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Sally Alston didn’t know what she was getting herself into on her first date with Bobby Alston.
“He told me he worked for the school,” said Sally Alston, now Bobby’s wife for more than four decades. “And then, he starts giving me directions to the school, and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, I thought he said he was available!”
“Anyways, so I follow his instructions, and I walk in at the old stadium, and I’m thinking, ‘He can’t pick me up because he’s probably collecting tickets at the front gate. So, I sit down in the stands, I’m looking around, and I go, ‘Oh, my gosh, he’s on the sidelines wearing headphones!”
Four decades after surprising his future wife with the fact that he was a football coach at MUS, nobody will ever have to wonder what Bobby Alston has done there. The school officially renamed its stadium to Stokes-Alston Stadium, honoring Alston’s nearly half-century run coaching Owls football.
When asked to describe his feelings in one word about the honor, he decided on “grateful.”
“I’ve been blessed and helped by a ton of people to get here,” Bobby Alston said. “There are so many things that are done the same way they were when we first started. I had Coach (Jake) Rudolph as a mentor, I had Coach (Jerry) Peters as a mentor, and they just gave me the MUS way of doing things.”
“We still got a game to win,” said first-year head coach Mark Chubb. “But today, it’s all about one big love fest for Bobby Alston.”
At Friday’s pregame ceremony, MUS officials shared that in 2006 in the construction and naming of Stokes Stadium for the family whose donations made the facility possible, plans were made to honor Alston as a stadium namesake immediately following his retirement. Alston announced in December 2023 that he would retire at the end of the school year.
Amongst the many alums and faculty members, the most memorable…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nearly-20-years-making-mus-023616316.html
Author : The Commercial Appeal
Publish date : 2024-09-07 02:36:16
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