ALEXANDER CITY — Shannon McDuffie made a surprising find on Lake Martin’s drought-expanded shoreline: Pat Dye’s long-lost, mud-caked pants and alligator leather wallet.
From two decades ago.
Eventually, McDuffie managed to track down the former Auburn football coach and College Football Hall of Famer and reunite him with his britches. Dye was at a loss to explain how he lost them in the first place.
“Well, I had a place in Still Waters in the early 80s. ... I don’t remember losing it, but now listen, that was a long time ago,” Dye told the Lake Martin edition of “Lake Magazine,” which reported the discovery in a story published online Tuesday.
McDuffie spotted the green-and-blue Madras golf pants sticking out of the mud along Lake Martin in the Emerald Shores area near Still Waters last December, with the water down 15 feet below full pool.
She carried the mud-caked wallet home and washed it off. Inside were a number of credit cards from the mid 1980s, an Alabama driver’s license, an honorary Alabama State Trooper card and a Delta Frequent Flyer card. It also contained a Chevron government credit card with the words: “University of Auburn Athletic.”
The name on the cards: Patrick Fain Dye.
McDuffie’s initial reaction: “Patrick Fain Dye — who is that?”
“Then I got to thinking, Pat Dye, Pat Dye, there was a Dye who was an Auburn coach ... and about that time my husband came home from work and we both suddenly realized, in fact, that this was a wallet that once belonged to the famous Auburn football coach Pat Dye,” she told the magazine.
“After we had shared all the excitement with my mom and dad, we got in our golf cart and rode back down to the lake to retrieve the pants that were left in the mud.”
She said the pants were still folded and creased. The pockets held a set of Toyota car keys on an Auburn helmet key chain and a plain white handkerchief.
McDuffie was unable to reach Dye until the magazine helped her track him down. She brought them back to him at his Notasulga house.
Asked how he lost his pants, Dye responded: “Was there any money in there?”
But, he added, “I do remember those pants.”
“I don’t have any idea how I lost ’em,” he said, “but we can make up a good story.”
Dye invited McDuffie to attend the Blue Jean Ball, where he said he would donate the pants and their contents. The annual charity event is held on the weekend of the Auburn-LSU football game at Auburn Oaks, a commercial hunting property adjacent to his 786 acres, to benefit the Auburn University School of Nursing.
Dye led Auburn to a 99-39-4 record and four Southeastern Conference titles from 1981-92. He still serves as a special assistant to the president.
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