15 Jul 2020 CBC Alumni Spotlight: Robert Stewart

Posted at 11:04 AMh in Sports by

In a recent installment of its alumni spotlight series, Central Baptist College featured Hall of Famer Robert Stewart.

Stewart was inducted into the CBC Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010, with the first class ever inducted. He played basketball at CBC from 1972-74 for fellow Hall of Famer Coach Said Thomas and then succeeded Thomas as the head coach in 1979, continuing in that role until 1990. Following his time at CBC, Stewart, who now lives in Damascus, went on to become a school administrator in Arkansas, while also spending eight years as a school administrator in Alaska. He was most recently the part-time special education coordinator at Concord before recently retiring.

Robert Stewart was inducted into the CBC Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010, with the first class ever inducted.

Stewart knew about CBC from a young age. “I have been in a BMA church my whole life,” said Stewart, a graduate of Mount Vernon High School. “I met Coach Thomas then and went and played for him and I became really close to him.” 

Stewart added that he wished he could have attended his induction ceremony, but he was in Alaska at the time, so his wife and daughters attended for him.

Stewart said that he learned many lessons from Thomas during his time at CBC. “He was a very even keel guy. He was a man of integrity and he projected that to us. He was a gentleman compared to the hard-nosed coaches I played for. When I started coaching, I tried to treat my players with integrity just like Coach did.”

In terms of memories, Stewart listed a few moments that will always stick out in his head. “I remember one game specifically when I was coaching. It was a game against North Arkansas College and it went into three or four overtimes. We were down by eight at the end of regulation and fought back to actually win the game. We won because we executed really well. We ended up winning all of our overtime games that season because I had guys who were smart and who wanted to win.” 

Another memory he recalled was getting to take his team to Scotland to play the Scottish National Team in the 80s.

“CBC influenced me to further my education,” said Stewart. “As the athletic director, it encouraged me to go on and move on to other things. I didn’t think I would coach my whole life, so I took advantage of my upper level education (an M.Se.) and being an athletic director taught me how to be a school administrator. One of the best things that happened to me was Coach Thomas getting to train me for my job later as a special education coordinator.”

Stewart recommends CBC highly to any student who is seeking a college. “CBC was the best school I ever attended. I enjoyed my time there. They have great people and everyone cares about you. Even though we didn’t win a lot of games, we had great crowds and great cheerleaders and I made some great friends in my time. It was like being in a family.”

For more of the alumni spotlight series and a continuing countdown of the Top 10 moments of the season, like Central Baptist College Athletics on Facebook and follow @gocbcmustangs on Twitter and Instagram.