Published: Tuesday, Nov. 03, 2009 / Updated: Tuesday, Nov. 03, 2009 06:49 PM

Rock Hill's Stevens retires from basketball coaching job

Bobby Stevens, who has coached the varsity boys basketball team at Rock Hill High School for the past 11 years, is retiring from coaching.

Stevens, 58, has been involved with sports since he was 6, and will stay on as a fill-in until the Rock Hill High School administration hires his replacement. “Four years ago people were calling me after we won the state and asking me if I was walking away,’’ Stevens said. “I told them that when the time came I’d know it. That I’d know when the passion was no longer there.

“I realized last Monday when I got up around 2 in the morning and didn’t go back to bed until around 4. I was already restless because the New York Yankees beat my Phillies in the World Series (Sunday) night, and noticed what it was.’’

It was the lack of butterflies he usually gets the first day of practice, which started Monday afternoon. When Stevens got to school, he met with principal Judy Mobley and informed her he was retiring from his coaching job.

Stevens is keeping his teaching position, physical science, and has agreed to stick around at least through the first two weeks and help the Bearcats’ assistants make their cuts.

His best season at Rock Hill came in 2005, when the Bearcats won the Class AAAA state champion, the school’s first in boys basketball, while running up a 22-5 record.

The stars of that team were Torie (Childers) Gurley, a wide receiver at USC, Phillip Adams, a defensive back at South Carolina State and one of the top players in the MEAC, and Victor Street, a guard at Erskine.