From Blazer to builder: Jegil Dugger’s journey from football to tech

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Jegil Dugger was pumping gas when the name came to him. Pye — a nod to 3.14, a nod to food — a name that stuck. It was one of those odd moments, a flash of vision in the middle of an ordinary day.

Dugger, a former UAB and pro football player who lives in Hoover, already knew what he wanted: to build self-pay kiosk technology that would help restaurants and small retailers stay open when post-pandemic labor costs and shortages threatened to shut them down.

He also wanted to add a way for people to make secure cash payments in multiple languages to reach customers who don’t have debit or credit cards — so no one is left out or left behind.

“For me, accessibility isn’t a feature, it’s the foundation,” Dugger said of his patented technology. “I know what exclusion feels like, and I’m committed to building solutions that bridge the gap, not widen it.”

Dugger’s innovation, which began in 2018, is now used by businesses all over the United States and Canada. Pye is a growing choice for tableside ordering and payment at restaurants and bars, self-service dropoff at dry cleaners, even museum ticket sales – including at Birmingham’s own historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

“Some people may feel that self-checkout and automation are taking jobs, but what we’re doing through automation is making sure businesses can stay in business when they’re faced with challenges,” Dugger said.

Football star to entrepreneur

Born in Detroit, Dugger’s mom and his siblings moved to Birmingham to be closer to family after his parents divorced. Dugger found his way into a gang in middle school. Mom Linda scraped up out-of-district fees for him to attend Midfield High School, where he became a football standout. College football scholarships rolled in for the talented running back. He chose UAB to stay near his mom.

Dugger then pursued his dream of going pro, with the Buffalo Bills, the Oakland Raiders and the Edmonton Eskimos in Canada.

After time in football, then a few years teaching history coaching football at the high school level, Dugger realized he didn’t get the same excitement from coaching as he did in playing the game. He had the chance to pursue an entrepreneurial path like his father, so he decided to follow his dream.

“My dad taught me the importance of hard work in Perry, Georgia,” he said. “I grew up on a farm. My brother and my dad were in construction. I spent my summers mostly one-on-one with my dad. I worked with him — got up early — staying home and sleeping or playing games was not an option. Dad paid me, too, and I was able to buy my own school clothes with the money I earned.”

Dugger worked on a roof, laid bricks, watched his dad make sales and do collections and even rode around looking for jobs.

“Once, my dad collected half the money down for a job, but when he went back to collect, the man had died the day before. My dad was shocked, but he learned from it — and I learned from it, too, that life has its disappointments,” Dugger said.

Roller coaster ride to prison

His first company did pretty well, with about $2 million in revenue in its first year and going nationwide. His second company began the roller coaster ride. He established a tobacco company and was later indicted for trademark infringement over his marketing and packaging of his small cigar products — too similar to the national brands after which he modeled them. He spent a year and one day in prison.

“I had never been in trouble before, clean slate, and I am indicted for trademark infringement,” Dugger said of his 2012 incarceration at the Federal Prison Camp at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. “I'm in a legal battle with the federal government. That was a tough time for me.”

The day he turned himself in was the hardest day of all.

“I cried the first night,” he said. “I felt alone. I had worked hard to get my degree and to start my business, and then it just seemed to fall apart.”

It was also a tough time for his bride, Grace. She drove every week to visit and kept his business going until he returned, telling others he was away on an extended business trip.

“He’s a good person at heart,” Grace said. “We all make mistakes. We chose to work through it. It was not easy. We found out who our true village was.”

There were some people in prison who recognized Dugger and showed him the ropes — where to sleep, where to go to do what he needed to do. “All those guys were so nice to me and showed me so much hospitality. It was really surprising. I figured out it was just me — I had to get over the situation.” Dugger said. “I practiced yoga, which I learned from a Puerto Rican guy there. Part of my daily routine was cleaning the interior dorms. I [also] worked on the golf course bunkers and made sure they were up to par.”

A couple of years ago, Dugger and his wife explained to their son, Cayden (now 10) what had happened.

“We knew that with technology, kids have access to everything, and it was better to hear it from us,” Dugger said. They had an age-appropriate discussion with him and talked through the situation. “I told him, ‘Son, you’re going to make mistakes. You have to think, what’s the worst thing that can happen with any decision? Learn from your mistakes.’”

The rebound

The path from athlete to educator to business owner to inmate and back to responsible business owner was challenging, Dugger said. It was a hard lesson early in his journey as an entrepreneur that sent him into a reclusive spiral for almost a decade. He said he battled to get over the embarrassment of his mistakes.

Securing his patent for Pye helped him work through those lingering challenges.

This time, Dugger had researched patents at the library and hired an attorney to file the patent for him. He went through the whole design process for the system.

“It was like when I was in high school and I rushed for 200 yards in a game,” Dugger said “ It was an awesome feeling. I told myself, ‘I can do this.’ It was a feeling of belonging, of reaching a goal, of confirming what I knew I was capable of.”

The system allows a customer to have an option of going to a machine and either entering an order or scanning a product, then checking out themselves versus actually going to a cashier.

“Our product is different from other self-checkout systems in that we accept cash and cards,” Dugger said. “That's really a limited feature because the restaurant industry is really focused on going cashless in some places, but I believe there's 20% of America that's either unbanked or underbanked.”

Pye, with its curved touchscreens and LED lighting, is gaining in popularity in California and New York, where minimum wages are increasing and restaurants, bars and other hospitality businesses are looking for innovative ways to balance costs. Other businesses using Pye are dry cleaners — including a military base in Virginia — where people come in, specify how they want their clothes  cleaned, drop them in a bag and pay right there at the machine.

Pye Tech also custom designs their products from start to finish – the complete solution of both hardware and software.

Story of resilience

Dan Pahos, Home Instead Senior Care franchise owner and an advisor and mentor to Dugger, met him through the Birmingham business incubator Gener8tor.

“There’s not much he can’t overcome or power through,” Pahos said. “He knows his market, his competitors, his valuable resources and how to balance them all. On the front end, Jegil disclosed his past with humility and resolve. I was honored and humbled by his openness and wanted to help him overcome those challenges and help make his dreams and aspirations happen.”

Dugger said he remains grounded in the lessons of discipline, perseverance and community that first shaped him.

“I think God has opened up doors for me and worked miracles for me when I did not believe that anything could be done for me,” Dugger said. “My faith has brought me where I am…The most rewarding part of the journey is when you talk to customers and you’re able to help them solve their problems — to be able to sleep at night and operate their business efficiently.”

And what does he hope people remember about his story in the years to come? “I hope it’s a motivational story — one where people realize you can overcome adversity and that it builds character,” he said. “We are not as bad as our worst mistake, and we’re not as good as anything we’ve done.”