Elect John H Merrill - Community Involement

Photo Gallery Community Involvement

2000 YMCA State Championship Team

In 1994, when Brooks was four years old, John coached a team of 5^th and 6^th grade Royal Ambassadors from Calvary Baptist Church through the Tuscaloosa County Baptist Association and all the way to the Alabama Baptist Association State Championship.

After the championship game in Gadsden was over, Brooks was thrilled as he looked at the trophy that almost came up to his chest. John told him that one day, when he started coaching him, they would work hard and win a state championship together.

In February of 2000, that dream came true when Thomas Wilson, Thomas Dedrick and John coached their sons and the rest of the Tuscaloosa YMCA Central Red All-Stars to the Nine Year Old YMCA State Championship at the state tournament in Tuscaloosa.

The team marched through the tournament until the final game against the Montgomery Southeast Blue All-Stars. That titanic struggle between the two best nine-year-old teams in the state resulted in a 34-32 victory for Tuscaloosa at Hillcrest High School in Taylorville.

Members of the team were from left to right: (Kneeling – Stephen Stuart, Bryant Wilson, Brooks Merrill, and Brett Booth. Standing – Rudy Harrison, Reid Mills, Wayne Dedrick, Taylor Walden, and Quinton Mason. Coaches – Thomas Dedrick, Thomas Wilson, and John H. Merrill.

To learn more about the YMCA, click here.

The West Alabama Festival With Franklin Graham

On April 30^th, and May 1^st and 2^nd of 1999, evangelist Franklin Graham, son of world renowned evangelist Billy Graham, came to Tuscaloosa to bring a message of salvation through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to all citizens of Tuscaloosa County and West Alabama.

Wayne Atcheson, associate director of Tide Pride, was the Festival’s Chairman and he recruited John and University of Alabama Head Basketball Coach Mark Gottfried to help out with the festival, which is part of the ongoing series of crusades conducted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). The festivals are organized to spread a message of salvation through Jesus Christ and a message of hope and peace across the world. Almost fifty thousand people heard the message of Christ during those three days.

Gottfried, the 2002 Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year and one of John’s best friends, and John were co-chairs for the Men’s Committee and Family Day. Mark is a very devout Christian and an active member of The Church at Tuscaloosa. He and his wife Elizabeth have five children under age ten. To learn more about Mark and his Southeastern Conference Champion Alabama Crimson Tide basketball team, go to his website at www.markgottfried.com or visit the University of Alabama’s official website at www.rolltide.com.

To learn more about Franklin Graham and his ministry, read Rebel With a Cause and Living Beyond the Limits, or visit the official websites of Samaritan’s Purse at www.samaritan.org or the BGEA at www.billygraham.org.

Wayne Atcheson, one of John’s closest advisors, mentors, and friends is also the advisor for the University of Alabama’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter where John helps him each Wednesday night at 9 p.m. at Calvary Baptist Church where Wayne and John serves as Deacons.

Wayne is the author of four books including, Our Family Was a Team, Impact for Christ, In Due Time, and Faith of the Crimson Tide. To learn more about the Fellowship or Christian Athletes, please visit the FCA’s official website at www.fca.org.

John’s boys

Pictured here are some of the young men that have meant a great deal to John over the past 27 years. He has taught them in Sunday School, Mission Friends, and Royal Ambassadors at Calvary Baptist Church.

These guys purchased this advertisement in the 1999 Central High School football program to show John their appreciation for his influence on their lives.

Promise Keepers-Standing in the Gap – Washington, D. C.

On October 4, 1997, more than one million American men crowded the National Mall to pray individually and collectively for the state of this great nation as part of the Promise Keepers movement that has swept across the United State in the past decade.

John said, “This event is one of the most dynamic revival meetings in our nation’s history.” This photo was taken in front of the U. S. Capitol building with (first row L to R) John and Bryan Kindred, (second row L to R) Scott Sims, Steve Ikard, Jody Allen and Preston Robertson.

To learn more about the Promise Keepers movement visit their website at www.promisekeepers.org/ or read Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper.

PARA All-Star Basketball Camp

Since 1998, John has directed the PARA All-Star Basketball Camp at the Mary Ann Phelps Center near Rock Quarry Elementary.

Each year around 100 or more campers have come to this weeklong event to learn how to improve their basketball skills and how to become better people.

The camp’s staff has included University of Alabama basketball players Erwin Dudley, Rod Grizzard, Terrance Meade, Jim Bakken, Antoine Pettway, Mo Williams, Ron Steele, Kyle Sellers, Leah Monteith Goss, Joni Crenshaw, Shondra Johnson, Latoya Caudle, Manisha Redus, Jamilah Johns, and Richard Hendrix.

Brooks and John are pictured here with Tyrone Prothro who helped with the camp in 2009.