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Coach-in-Chief Distinguished Baptist theologian David S. Dockery leads Southwestern Seminary with the heart of a coach BY ASHLEY ALLEN
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hen David S. Dockery (‘81) describes what his career aspirations were as an eight-year-old boy growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, his entire face lights up. “I always wanted to be a sports journalist,” recalls Dockery, the tenth president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. “I grew up loving sports – any kind, every kind.” Dockery would listen to ballgames, including the Atlanta Braves and the University of Alabama football and basketball games, on “my little transistor radio,” he says, moving his hand to his right ear to demonstrate how he would tune in to the games. The elementary-aged Dockery would use his tape recorder to see if he could repeat what he heard as he would “broadcast the game to myself,” he remembers. “I was either going to be a coach or a sports broadcaster,” the future Baptist theologian says. “My life was filled with sports and that was the direction that I was going.” Dockery adds he “dreamed” about going into sports “all my life,” and as a high schooler would broadcast the junior high ball games from the press box. Dockery’s love of sports would lead him to the University of Alabama, where he would study on a full athletic scholarship – not as an athlete on the field, but as a student worker in the university’s athletic department. As part of the Crimson Tide’s athletic team, Dockery has an SEC championship ring that he still often wears.
Southwestern News