Pooley

Friday, October 7, 2005
by Ray Scott

It was an emotional moment. I cried and he cried, and many in the audience had tears in their eyes. Now if you aren't sure who Pooley Dawson is, read on, because he is part of the very fabric of the BASS Anglers Sportsman Society and the bass tournament world as we know it today.

Frankly, I don't even know what his official title was when he retired. It wouldn't have made any difference because he did it all.

Photo: Ray Scott Outdoors James "Pooley" Dawson (left), shown here with Ray Scott and George W. Bush at a 1992 fundraising tournament, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from BASS.

That handful of employees didn't wear just two or three hats – they wore a dozen hats. As a matter of fact, when they came to work on Monday morning, they never knew exactly what they might be doing that day. Every team member was critical – there just wasn't room for anyone who didn't give 110%.

When I hired Pooley full-time in 1972, he knew what he was getting into. I had employed the hard-working young black man part-time for a year or so when BASS was barely beyond a dream in my active imagination.

When membership reached the astounding number of 10,000 I called him. "It's time, Pooley. Come onboard. We need you bad." Pooley showed up the next morning wearing a BASS patch. That was 33 years ago.

No job was ever too big for Pooley. And no job was ever too small. He tackled them all. He never let me down. And there were some mighty strange tasks, believe me. He not only accomplished his missions, he did it with grace and style – and a smile. I trusted him with my money and my life.

Bass fans and tournament competitors know him best from the tournament trail. No one has been to more tournaments than Pooley and myself. But tournaments don't begin to capture Pooley's story.

He helped set up "secret" Classics when they were held at mystery locations. He's pitched fishing campsites in the boondocks of Canada and the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. He's logged hundreds of thousands of miles on the highways and backroads of America.

One of my favorite stories about Pooley concerned a very early tournament and I had promised the competitors a kickoff dinner. I was determined to build a first-class reputation for the new Society and wanted everything to be just right.

Well, the designated so-called caterer had set up one little catfish cooker to feed a fried fish dinner to 175 hungry people. Folks were lined up everywhere. It was a disaster, although everyone was being very patient and good humored.

I fired the caterer and called Pooley immediately and told him I wanted a first-rate steak dinner for those people 3 days later at the Friday night awards banquet. Pooley went to work and we had perfect steaks with cloth tablecloths, napkins, silverware et al.

Years later when we were at our first Classic in Richmond and my friend and fishing buddy George H. W. Bush was in office, I got a call from the White House. President Bush invited me to have lunch with him and to bring two friends. I invited Forrest Wood and Pooley Dawson. The four of us ate lunch in the small private dining room just off the Oval Office. It was a grand moment.

So much went through my mind when Pooley and I stood up there on the stage in front of some 15,000 people on the final day of the Classic. I'd made a speech and he'd made his. But it wasn't over yet. The big heavy curtain parted at the opposite end of the arena and a beautiful, fully rigged Triton emerged. It sparkled silver and white as it made its way toward us under a trailing spotlight. It was Pooley's very own bass boat – a gift from Triton and Mercury.

Now, after years of nursing bass boats (and bass fishermen) of every kind at hundreds of tournaments – and parading gleaming new rigs through the Classic paces for 35 years – James Pooley Dawson had his very own bass rig.

But that wasn't the only highlight for me. In his eloquent and emotional acceptance speech, Pooley said something that fills me with pride. He described how he worked for 35 years with the tournaments and with bass fishermen from all walks of life and from every part of the country – and even the world. "In all that time" he said slowly and deliberately, "I never heard one racial slur. Not one."

That says a lot about our bass-fishing community. And Pooley will always be a part of that community, retired or not.