#Bobby March 19

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For March 2024 several of us will be participating in the “30-Day Shout-Out Coach4aday Challenge”. Today the recipient is BOBBY STEVENS

Last week I got a phone call from Bobby Stevens.

When I began as basketball coach at Winthrop University in 1992 one of the unintended benefits was the fact that a great man like Bobby was in place to be one of my assistant coaches. He also became a very good friend and godfather to my youngest son Mack.

Here is a photo from 2003 of the two of them.

Rules of the Challenge

Organizing and participating in the 30-Day Shout Coach4aday Challenge is very simple. Below are the steps.

Here is how to participate.

1. Identify who gets the daily Shout-Out and make sure they know you are recognizing them.
2. Describe why you giving them a Shout-Out-what are they doing that is notable?
3. Do this daily for 30 Days posting on social media with the hashtag #Coach4adayChallenge

If you need ideas on how to give someone a daily shout-out here is a link on LinkedIn with some ideas that are good for the workplace.

March 19th-Bobby Stevens

Bobby Stevens who in 2014 was voted to the ACC Men’s Basketball Legends Class. I am very proud and happy that Bobby received that recognition.

Bobby was a sharpshooting, ball-hawking guard who helped provide the leadership for head coach Don Devoe’s 1973 Virginia Tech basketball team which ended up winning the school’s first national championship in basketball, claiming the 1973 National Invitation Tournament title in New York’s Madison Square Garden. It should be noted that in 1973 the Hokies played all 4 games in MSG in the span of a week.

Playing alongside two of the top players in Tech history in Allen Bristow and Craig Lieder, Stevens, at 5-10, would not be hard to overlook. But the scrappy native of Chester, Pa., happened to make all of the right plays in that star-crossed year for the Hokies. A transfer from Ferrum College, Stevens was playing his first season in Division I Basketball and he proved to be the final piece the Hokies needed.

He averaged just 9.7 points a game that year, and though he was a good passer and ball handler, assists in those days were not kept. Tech finished the 1973 regular season with an 18-5 and earned a berth in the NIT at a time when the NCAA Tournament took only 24 teams. Still, that year Virginia Tech had won games at Ohio State, West Virginia and Wake Forest and made their way through the NIT defeating New Mexico, Fairfield and Alabama by a total of just four points in a series of nail biters in which Stevens played a major role.

Now facing Notre Dame in the NIT Championship, it appeared as if time had run out as with six minutes remaining, Tech trailed by 12 points. Stevens, benched earlier, came back late to help force the game into overtime.  With the clock running down and Tech trailing by a point, Stevens, who had seven points in the overtime session, threw up a shot which missed, but he was able to get the long rebound and quickly put up a shot at the buzzer (shown below) that gave the Hokies a one-point overtime upset win over the Irish and the NIT Championship.

As March Madness begins today giving Bobby a shoutout for being part of that history.