DaytonDailyNews.com

Over the decades, the game changed, but one thing remained the same: The love always was there.

"Oh I sure do remember our first date," Frank Broyles said in that Georgia drawl. "It was January 24, 1941 ... I never thought she'd accept, and when she did I nearly fainted. I didn't know what to do."

The star athlete at their Decatur, Ga., high school, Broyles would go on to be the Southeastern Conference Football Player of the Year at Georgia Tech; would spend 50 years as the University of Arkansas football coach and athletics director; and for nearly a decade be the top color commentator for ABC's college football broadcasts.

Back in '41, that first date was with Barbara Day, the standout of the girls basketball team.

"That night her team played at 6:30, we played at 8 and we had a school dance at 9:30," Broyles said. "That was our date — a dance and basketball."

Some 60 years later, the game was far different.

"We'd go to bed and she'd lean up from her pillow, look left and look right, then put her head back down. She'd do that every 10 seconds," Broyles said.

"After about an hour I'd say, 'Barbara, please, let's go to sleep.' Instead that triggered the behavior pattern. She'd jump up screaming she wanted to go 'home.' She'd pound on the door I had locked. So I'd throw a bathrobe on her and we'd go to the car and we'd drive around a little bit, maybe stop and get a milk shake and finally come back to the house and calmly get her back in bed."

And that's when he'd reach over and hold her hand — just like he did when they were first-date teenagers — and she'd fall asleep.

Barbara Broyles — who married Frank in 1945, had six kids, 17 grandkids and because of her caring ways was known throughout Arkansas as the Mother of the Razorbacks Family — was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2001.

She likely had it five years prior and eventually would die from complications of the disease in 2004. During those afflicted years, she was lovingly, constantly, exhaustively cared for by her husband and family.

In so doing, Frank said he relied on the main tenet of some of his best football teams — teams that won seven Southwest Conference titles and one national crown: "There's an old saying: 'The most skilled athletes don't necessarily make the best team, but the best team will usually win.' "

He'll include those lessons next Friday, May 16, at UD Arena when he's the keynote speaker for "All Stars Against Alzheimer's" — a social hour, dinner and sports auction to raise money for the Miami Valley Alzheimer's chapter.

He'll also bring along the book he has put together — "Coach Broyles' Playbook for Alzheimer's Caregivers" — that provides a treasure trove of tips for people dealing with loved ones who just "want to go home."

"They all say it thousands of times, but they don't actually mean their home," Broyles said. "They feel lost and they want to go back to where they're safe."

Always giving

As Broyles was becoming one of the pillars of college football, Barbara was raising their children, serving as his compass point and, at the same time, helping everyone else she could as a Sunday school teacher, a driving force at a local youth center and as an advocate for adult literacy.

"She was an unconditional giver," Frank said. That's why, in 1987, the city of Fayetteville — home of the University of Arkansas — named her its Volunteer of the Year.

But then she called her husband one day in 1995 and told him she was tired of her involvements and she quit each group.

"That was the first sign of her withdrawal, but we did not know anything about Alzheimer's," he said.

"In 1998 she called me crying because she couldn't balance the checkbook. The very next day she called our daughter-in-law to help her shut off the car. Each time we took her to the doctor, but we didn't get the diagnosis until 2001.

"I was determined we'd make this the best of times, not the worst of times. We'd become a team and we all were gonna learn and benefit from it and come out of it a closer family.

"Sure there were lots of tough times, but we made it a labor of love and we always helped Barbara keep her dignity. You've got to remember, as things progress and behaviors occur, that's not really them doing that, it's the disease."

When a well-known Arkansas sports writer wrote about Barbara's plight, a whole state that so loved her now embraced the family's battle. Frank started getting phone calls asking for advice and tips. Many were from people who didn't have the financial wherewithal to pay for the help they would need in caring for someone with dementia or Alzheimer's.

That's when the idea of the free book came up. Drawing on family members, Alzheimer's Association personnel, the University of Arkansas Medical School and others, he put together a guidebook that colorfully uses football jargon.

While the book dispenses the advice, it's in conversations with the 83-year-old Broyles where you hear the memories that resonate best from his 59-year marriage:

"My wife didn't know my name the last five years. She referred to me as 'The Big One.' "

He started to chuckle: "Here's a wonderful story ... All my life I'd always call home 30 minutes before I was going to get there. And once Barbara got Alzheimer's, I'd still call and one of our twin daughters would be there and they'd tell Barbara real casually, 'Well, The Big One will be here in about 30 minutes.'

"And then in about 15 minutes, when the girls were watching TV or something, Barbara would come sneaking out of the bedroom, not say a word and just go to the door and wait on me. Even though she didn't know who I was, there was something there."

And when The Big One would come in the house, he'd reach out and take her hand and through the fog, Barbara knew one thing:

She was home.

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