Former NFL referee Tom Dooley Earns NASO Gold Whistle Award

For Tom Dooley, generosity is more than a way of life; it is life.

"People never walk around with surplus money in their pocket," says the 66-year-old retired NFL referee. "They've got a need for every dime- that's just human nature. The good book tells you you're supposed to give eight hours of honest work, and you' re supposed to give eight hours for your rest and relaxation and entertainment, and eight hours to help your fellow man. That's 24 hours. Everybody should already give their time, but very few people know how to give money."

Dooley knows how. He's made a mission out of giving money to causes and organizations he believes in. He's set up two separate scholarships that he funds himself. Not only does he supply personal funds, but he and his partners at R.T. Dooley Construction - the company he founded in 1977 - give large sums of money corporately to different charities and organizations in and around their Charlotte, N.C., base.

"It's just something that you realize you need to be doing," Dooley explains matter-of-factly. "You don't need to tell anybody about it. That's what's so ironic about me sitting here talking about it when for so many years there's not been a living soul other than my wife and my children and one or two other people who know anything about it. The only reason I'm talking about it today is the fact that if there's one person who reads this story and starts something similar, that would be one more good thing."

It all started for Dooley more than 25 years ago when the minister of his local church, referencing the Biblical passage Matthew 25, challenged the congregation to give $2 million to be plowed back into the community of Charlotte.

"Lo and behold, everybody at the church knocked the doors down trying to get in to give the money," says Dooley, becoming more animated. "It was a total success. Matthew 25, in my mind, proved right then the fact that it's not a bad thing to give money away."

Dooley was more than impressed and he began formulating a personal plan based on Matthew 25. The passage describes how God gave three men each a certain amount of talents (money), and how God rewarded the two men who used their talents and acquired new talents, but punished the man who hid his talent away in the earth. It's where the phrase "You reap what you sow" came from.

"I've been blessed that we always had enough money to do what we wanted to do," says Dooley.

"We've always had enough money to live modestly and enjoy life. And I decided that the Virginia Military Institute (VMI, Dooley's alma mater) gave me that opportunity." With that in mind, Dooley started an annual scholarship at VMI called -- of course -- Matthew 25.

"I wanted to give money to help a young man or young woman get an education, but I wanted them to do something other than study," Dooley explains. "For example, you might have a student go to school and study 100 percent of the time and make all As, or you might have a student who doesn't study 100 percent of the time but has a good time, and he does a lot for other people and he works very hard in athletics or playing in the band or dancing or working in the commissary. He's a very busy person, but he makes a B-plus. Now, which one would you rather be around? I'd rather have the one who's busy all the time with just a marginal difference in grades from the guy who doesn't do anything but study. And I wanted to reward that person in the form of a scholarship."

Toward that end, beginning with his Super Bowl check in 1980, Dooley signed away nearly every NFL paycheck he received for the next 14 years, an amount in excess of $500,000.

Dooley is typically unimpressed with his own efforts. "I put hardly any energy in Matthew 25," he says. "The school handles that. They invest the money and it grows. I don't have anything to do with' it. It's an anonymous scholarship, and the recipient doesn't even know who gave him the money."

Dooley says that he's the main contributor to the scholarship but that others have asked to donate money on a spot basis. He even expanded his efforts in 1996 when he set up another Matthew 25 scholarship fund at the Charlotte Country Day School.

Dooley is indifferent about where the money goes, and that is a conscious effort. "(The schools) give me a financial report each year, but I don't want to know the number of scholarships they give away. I've asked not to be told.

"I don't want (the scholarship recipients) to feel indebted. I don't want somebody to say, 'Hey, write Tom Dooley a letter and tell him thank you for the scholarship.' I want that person, in years to come, to say, 'What was this Matthew 25 scholarship?' Maybe they'll try to trace it back and find out and read Matthew 25 for the first time."

Dooley retired from the NFL in 1992, but continues to supply funds to the scholarship with the checks he receives from his work mediating and arbitrating construction-related problems.

Dooley's philanthropic philosophy extends into his professional life as well. As the founder and president of his own construction company, R.T. Dooley Construction, Dooley and his partners instituted a corporate culture of giving from the very beginning.

"We had some young men that we brought into the company as ownership who were not accustomed to giving money," remembers Dooley. "They thought we'd lost our minds when we said we' re going to give to this and this and this and this."

Benefiting such diverse community organizations as a performing arts center or a struggling church, R.T. Dooley Construction made it a policy to give something every year.

"I started it years ago and it's been echoed and magnified by the new management of the company. It's not a fixed dollar amount, because if (the community) is hurting more during hard times, you've got to dig a little deeper than you do during good times."

What if R.T. Dooley Construction only had a break-even year?

"We'd still give money away," says Dooley.

What if it lost money?

"We'd still give money away."

Given the nature of business and the all-important bottom line, how is Dooley's company able to do such things? "We just write the check," says Dooley matter-of-factly. That commitment to generosity and the fundamental belief in the necessity of giving is always foremost in Dooley's mind. In fact, he approached his partners about getting their employees involved in the giving experience.

"After we'd been giving money away for a pretty good while," Dooley recalls, "I said, 'You know, we're having a great time. One of the greatest days we have is when we sit around the table saying we're going to give money away to these different organizations. And that is a fun, joyous time. Why don't we give our employees money that they have to give away?'

"The first year it just fell on deaf ears because people wanted to give it to their mothers and fathers or sisters or brothers, or give it all to their church," recalls Dooley. "We said, 'It doesn't work like that, guys. You've got to come in and sell us on why you want to give it.'"

In addition to a normal bonus at Christmas time, employees are given a different amount of money depending on their positions and how long they've been with the company. According to Dooley, the amounts range from several hundred dollars to "more significant amounts." The stipulation is that the employees have to give the money to a tax-exempt organization and they have to explain to management who they're giving it to and why. "They've got to tell us something about it," says Dooley. "You can't just give us a list of three or four charities and be done.

"It's one of the greatest days we have when all the employees come in with their lists of who to send the money to and tell us about them. It might be a struggling church that's helping orphans and they are active in it, or whatever. We also are very cautious so that we don't give to organizations that spend 85 cents to collect a buck. Our employees have to find out about the budget, and they have to be able to tell us how many people are on the payroll. All of a sudden those people now are deeply invested in those organizations and doing volunteer work. It's like a burning bush."

These days, Dooley's employees are more adept at giving. And one employee has even become so good that the YMCA named a building after him.

"This kid's not but 45 years old," Dooley explains, his face folding up into a smile. "He didn't even used to know anything about the YMCA."

Dooley obviously takes great satisfaction from seeing the dividends of his own generosity. And there is evident pride when he talks about other companies in Charlotte who have heard of R.T. Dooley Construction's policies.

"A lot of young men who are running other businesses are mirroring what we're doing," he says. "A roofing guy came to me and said, 'I've heard about your company, how you treat your employees at Christmas time. Would you talk to me about it?' And I sat down with him and talked about how it draws the people we have working into great programs all over the city, and he's doing it now. And one guy in the grading utility business is doing it. And one guy who's in the steel business is doing it."

Dooley's generosity springs from his faith in God and from his wife Nancy. "I go to the church and sit in the pew and try to do a little bit of Bible study every single day," says Dooley. "But my wife does it an hour a day minimum. And whether I like it or not, a lot of her rubs off on me. She's the light and all I do is follow it."

In 1986, Nancy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and was given six months to live. Dooley remembers struggling with his faith. "I finally had to figure out when (Nancy) was sick that the Lord had her in his hands, and he was going to do what he wanted to do. I couldn't fight the Lord because I'd never win that battle. I had to go along with it or be miserable. So I went along with it and it turned out to be a very pleasant ride."

Says Dooley's son, David, of his father: "Our whole family has always had a lot of religious faith, and that's sort of contrary to Tom's nature. He's sort of a pessimist by nature. He prepares for the worst and hopes for the best.

"We all focused on giving mother a positive attitude and to help her understand that we can beat this thing. We took each day as a small win, and Tom was there showing mother the blueprint, the gameplan of how we were going to be disciplined and attack this thing and hit it head on."

Dooley focused his energies into Nancy's recovery. Art McNally, then-NFL supervisor of officials and Dooley's boss, went out of his way to help, scheduling Dooley to games within one hour of Charlotte.

"My favorite saying is: 'Just block and tackle,'" says Dooley. "That's all you have to do -- just keep
blocking and tackling and your team will win. When Nancy was taking chemo, she didn't have any kind of immune system at all. So I painted a four by eight sign and put it on our lawn and said, 'If you're sick, if you've been around sick people, if you don't feel good, if you don't have a good attitude, do not come on this property. Call this number.

"It was my office number. It wasn't the home number. And people thought I wasn't a very good person because I isolated her. But she went through chemo and is alive today. The doctors explained to me what not having an immune system meant, so it's black or white. Block and tackle. That's all you do all day long. Don't worry about it. Things will fall into place."

It was that sensibility that also helped Dooley decide to finally hang up his whistle in 1992. "I was driving up the road going to Greensboro to meet some other NFL officials. We all held a class up there to study rules one day a week," remembers Dooley. "I was running 10 minutes late and I was worried about that.

"In just a matter of seconds, it crossed my mind that I was 57 years old driving up the highway, in excess of the speed limit, worried about being 10 minutes late to talk about football rules. It seemed urgent, but in the scheme of life it wasn't important. And I stopped in Charlotte and turned in at my office and called (NFL director of officiating) Jerry Seeman."

Dooley resigned that day. Seeman tried to convince him to reconsider, but Dooley was already thinking of other things. "There was nothing wrong, no animosity, no hard feelings with anybody," says Dooley. "Everything was exactly the same except my burning desire to officiate and love of the game had been replaced by my grandchildren. For years, my love was to go officiate a football game, and all of a sudden my love was to spend more time with my grandchildren and my wife."

Dooley doesn't miss officiating. His family and his business take up most of his time these days. But he still gets to an NFL game once in awhile and he stays in touch with his former colleagues, although he says they never talk about football.

"I had an official call me from Pittsburgh whose wife was very sick down in the Charleston area," says Dooley. "There wasn't anything I could do personally, but I called another friend who was able to line up a hospital. She's in good shape today. You help each other. That's what that's all about. Officials help each other."

Then again, Dooley helps everybody. And he does it without fanfare. When asked if it wouldn't be fulfilling to know something about the students who benefit from his scholarship funds, to find out about some of the young people he's helped, Dooley just shakes his head and smiles.

"Time takes care of that," he says. "If they've learned something from Matthew 25, they'll come back four or five years after they graduated and they'll try to find out about the scholarship and who it is that helped them. After they've learned something, maybe they'll write me a letter."

Nancy since 1957; three children: Nina, 40; Bob, 38; and David, 30.

The Gold Whistle Award was created in 1987 by the NASO board of directors. Designed to recognize the efforts of outstanding citizens who also happen to be sports officials, the award criteria continue to emphasize a candidate's sports career, overall integrity and service to the community.

To be eligible for consideration for the award, a candidate must:

Have a minimum of 10 years experience as an active official, but does not have to be currently active. Also, the award can be made posthumously.

The selection committee, at its discretion, and in lieu of the above provision, can select an award winner based on the candidate's significant contribution to the betterment of officiating, that include the following conditions:

Exhibit a "service above self" attitude as demonstrated by a record of community involvement, public service or other engagements that clearly have had a positive, motivating impact on others.

Be regarded as a person with high integrity and ethics, and possessing the qualities held in high regard by the community of officials.

Have a consistent record of presenting officiating in a positive light to the general sports world.

In chronological order here are the names of the previous 12 Gold Whistle Award winners: Art McNally, 1988; the late Ed Myer, 1989; the late Pete Pavia, 1990; Larry Barnett, 1991; Jim Tunney, 1992; Steve Palermo, 1993; Ron Asselstine, 1994; Ed Hightower, 1995; Bernie Saggau, 1996; Ted Butcher, 1997; Durwood Merrill, 1998; Tommy Nunez, 1999.

Reprinted with permission of Referee Magazine. For subscription information, please visit referee.com or call 1-800-733-6100.