UWA’s Kent Partridge to Enter ASWA's Hall of Honor

The Alabama Sports Writers Association's Hall of Honor recognizes individuals and organizations for their contributions to the association and athletics in the state.

Tommy Hicks inducts Kent Partridge into the Alabama Sports Writers Association's Hall of Honors on Jan. 9, 2024 / Christopher Walsh/BamaCentral

Story by Tommy Hicks, courtesy of the Alabama Sports Writers Association

Kent Partridge officially retired from his duties as athletics director at the University of West Alabama on June 1. Eight days later, on June 9, Partridge is set to be officially inducted into the Alabama Sports Writers Association (ASWA) Hall of Honor at the association’s annual awards banquet at Jacksonville State University.

The ASWA’s Hall of Honor recognizes individuals and organizations for their contributions to the association and athletics in the state.

“I would have never thought about it and it never crossed my mind,” Partridge said of the award. “I’ve been inducted into our Hall of Fame at UWA, which was great for me, and the Golden Key Society there. But when you get recognized by people who you have spent almost the entirety of your 40-year career — working with and working for — that tops them all, I think. It really has flabbergasted me, and still does.”

Partridge, a 1983 UWA graduate, started his career working in the UWA sports information office. He would later work in sports information at Auburn, Texas Tech, Samford and Montevallo. He also has a background as a newspaper reporter. He spent one year at UWA in the school’s online marketing department before moving to the athletics side as sports information director, deputy athletics director and for the past three years the school’s athletics director. He also served as play-by-play broadcaster at the school for the past eight seasons for UWA’s baseball team and as a student was play-by-play announcer for the school’s men’s and women’s basketball teams.

He also worked for the Birmingham Thunderbolts of the XFL and the NBA’s G-League as vice-president for communications. While working for the NBA in Utah, Partridge received a call from the provost at UWA asking if he would be interested in returning to his alma mater in the university’s online marketing department. It was a chance to return home, and he took it.

“It was the opportunity to come home and spend some time with family and our daughter,” he said. “It was amazing, when I came back we had been gone for 20 or 30 years and some of the same people were still here. That tells you a lot about this place, when people come and stay. A lot of them came to school and never left. It just captures you.”

Partridge said the Hall of Honor recognition and his retirement has allowed him the opportunity to look back on his career.

“Our business is a people business, so the think that stands out to me is the opportunity to meet and work with so many great people, talented people, on the media side, athlete side, coach side, all of it,” Partridge said when asked what he will remember most from his career. “I was a coach’s kid for 36 years and you learn through that it’s the people that really count in this thing. And as you grow older you find yourself rooting more for people than teams. All that stuff, if you root for Auburn you can’t root for Alabama or vice versa, all that kind of goes out the window once you meet more and more people and have connections to all those places. To me, that’s what I’ll take out of my whole career, all the people, and there’s a bunch of them out there.”

A Birmingham native, Partridge and his wife, Teresa, have one daughter, Courtney, who is the art teacher for both Leeds Primary and Elementary Schools in Leeds. Teresa is business manager for BBY Publications on the UWA campus. She and Kent are proud grandparents of Charlotte Blair "Charlie" Partridge and they are also “parents” for their beloved dog Maggie.

The ASWA awards banquet is sponsored by Alfa Insurance and the Reese’s Senior Bowl.