Troy football team spends part of MLK Day crossing Selma bridge
Published 9:05 pm Monday, January 16, 2017
- The Troy University football team crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Monday afternoon. The team went on a civil rights tour on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. --Daniel Evans
The Troy University football team spent Martin Luther King Day visiting Selma and walking over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
The Trojans unloaded from two buses and walked each side of the historic structure, which played a defining role in the Voting Rights Movement. In 1965, on a day now known as “Bloody Sunday,” peaceful crossing the bridge were attacked by Alabama State Troopers and were beaten and bloodied.
“Our goal is not only to develop them as football players but to develop them as men,” said Todd Watson, director of football operations. “We hope that they get to see a piece of history and see the good things that leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. did to help pave the way for our future and the way we spend our daily lives now.”
The team also stopped at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery as part of their MLK Day trip. As players crossed over the bridge, they posed for photos and thought about the history that had taken place there.
“One of my teachers, she was always talking about how she marched with Dr. King,” said senior Emanuel Thompson. “Now, I can go back and tell her that I walked across that same bridge too.”
Michael Robinson, who is entering his sophomore year, said the trip gave the team a chance to be together and learn together.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who don’t know a whole lot about the Edmund Pettus Bridge and what happened on the way down,” Robinson said. “Me being from Montgomery, I’ve heard a lot about it, I’ve toured it before, but I’m glad to see some of our other guys learning more about it.”
Troy had one of the best seasons in school history in 2016. The Trojans went 10-3, including a 28-23 win over Ohio in the Dollar General Bowl.
Troy was actually the only FBS team in Alabama to finish the season with a bowl victory.
Alabama, Auburn and South Alabama lost their bowl games.
But on Monday, they weren’t focused on history, not football.
“Being this close to such a big part of our history, we wanted our players to have the opportunity to come and visit and see it firsthand,” Watson said.
