Photo courtesy of Mountain Brook Schools.
Benny Eaves, Mountain Brook High School’s athletics director, during a football game between the Spartans and Minor on Sept. 1. Eaves retired from Mountain Brook High School on March 24.
Benny Eaves was recently cleaning out his office and came across a newspaper article from when he was hired as the Mountain Brook Schools athletics director in 2014.
In the story, he stated some of the ideas he had upon taking on the role. Now, Eaves has the benefit of hindsight. Some of those ideas came to fruition over the years. Others, he wishes he had done a better job accomplishing.
“It’s been the greatest professional opportunity of my career, and also the most challenging,” Eaves said.
Eaves has worked at Mountain Brook since 2007 and is retiring following an eight-year tenure as athletics director. During that time, he has overseen an athletics department that won 35 state championships across 11 sports.
Before taking the AD role, Eaves worked as a coach for over 20 years. That transition was far from the easiest thing he’s done.
“It’s a completely different skill set,” Eaves said of being an AD. “While you manage everything, you’re in charge of nothing. Your coaches run their programs and you’re there to assist.”
Eaves got his undergraduate degree from the University of North Alabama after graduating from Bradshaw High School. Upon completing graduate school at Auburn University, he got his first coaching job at Marion Military Institute and remained there for seven years, serving as head football, baseball and basketball coach during that time.
He then spent seven years at Hoover High School, coaching in a variety of roles, before moving on to Mountain Brook.
Eaves said a consistent focal point across all of the roles, in all the different places, is the people.
“Everything starts with relationships,” he said. “It’s relationships between administration and coaches, coaches and players, players and coaches and community.”
Relationships are what make Mountain Brook great, in his mind. Eaves said a couple of his proudest moments as athletics director were seeing Tyler Davis and Mattie Gardner win state championships in basketball and volleyball, respectively, in their first seasons as head coach. Both were assistant coaches within the programs at Mountain Brook before being elevated to the top leadership positions.
Football, baseball, golf, tennis and track and field were among the highly-successful sports throughout Eaves’s time leading the department. He also mentioned the pride in seeing some programs rise from struggling ones into contenders, such as the softball team making it back to the regional tournament last year for the first time in eight years.
Eaves is now one of many people that served as a full-time athletics director at the high school level. The position was typically part of a coach’s duties for many years, but with the increasing demands on coaches, teams and programs, many of the larger schools in Alabama have hired full-time ADs.
“It used to be your job to make sure the lights are on, the officials got paid and the grass is nice,” Eaves said. “Now, it’s a business.”
Athletics has been a key facet of Eaves’s life for as long as he can remember. His “retirement” did not last long, as he began a job outside of education in April. But he’s looking forward to having nights and weekends available as well.
“For 30 years, my wife has had to take a backseat to me coaching or covering events, and I’m looking forward to coming home every night. It’s time for that,” he said.
