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Remembering Father Doyle's Great Legacy

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By Steve Otto

Sotto tampatrib.com

Published: December 12, 2008

Before the public visitation on Wednesday, the entire student body gathered in the beautiful circular St. Anthony's Chapel in the middle of the Jesuit campus.

One of the factors limiting the number of students to just more than 625 at this great Tampa institution is the desire that every student can squeeze into the chapel at the same time for the morning convocations. This coming together for prayer and announcements is an effective lesson in bonding.

This time it was the middle of the afternoon and the students and faculty had gathered to say goodbye to Father Joseph Doyle, who died Saturday.

It was a private vigil, as much as an assembly of more than 600 people can be private. More than that it was a family gathering, which would have pleased Father Doyle, who understood that education is more than classrooms and laptops.

He fought for those things as well. In his dozen years as Jesuit's president and chaplain he built classrooms and recruited a top-drawer faculty. He put in a fiber-optic computer system and upgraded the athletic facilities, although he never was much of an athlete.

More Than Bricks And Mortar
But that's bricks and mortar stuff. Doyle was more than that. He worked to keep those who couldn't pay the full load in school. He counseled students and parents alike and made sure the priority of the school was a set of values as much as facts and figures.

I had the feeling, listening to the stories, that Father Doyle was not always the easiest person to work with; he was going to do it his way. Nick Suszynski recalled the first convocation of his junior year.

"Father Doyle stood up and called out the biggest kid in the class. He handed him his watch and said, 'I am going to speak for two minutes and two minutes only. After that you stop me.' Well, there was no way anybody was going to stop Father Doyle and two minutes became three, then four and five. He could get a little passionate."

Father Doyle, born in the Bronx, retired in May.

He first came to the Jesuit campus in 1964 to teach history while completing his studies for the priesthood. He left for a few years to Texas and New Orleans but returned in 1996 to take over the presidency.

Tedd The Student

Father Doyle was a good man. I think the best story, and one that speaks volumes, comes from my old friend Tedd Webb; the same guy you hear in the mornings on WFLA, 970 AM. The same Tedd Webb who recently published a picture book of women's derrieres and yet who somehow managed to worm his way into Jesuit.

"I first met Father Doyle in the summer of 1964," Webb says. "He taught me English in summer school. When fall started, he was a different guy; he grew horns. We used to call him The Duck because of his particular walk. He and I were polar opposites, did not get along. He was instrumental in me getting a 'copy of the home game' (bounced) in the spring of 1966.

"Twenty-five years later, I tracked him down at a school in Houston. I wrote him and thanked him for riding me hard in high school. Good was never good enough for Father Doyle; he expected great. I had applied his teachings to my everyday job of doing show prep for AM Tampa Bay. I wrote a trivia book and dedicated it to Father Doyle.

"When I had open-heart surgery in 1999, I woke up in recovery ICU to find Father Doyle sitting on the edge of my bed crying. What a long trip from 1964."

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