Barry Alvarez was sitting in his Camp Randall Stadium office earlier this month – yes, the former Wisconsin athletic director and football coach still has a spot tucked into an out-of-the-way corner on the fifth floor – when he was asked to relive a singular moment from his Hall of Fame career, one that nearly left him in tears.
On the night of Dec. 11, 1999, Alvarez took a seat inside the cramped Downtown Athletic Club in New York City and watched as Ron Dayne, his senior tailback, was named the winner of the Heisman Trophy.
This was 28 days after Dayne became the all-time leading rusher in major college football history during a Big Ten Conference championship-clinching victory over Iowa and 21 days before he would close out his singular career with a milestone performance against Stanford in the Rose Bowl.
Dayne was one of five finalists for the coveted award, given annually to the most outstanding player in college football. Alvarez had his doubts about how the voting would go between Dayne, Purdue quarterback Drew Brees, Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton, Marshall quarterback Chad Pennington and Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick.
“I can’t say I was confident that he was going to win,” Alvarez said of Dayne. “You just don’t know. There’s always a lot of politics involved. I felt he was more deserving. Hell, he was our offense for four years.”
Alvarez had no clue that Dayne would win a landslide – he amassed 586 first-place votes while the rest of the field combined to receive 184 – but both coach and player learned soon enough that the second Heisman winner in UW history would soon be coronated.
Alvarez recalled sitting next to Marshall coach Bob Pruett when a member of the ESPN production staff came up to Dayne during a final commercial break before the winner was revealed and had him change seats so he could be closer to the stage. And, as soon as Dayne had been moved to the new location, someone from ESPN came up to put makeup powder on his face.
“Well,” Pruett said, “I guess that’s a dead giveaway.”
Sure enough, Dayne became the 65th recipient of the fabled Heisman, joining Wisconsin fullback Alan “The Horse” Ameche, who claimed his trophy in 1954.
When Dayne heard his name called, he stood, turned around and gave Alvarez a handshake and bearhug that Alvarez said nearly brought him to tears.
“I was close,” he said. “It was very emotional.”
“If he’d broken down,” Dayne said, “then I would have broken down.”
Dayne shook hands with the other four finalists, made his way to the stage and recalled getting teary-eyed. That’s when he remembered advice from Alvarez and fellow senior co-captain Chris McIntosh.
“Coach said, ‘When you get up there, be sure to take three deep breaths,” Dayne said. “So, I did and it worked. I thought, ‘How did coach know that?’”
As for McIntosh, the burly All-America left tackle, “Mac said, ‘You better not cry on TV,’” Dayne said.
The 25th anniversary of that experience is upon us and, as you might expect, a lot has changed in that time, especially for the principals involved.
Alvarez, 77, retired as UW football coach in 2005 and stepped down as athletic director in 2021. He was inducted into the UW Athletic Hall of Fame and the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame, both in 2009, and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2010. Upon his retirement as director of athletics, Alvarez had the field at Camp Randall renamed in his honor in 2021.
Dayne, 46, spent eight seasons in the NFL, played in Super Bowl XXXV with the New York Giants – the club that chose him in the first round of the 2000 draft – had his Badgers jersey No. 33 retired in 2007, was inducted into the UW Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009, the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2011 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2013.
It sure doesn’t seem like a quarter-century has passed.
“It came so fast,” Dayne said. “It feels like yesterday.”
Alvarez and Dayne share more than all those hall of fame designations. Both are serving as ambassadors for UW Athletics. Both are grandparents. Both call the Madison area home. Both are viewed among the most vital figures in the history of Badgers sports.
Alvarez was hired as coach in 1990 when UW was destitute on the football field and in the athletic department’s front office. He proceeded to turn the program into an unlikely powerhouse, winning Big Ten titles in 1993, ’98 and ’99 and three Rose Bowls and compiling a 119-74-4 overall record.
In 1996, Alvarez recruited Dayne – vowing to use him as a featured ballcarrier instead of a blocking fullback – and one of the most essential careers in Wisconsin history began.
“He was always a gentleman,” Alvarez said of Dayne. “He was never an issue. No high maintenance there. He was always a good team player.
“We had a great relationship. He talks about the first time I came to visit. (The family) introduced me and I didn’t go over to shake his hand. I gave him a big hug.
“That’s why he came (to Madison). He felt such a strong connection. I always felt close to him and he always felt comfortable walking into my office and sit down and talk and visit.”
Those informal get-togethers enabled Dayne, who was notoriously efficient with his vocabulary around reporters, to speak more freely, especially as he became an upperclassman.
“He just needed to visit with somebody,” Alvarez said. “You get so much attention, sometimes you want to sit down and be grounded. To talk about other things.”
Alvarez ultimately used one of those conversations to guide Dayne toward returning to school and finishing his degree in Afro-American Studies, which he did in 2018. Dayne currently volunteers at the Goodman Community Center on the East Side of Madison, where he said he spends three to six hours, five days a week doing a variety of tasks such as Meals on Wheels.
“I help whenever I can,” he said.
Dayne has five children – Jada, Harmony, Javian, Zion and Baylen – and a 2-year-old granddaughter named Sarai with whom he’s obviously smitten.
“She could ask me for anything,” Dayne said, “and it’s going to happen.”
Over the course of four seasons, Dayne set Wisconsin records for most career carries with 1,220, yards with 7,125 and touchdowns with 71, a mark since eclipsed by Montee Ball, another UW Athletic Hall of Famer, in 2012.
Dayne didn’t have a cell phone or even a driver’s license when he embarked on his final season with the Badgers, one that began with a series of shocking struggles and ended with a finish in the top five of the Associated Press’ top 25 poll.
Following blowout wins over Murray State and Ball State, UW was stunned during a 17-12 road loss to Cincinnati – Dayne topped 200 yards for the seventh of 14 times in his career, but had a fumble in the red zone in the second half – and absorbed a 21-16 home setback to Michigan during which Dayne was held under 90 yards for just the 12th time in his 43-game career.
Then came the flash point of the season. UW not only began to turn its fortunes around, redshirt freshman quarterback Brooks Bollinger emerged as the starter at quarterback.
The unranked Badgers trailed No. 12 Ohio State, 17-6, on the road at halftime, but came back with a vengeance on the way to a 42-17 triumph. While Bollinger’s speed and agility made him into a two-way threat – he rushed for 78 yards on 17 carries – Dayne scored four touchdowns and finished with 161 rushing yards.
After a taut, physical victory at Minnesota – the 20-17 decision was Wisconsin’s first overtime experience and came with Alvarez watching from a hospital bed while awaiting knee surgery – the Badgers battered Indiana 59-0 to return to the AP rankings at No. 18. UW then shredded Michigan State’s highly regarded run defense during a 40-10 victory in which Dayne rushed for 214 yards, including a 51-yard message-sending TD jaunt on the opening drive.
The 11th-ranked Badgers topped Northwestern, 35-19, as Dayne rumbled for 162 yards on 35 tries. That set up a duel with Brees the following week at Purdue. Brees threw for 350 yards, but Dayne secured the inside track to the Heisman by not only rushing for 222 yards on 32 attempts, but scoring the deciding touchdown on the way to a 28-21 win.
That paved the way for a joyous, unforgettable Saturday afternoon at Camp Randall. Wisconsin needed a victory over last-place Iowa to clinch a second-straight Big Ten title and a second-consecutive Rose Bowl berth. Dayne, meanwhile, needed 99 rushing yards to pass Texas’ standout Ricky Williams and become the all-time rushing leader in major college history.
All season long, then-UW sports information director Steve Malchow had sent out red postcards to all 922 Heisman voters, an old-school approach to documenting a countdown to the record. There also were billboards that drivers could see from the Beltline as well as one that took up the whole south end of the UW Field House.
Recall that Dayne didn’t have his driver’s license at the time. How did he know about the Beltline billboards?
“The guys told me,” he said.
“It was a state and community type thing,” Alvarez said. “It was so neat. It got bigger than Ronnie just showing up that day and running. Everybody was into it and everyone was aware of it. Everyone was cognizant of how many yards he needed and what that meant.”
The game plan was simple, yet devastating. Iowa and first-year coach Kirk Ferentz won one game in 1999, but you never know, right?
“It was the same plan as every game when Ron was here,” Alvarez said. “Hand Ron the ball.”
Alvarez was asked about the possibility, however remote, that Dayne might struggle in such a huge moment.
“He wasn’t going to struggle against that team,” Alvarez said. “That wasn’t a good Iowa team. Our line covered people up. You didn’t have (defenders) running free. Our offensive line was going to be good.”
Dayne had 12 carries for 39 yards with time winding down in the second quarter. His next bolt was for 37 yards, bringing him within 23 of the mark.
The record-setter came with Wisconsin at its own 17 with 4 minutes, 40 seconds remaining in the first half. Dayne said senior fullback Chad Kuhns either declared in the huddle or when he lined up in front of Dayne for a slide draw to the right side. Either way, it produced a historic moment.
“Chad said, ‘We’re going to break it right now.’ I said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’”
Dayne churned through a gaping hole on the right side and rumbled for 31 yards.
“That hole opened up so pretty, so nice,” he said. “I had to make the linebacker miss or run him over. I made him miss. Everyone did their job.”
Because they did, Dayne surpassed Williams, the Heisman winner in 1998, and touched off a huge on-field celebration.
Dayne said afterward that one snapshot in particular caught his eye. It was the sight of 79,404 fans waving white towels with “Dayne 33” after the Badgers had prevailed 41-3 and he had obliterated the record with 216 yards on 27 carries.
When the game ended, DAYNE 33 was unveiled on the Camp Randall façade, prompting a huge grin from the man of the hour.
To this day, Dayne remains in touch with a host of teammates from that club, which followed up a win over UCLA in the 1999 Rose Bowl with one over Stanford in 2000 to become the first Big Ten team to triumph in consecutive Rose Bowls.
“When we all see each other,” he said, rattling off the likes of McIntosh, Casey Rabach, Eddie Faulkner, Donnel Thompson and Jeff Mack, “it’s like we don’t miss a beat.”
The euphoria of Dayne’s record-setting moment lost some energy when the NCAA decided to arbitrarily change its approach to record-keeping.
In 2002, the NCAA began to allow postseason statistics to be counted going forward – including bowl games – but elected not to retroactively add them from previous seasons.
So, according to the NCAA, Dayne finished his career with 6,397 rushing yards, not counting the 728 yards he gained in four bowl games.
That math equation became an issue in 2016 when Donnel Pumphrey of San Diego State passed Dayne with 6,405 yards, 328 of which came in bowl games. That includes final 8 yards in the Las Vegas Bowl vs. Houston.
“I’ve never understood why they did that,” Alvarez said of the NCAA. “Quite frankly, they snookered (Dayne) out of a bunch of yards.”
Dayne sent a congratulatory text to Pumphrey, who, without bowl games, would have finished with 6,027 career rushing yards. That would relegate him to fourth place on the current all-time list behind Dayne, Williams and Tony Dorsett of Pittsburgh.
The idea of not counting bowl games doesn’t make a lot of sense to Alvarez.
“You’re playing in a bowl game, so you’re facing a good team to begin with,” he said. “Those are things that (Dayne) accomplished at a very high level against a quality opponent, big stage.”
That’s especially the case with Dayne, who was named Most Valuable Player in the Copper Bowl versus Utah in 1996 and both Rose Bowls in 1999 (UCLA) and 2000 (Stanford). In his bowl games, he rushed for 246 yards as a freshman, 36 as a sophomore, 246 as a junior and 200 as a senior.
“Maybe,” Dayne said, “we could all do something together to get them to change it.”
