During his lifetime of coaching and directing Selma’s parks and recreation department, Elton Reece touched the lives of thousands of youth in Dallas County and became a friend to all he came into contact with.

Reece, 67, passed away in Birmingham Monday after suffering a stroke, but the influence he had on the city of Selma and those who knew him will always remain.

“You name it, he did it in recreation in Selma,” said Selma Mayor George Evans. “It’s that simple. He was everything and you can never replace him and what he’s meant to this city in terms of recreation.”

Reece was instrumental in bringing fishing tournaments, track meets and baseball and softball tournaments to Selma during his time with the city. Through athletics, he became an ambassador for Selma and seemed to know of everyone that had passed through over the years.

“Everybody called him coach, whether you played for him or not,” said Cory Horton, pastor at Elkdale Baptist Church, where Reece was a deacon. “I was his pastor and I called him coach, because that’s who he was.”

Reece’s responsibilities kept him busy, but lifelong friend Robert Massey said he’d always drop everything to help a friend.

“Any time you needed something you asked him and he was there,” Massey said. “He was at both of my kids’ weddings. He was at my daddy’s funeral. If Elton knew you, he knew you, and he’d do anything in the world for you.”

During his youth, Reece was a standout baseball player. Out of high school, he talked to the St. Louis Cardinals about signing a contract to play professional baseball, but at that time he realized there wasn’t a lot of money in it. Instead, after graduating from Tuscaloosa County High School in 1965, Reece went on to play freshmen baseball and basketball at the University of Alabama.

During his sophomore year, Reece said somebody stole his books and he had to leave the school. Shortly after, he was given a full scholarship by the United States Army and he served his country for two years.

He left the army in 1969 and enrolled at Livingston University, where he played baseball and basketball for three years and earned his master’s degree.

In a previous interview with the Times-Journal, Reece called his time at Livingston University the changing point in his life because of the lifelong friends he met there.

After graduating, he received a call from the principal of Selma High School, who offered him the school’s head baseball and basketball coaching jobs. Reece said he was offered the job without ever actually applying.

Knowing how quickly things change in the coaching world, he expected his time in Selma to be brief.

“I told my wife ‘Sugar, we won’t be there but one year, because coaches change jobs all the time,” Reece said in 2014 during an interview for a Selma The Magazine profile written about him. “That was 42 years ago.”

Reece won over 400 baseball games during his time at Selma High School and a previous Times-Journal story credits him with having over 100 players go on to play collegiately.

“Parents may not have liked him because they didn’t understand what he was doing, but you aren’t going to find anybody who played for him that didn’t love him,” Massey said.

Among those who played for him was Selma Fire Chief Mike Stokes, who played for the Saints in the 1980s and also played city league baseball.

“He was like a father figure to me personally,” Stokes said. “Elton touched a lot of people over the years. He was involved with so many people and in contact with so many people. He just had an impact on [so many] over his life.”

Reece left education in 1991 when lifelong friend John Parris, who at that time was the director of the parks and recreation department, asked him to join his staff.

“We were best friends,” Parris said. “As far as I know, he and I never had an argument in 40 years that we’d been friends and 30 something of those years we worked together.”

When Parris retired, Reece was offered the job as director in 1999, a position he held until his death.

Reece oversaw the city’s athletic programs for football, baseball and softball, but also managed the city’s fields at the Dallas County Sportsplex, Bloch Park and Memorial Stadium among others.

“He did it fair and he did it balanced. For a city that is constantly beating the drum of unity, he’s the example,” Horton said. “You never saw him give speeches, he just lived it man. He was the picture of unity in our town.”

An avid hunter, Reece was one of seven people who started the Little Foot Hunting Club and he also helped manage it for 40 years.

“He was down there every chance he had,” Stokes said. “And coach Reece, the physical act of going out and hunting, that’s not what he cared about. He cared about being down there with good men and children and making sure everybody else was enjoying their time in nature.”

Reece was inducted into the Alabama Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2007. During his time coaching city league baseball he won numerous Dizzy Dean championships.

Lebo Jones, who serves as Selma’s baseball and softball league director, said plans are being made to honor Reece April 9 in a special service before opening day. Jones said all of those plans are still in the works.

“We are going to try to get some former players of his to come and talk and have a memorial service for him — a short one — because he was all about the kids,” Jones said. “We want to make it still about the kids but do it in honor of him.”

Jones said the recreation department will work together through this difficult time in order to keep everything running as smoothly as possible.

“Elton probably wore a size 13 shoe, but it’ll take somebody with a size 25 to follow him,” Massey said. “Somebody will take that job but nobody will ever replace coach Reece.”

Funeral arrangements were pending Monday afternoon.