunting and having to tote the dog!”      

       What a biting condemnation that is when one really examines it!  What hunter in the world would put up with a dog one had to carry in one’s arms during a hunt?    

      Our Southern way of speech has a couple of other dog performance phrases in it that bear mention here:

         “That dog will hunt!”  — this is an affirmative phrase meaning something like, 

                  “that’s a great idea!”, or “that’ll work just fine.

           “THAT dog won’t hunt!” – (spoken emphasis usually on the first word of the

                     phrase) – this means, “I don’t believe a word of it,” or “that may be the

                     worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

          Those are tried and true Southernisms of broad and long usage.  But thanks to Dean William Tate of UGa for giving us an even richer and more descriptive phrase.  “Going hunting and having to tote the dog” –  not only will the damn dog not hunt, but it has to be coddled on top of everything else, and coddling anybody or anything is something no one except maybe parents with sick children should have to put up with.