John Fredrick Calvert, age 76, of Haleyville, passed away on Saturday, October 30, 2021. He was born on August 31, 1945.
A memorial service was held on November 2, 2021, at the First Baptist Church in Haleyville at 12:00. Son-in-law, Timothy Wayne York gave the eulogy and Brother Nathan Carroll officiated.
Johnny was born to Ellis and Lyda Blalock Calvert in 1945. He was reared on a dairy farm and row crop farm in Good Hope. He was baptized at the Good Hope Baptist Church at the age of 9. He was a 3 Sport Letterman at Cullman High School and a two-way starter on the 1962 Cullman Bearcats 4A state championship team. Johnny played interior line positions for the University of Alabama football team from 1963-1966, where he was part of the SEC championship teams in 1964, 1965, 1966 and national championship teams in 1964 and 1965. He settled in as an offensive guard in 1965 and was an All-SEC performer for the 1966 team that was “undefeated, untied and uncrowned” for Paul “Bear” Bryant.
Johnny, in 1967, became a graduate assistant coach for “The Bear.” He married Susan Staff in 1968 and became an assistant coach at Austin High School in Decatur. It was then that Johnny’s wife Susan began to call him “Coach,” a nickname that he is still affectionally known by.
In 1969, Johnny moved his family to Haleyville to begin a career in the mobile home industry. He settled his family there and lived out his days at the house he built in the Briarwood Subdivision in 1971 until the day he died.
Johnny is survived by his wife: Susan Staff Calvert; children: John Fredrick Calvert, Junior, Susan “Buffy” Calvert York and her husband, Timothy Wayne York; a sister: Barbara Calvert Phillips; grandsons: Judson King Stewart, Junior and John “Jack” Fredrick Calvert, III and granddaughters: Alice McLean Stewart, Anne Romberg York and Virginia Rains York.
