The pigskin anniversary
Published 10:05 pm Thursday, July 31, 2014
A 25th wedding anniversary is an auspicious occasion that calls for a celebration with family and friends. Or, in the case of Joe and Sandy Jones, a high school football team.
Joe Jones is the head football coach at King’s Fork High School. He wanted to do something extra special to celebrate 25 years with his wife, who is a first-grade teacher at Carrsville Elementary School and — after 19 years watching her husband coach high school football — well acquainted with the prospect of being a football widow during the fall.
So Joe Jones engineered a recommitment ceremony this week on the practice field, officiated by the school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader and attended by a bunch of young men whose understanding of commitment is still being shaped on the football field by Jones and their other coaches.
All of the players got down on one knee and hummed the “Wedding March” as the couple’s son, Bryce, a senior and member of the football team, walked his mother down the “aisle” made of teammates.
It was a surprise for Sandy Jones and a great opportunity for the members of King’s Fork’s football team to see the true meaning of the word “commitment” played out before them.
Congratulations to the Joneses on their milestone wedding anniversary and to the Bulldogs football players, who received on a practice field such a fine example of how to live off the field.
Traditionally, the 25th anniversary calls for a gift of silver. In this case, though, perhaps pigskin was appropriate.