Savoring the Moment: An Oxford teacher reflects on the Oxford High School state football championship game

By Mark Fuller

Among the 15,000 of us Oxford fans who attended Oxford High’s football state championship game at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn on December 6th, I wonder how many brought with them the sweet memory of any of the previous championships of 1988, 1989, or 1993. Those of us who did had the special pleasure of mingling the “new wine” of Oxford’s 14-13 victory over Spanish Fort with the “old wine” of those previous title games.

“Cover the churches and the schools and you will do well here,” then-mayor Leon Smith had suggested to Mr. Childs just before we’d cut the ribbon on Choccolocco Street signaling the launch of the new community newspaper, which we called The Oxford Independent, which emphasized that we had no connection with any other newspaper in the area.

As I stood on Auburn University’s football field under the Friday night lights a few weeks ago, I could not help but remember standing on Lamar Field the night of the state championship game against Greenville in 1993. At that time, I was a reporter for a weekly newspaper that my friend and mentor, John Childs, had started in Oxford just one year before.

And cover the community we did. In that first year, when we arrived at church suppers and family reunions, band camps, and beauty pageants—snapping away with our cameras—people did not know what to think. But before long, we were an accepted—and expected—participant in Oxford community life.

So there was no question that I would be standing on the sidelines of every Yellow Jacket football game during the 1993 season, taking notes of the plays, interviewing coaches and players after each game, and writing up the story each week. It was our first year to cover an entire football season, and it turned out to be a state championship season.

I can still remember the names of many of the players from that year, many of whom I still hear are in the community today, even on the roster of names of the 2019 state championship team…

The circumstances that brought me to the sideline in 2019 were indeed different from those in 1993. The Oxford Independent stopped going to press five years ago, a casualty of our changing media landscape as well as the passing away Mr. Childs’ wife, Barbara, who had been such an integral part of the publication. Mr. Childs’ own health issues have greatly curtailed his participation in the community events he loves.

This time, in 2019, I was not attending the game as the reporter for the local paper, but as a teacher at Oxford High School. This time, I know some players not just because I see them on game night and perhaps interview them about the game, but because several of them are my students. And I stood on the sideline not to get the game story but as an honorary team captain–one of four teachers from the Oxford school system who would walk out with the four team captains for the coin toss at the beginning of the game.

How I was chosen I did not know, but I was quite aware of how far I was from being the OHS faculty member most deserving of the honor. Marci Hall, former history teacher and now a counselor at Oxford Middle School had a similar feeling about her selection, saying that she thought it was a mistake and dared not tell anyone about it (except her husband) until the day of the game.

At precisely 7 p.m. that night at Jordan Hare Stadium, I walked out onto the field in line with four Oxford football players and three other teachers, our arms locked together, coming to a stop at midfield where we faced our counterparts from Spanish Fort High School. I remember thinking that the teacher across from me looked radiant and proud. When we shook hands, she thanked me for what I did and taking her cue; I thanked her in turn.

The referee gave the players a little pep talk, reminding them of the honor of being a team captain, that the honor came with a responsibility of leadership, and that the best way to lead was by setting a good example of sportsmanship on the playing field. I was impressed with the speech, and when I later told someone about it on the sideline, he said, “They give that same speech every time.” “Well,” I thought, “I have never been a team captain on a football team, and it was special to me.”

The words spoken in honor of teachers, by the announcer and referee, were to the effect that we should be thankful for teachers, who teach and coach us in skills and qualities we need for the larger game of life and the more important trophy of living it well.

Words we have heard before.

But when you are one of eight people representing thousands of others far better than yourself, and you are standing at midfield of a major college stadium with all those lights shining down, arm-in-arm with people who sat in your classroom that day, you might remember the choices you made that got you there, or the Hand at work that put you there–and you might ask for the grace to be more faithful to the calling being honored there.

The other Oxford teachers standing in that line–Mrs. Hall, C.E. Hanna Elementary reading teacher Shannon Cochran, and teacher Allison Etheridge seemed to have similar thoughts and emotions–although having true teacher souls, their thoughts were directed more toward their students than themselves.“I am a coach’s wife as well as a teacher,” Mrs. Cochran said. “My husband’s players are part of our family. It was amazing to be able to a part of this momentous occasion with them.”

I was proud to see them finally reach the ‘ship’ after years of striving to get there, I was proud to see how they played with heart from the beginning of the season right up to the final seconds of the game. And more importantly, I was proud to see how much they have grown socially and emotionally since their middle school years.

After the coin (a white plastic disk with the state championship logo engraved in black) was tossed, and we returned to the sideline, the game began. And what a game it was. The more it progressed, the harder I pulled for those players and those coaches to win this one, to crown their special season with a championship. Like all great games, it came down to the final minutes. During those long minutes as disputed calls by officials were being reviewed and when the tension seemed greatest, the faces of our players on the jumbotron seemed calm, happy, confident. They were enjoying the moment. I was glad for that. The ring would go to some, but the moment belonged to all who were willing to receive it. I was told afterward that the Yellow Jackets had spent the year focusing on not “playing the scoreboard” but instead on “playing the next play.” Perhaps that is why they seemed so calm on that final winning touchdown drive. Indeed, they’d been in a few tight spots during the season that had given them practice at sharpening that focus–a skill that if they can keep it will be more valuable than a ring.

My drive out of Auburn that night did not take me home but to a motel southeast of Montgomery. There, 12 other Oxford High students were staying so that they could participate in another state competition, the Walter Trumbauer State Theater Festival at Troy University. OHS theater teacher Megan Boozer had shepherded them to this state competition, which brought together more than 1,000 students from some 100 high schools throughout the state. Oxford High students have been participating in this event for more than ten years now, performing plays, soliloquies, or group scenes in front of judges who score their performance much like a band or choral competition. Oxford’s one-act plays have won best-of-show trophies at the district level three times in the last ten years.

The purpose of the festival is really to foster a love for this timeless art form, which has its own rules and skills, its enthusiasts, and great performers, its own eternal appeal to every generation. Anyone who has seen the performances put on by these Alabama high school students would be amazed at what they can accomplish. The festival was started more than seven decades ago by a visionary educator at the University of Montevallo named Walter Trumbauer and is one of the great treasures of this state.

Every team is asked to bring a certain number of people who can help judge the events, and that has been my role since Oxford High students began attending the Trumbauer Festival in 2009. Experience in theater is highly valued in a judge, but the most important quality is something else: the ability to offer both constructive comments and encouragement to young people as they try their wings in life. In other words: to be a teacher. Because that is what these competitions are really all about.