Troy University Athletics
Celebrating 100 Years of Trojan Football
10/20/2009 7:45:00 PM | Football
** the following will appear in the Homecoming Gameday Magazine at Movie Gallery Veterans Stadium **
There was a time when every classroom at Troy could be full, but there may have only been two cars on campus. It seems that today there are almost two cars in every parking spot. Times have changed dramatically since the time when the campus at Troy State Teachers College had more buildings than cars on some occasions. One couple has seen the times of old and new, and their story tells a remarkable tale of not only how much Troy has changed, but the world as a whole.
Lon and Mary Wise crossed paths for the first time on September 2, 1938. Lon was the starting left guard on the football team for the Red Wave, and Mary had just transferred to the college.
“We met at student orientation,” Lon Wise said. “All of the students would come to Shackelford Hall to the social room and some of the older students would welcome them. I was one of the greeters and that's how we met.”
Their introduction to one another began a lifelong journey together from that point.
“I was on the football team at that time,” Lon said. “When we would travel we would go by bus, and it was almost like we were all sitting in each other's laps.”
The football trips weren't short either for Wise and the team. They traveled to places like Miami or Statesboro, Georgia or Tampa or to the state of Tennessee to play football games.
But what was life like when he wasn't busy with football or school?
“We would go to the Hodge Podge on Saturday nights,” Mary said. “Everybody would go over to the Hodge Podge, and they were so much fun.”
The Hodge Podge was a night full of dancing and fun for the students, and everybody looked forward to the event.
“Sometimes they would have a Nickelodeon or record player at the party, and sometimes the sororities would get a band out of either Dothan or Montgomery and we would go and dance,” Lon said.
Mary, a member of the Sigma Kappa sorority, was nominated to be Miss State Teachers College in 1938. She won the title and Lon will never forget that day.
“She was the most beautiful girl on all of the campus,” Lon Wise said. “I was lucky to get to know her, and now we have been together for 69 years.”
Mary was honored to be called Miss State Teachers College and still is today.
"That sort of stuff doesn't happen to country girls,” she said. “I was a country girl and the rest of the girls in the sorority were town girls.They brought me bouquet of flowers, and that's how I found out I won. It was sponsored by the Tropolitan newspaper, and it was a great honor.”
Through their 69 years together the two have seen a lot.
Lon finished at Troy and went off to fight in World War II. As an educator for his entire career, that would be the only time he ever spent away from an education environment until his retirement in 1980.
One weekend every fall ties these two big portions of their lives together.
“At every homecoming there is always a World War II banquet that we love to go to,” Mary said. “We love Troy, and we love every time we get to go up there.”
The two love to reminisce of their college days.
“We would go sometimes and get ice cream for ten cents,” Mary said. “We used to love to sit outside and eat ice cream. Nobody ever had any money, and sometimes my brother would send me a couple of dollars. When I say a couple of dollars I mean literally a couple of dollars.”
The price of a gallon of gasoline in recent times during the price surge would have been enough money to last a month.
“Homecoming is always special to us,” Mary said. “We used to load up our six kids no matter where we were. We would all get in the station wagon and head for Troy. It never mattered how much money we had or didn't have, but we never missed a homecoming.”
In fact, that's a motto the Wise family has lived by. Life is about being happy and not about the money. Being at Troy with friends from school and the war makes them happy.
“My days at Troy were the best time of my life,” Lon said.
A total 70 years have passed since his time at Troy, and of all the unforgettable things he has seen and done, Troy is the nearest and dearest to his and his wife's hearts.
“I was a part of D-Day in World War II,” Lon said. “I wrote down all of my memories of the war and put them together in a book.”
The book is not a published book, but it is a book that he passed on throughout his family and to his friends from the war.
“I can remember D-Day and somebody said you could have walked across the channel without touching the water because there were so many boats and ships out there.”
The whole time Wise was there though his mind was on a girl he met in Troy when he was on the Red Wave football team.
Today the Wise family resides in Pensacola, Florida. If one happens to go by Pine Forest High School, there stands a football stadium named in his honor. The stadium is named in honor of a man dedicated to education, a man dedicated to his country, a man dedicated to Troy, and a man dedicated to the love of his life, Mary.
Lon Wise is the oldest living Troy football player, and he will forever love the teachers college in southeastern Alabama that changed his life.
