DURHAM — One of the greatest athletes in Kinston’s proud sports history passed away this week when Bryant Aldridge died Wednesday at the Hillcrest Convalescence Center in Durham.
He was 79.
While at Grainger High School from 1948-52, Aldridge played football, basketball and baseball for coaching legends Frank Mock and Amos Sexton. He was the only Red Devil in the school’s history to earn 12 varsity letters and to be a co-captain in those sports.
Aldridge helped lead the Red Devils to three state championships — two in baseball (1949, 1950) and one in basketball (1950).
But it was on the Grainger Stadium gridiron that Aldridge made his strongest mark, as he was named an All-American at fullback his senior season. He represented Kinston in the 1951 Shrine Bowl game, where he was named a co-captain. He later played in the East-West All-Star game in Greensboro.
He had the unique distinction of being the only student in Grainger history to be voted class president all four years in high school.
Following graduation from Grainger, he earned a football scholarship to Duke University, where he helped lead the Blue Devils to a 35-7 victory against Nebraska in the 1955 Orange Bowl.
Aldridge was inducted into the Kinston/Lenoir County Sports Hall of Fame in 2007 in the Hall’s second class.
He influenced many Kinston boys to follow in his footsteps, including George Whitfield, a legendary Grainger athlete in his own right who was later inducted into a dozen different sports halls of fame, including Kinston/Lenoir County’s.
“He was my hero, but he was that to a lot of other boys, too,” Whitfield said. “We all looked up to him because he always seemed to do the right thing. He was not only a great athlete, he was a good student, a good person and very polite to everyone.”
His athletic skills were impressive, said Alley Hart, a Grainger basketball great who graduated from GHS in 1957 and later starred at Wake Forest.
“In my opinion, he’s probably the greatest athlete to ever come out of Kinston,” said Hart, a 2010 KLCSHOF inductee. “There have been so many great athletes to come through Kinston, but he was the greatest.”
As kind as he was off the gridiron, baseball field or basketball gym, he earned a distinctive nickname when he was participating in game action.
“I never saw a person who had as wonderful a demeanor as Bryant did,” Whitfield said. “But on Friday night when the lights went on, he turned into a bull, which is why we nicknamed him Bull Aldridge. He was a strong runner, a crushing blocker and a tremendous athlete.”
Following his Red Devil and Blue Devil sports careers, Aldridge worked as an administrator at Watts Hospital in Durham (1960-63) and as the director of internal operations at Greenville General Hospital (1963-66). He spent 1966-1998 as the president of Nash General Hospital in Rocky Mount. In 1999, a new 23-bed rehabilitation center, located adjacent to Nash General Hospital was named the Bryant T. Aldridge Rehabilitation Center.
He is survived by his wife, Jean Carol Peake Aldridge; two children, Bryant Aldridge Jr. and Myra Allison Aldridge Forrester; one sister, Nancy Aldridge Cherry; six grandsons, one nephew and three nieces.
A celebration of his life will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 19 at the First United Methodist Church, 100 S. Church St., Rocky Mount.
There is certain to be a packed house on hand to remember a man who influenced many throughout the state of North Carolina.
“All of us who loved Grainger and loved athletics will miss him,” Whitfield said. “He was just a wonderful man.”
Bryan C. Hanks can be reached at 252-559-1074 or at Bryan.Hanks@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCHanks.