As a youngster, Steve Phillips watched his older brother Donny play baseball for the Alabama Christian College (ACC) Eagles in the late 1960s with Coach Henry Wright. The Phillips family also attended basketball games in the new Tine Davis Gym on campus. A love for the school grew through the years as Phillips transitioned from a young fan, to a college student-athlete and then as a coach and a faculty member.
Although Phillips played high school sports, athletics was not his only interest. In the 1970s at Alabama Christian High School, Arthur Voyles asked Phillips and Rusty Allen to sing in the chorus because they needed male singers. He entered a talent show with his buddies that led to Rex Moorer offering him a full scholarship to perform in the new musical group Harvest Gold at ACC. Phillips, Allen and Virgil True were to travel and perform as this inaugural group recruiting for ACC. Mark Tate joined later.
In the meantime, the baseball program was dropped at ACC with no team in the 1974-1975 year.
Phillips became a college student at ACC with a music scholarship in fall 1975, but he and his friend Bob Gilbert and others brainstormed how they could help bring the baseball team back to ACC.
A few months into their freshman year at ACC, Gilbert’s dad agreed to pay for baseball uniforms. They donned the maroon and gold pinstripe uniforms. Former ACC baseball player John Poitevint agreed to be their coach and Jay Rice and Roger Wright were team managers. A Junior College Baseball schedule was put together. There were no scholarships, just walk-ons who wanted to play baseball. That 1975-1976 team only saw victory one time all season…the very last game which was played at Patterson Field.
The team was able to have scholarships for the 1976-1977 season when Phillips was one of the team captains. Ken Burton took the reins as head coach and continued to build the program. Phillips is proud of how the Eagles baseball team has grown and improved since then to its current National Status in the NAIA World Series.
Phillips graduated in May of 1977 and went on to have 45 total years in education and coaching. He was a teacher and coach with Montgomery Public Schools for 26 years and spent two years at Alabama Christian Academy as the high school’s assistant football coach.
When Phillips retired from MPS, Dr. John Enloe asked him to join the Faulkner family as a teacher. Phillips said his two years as a student at ACC gave him “the best of college life as he had the opportunity to travel, sing, play ball, and make lifetime friends.” He says being asked to teach at Faulkner “was a blessing that gave him a chance to repay what was given to him by faculty, staff and coaches. It has been rewarding to watch our school and athletic teams grow into what it is now.”
Steve Phillips supports Faulkner in so many ways and one is with several years of an Alumni Association Membership. He is currently in his 19th year at Faulkner University and will retire in May 2024. He and his wife Pat plan to spend more time with their grandchildren.
