Glen Coffee's jersey retired by Bruner Middle School

FORT WALTON BEACH — Thursday wasn’t the first time the Bruner Middle School gym had been set abuzz with anticipation.

For a school which houses a boys’ and girls’ basketball program that has captured at least one county championship in each of the past three seasons, the Spartans’ homecourt has seen its share of celebrations.

But on Thursday morning, students crammed into the Bruner gym to honor a past Spartan.

With the backing of a boisterous crowd and former Bruner coach turned Pryor coach Rex Bowman, Bruner coach Dean Vinson formally retired the No. 24 jersey worn by Glen Coffee while pointing to the former Spartan as a source of inspiration for the current generation of Bruner students.

Coffee is currently playing for the San Francisco 49ers after starring at Fort Walton Beach High and the University of Alabama. He played football at Bruner in 1999 and 2000, helping lead the Spartans to an 8-0 record as an eighth grader.

“If there was any example to come through this school of how to work hard and keep your goals set high and make sure everything in your life stays straight … Glen Coffee is a prime example of just that,” Vinson said.

Vinson and Bowman then joined Bruner Principal John Spolski and presented Glen Coffee Sr. with two of Coffee’s Spartan jerseys: a white one that Vinson said would be sent to San Francisco and a blue one that will be framed and hung on the gymnasium wall.

For Coffee Sr., who accepted a plaque in his son’s absence, the ceremony was a touching one.

“It’s a very humbling experience,” Coffee Sr. said.

In 35 games at Alabama, Coffee rushed for 2,107 yards and 14 touchdowns. During his junior season, Coffee was named an All-SEC selection and a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award, given annually to the nation’s top running back.

Drafted by the 49ers last spring, Coffee has drawn a pair of starts in the past two weeks and has rushed for 183 yards and one touchdown in five games.

Prior to the ceremony, Vinson shared a story with the crowd of how a young Coffee voiced doubt in whether or not football was the game for him.

According to Vinson, as a seventh grader, Coffee struggled with the practices and workouts before approaching the coach and telling him that “Football is too hard, I think I’m going to concentrate on basketball.”

It was then that Coffee’s mother, Doris, informed Vinson otherwise.

“His mom said, ‘I’ve spent too much time sending him to city-league practice, he’s staying,’ ” Vinson recalled, drawing laughter from the Bruner students. “From that point on, he became an all-county running back, a state weightlifting champion and an unbelievable recruit at Fort Walton Beach High School.”