When a tornado hit Jacksonville State University’s campus about eight years ago and damaged about 50 buildings, the storm didn’t spare the softball stadium.
The scoreboard went down. So did the backstop. A couple of light poles snapped. The bleachers beyond center field wound up on second base, and the beautiful trees behind the stadium were gone. Just gone.
What remained is rather poignant, however. A poster on the front of the stands honoring fallen Gamecock softball star Tera Marie Ross stayed firm. The poster faded a bit, but otherwise, the tornado couldn’t make it budge.
Ross, an ace pitcher during 2001-03, died in a car wreck Dec. 10, 2003, in her home state of Florida, but her legacy remains just as solid at Jax State. That includes this past Saturday’s Tera Ross Memorial Softball Tournament at Choccolocco Park. This marked the 19th straight year of the event.
“It’s amazing that after all these years, they still do it,” said Jami Ross, Tera’s mother. “It’s because we’re family. They made us their family, and we love them.”
Whenever a Jax State team sings the school fight song after a game, that’s Ross’ influence. Jana McGinnis, her coach at Jacksonville State, said Ross wondered how any athlete at Jax State could not know the words to the fight song, so she set out to change that. And she did as president of the school’s student-athlete advisory committee.
The Gamecocks’ softball team took up the charge. They still do. They gather after each game, begin clapping in unison and sing the fight song to their fans, even on occasion when it’s pouring rain.
The memorial tournament is an exhibition event, which is allowed under NCAA rules that give softball programs a chance to play outside competition in the off-season. Jax State invites mostly community colleges, and everyone gets at least a couple of games.
It’s the brainchild of McGinnis and Greg Bagley of Oxford parks and recreation. When McGinnis retired two years ago, longtime assistant coach Julie Boland replaced her and continued the event.
Ross’ parents, Terry and Jami Ross, always attend and get to know the new team. They’ve become close to McGinnis. In fact, when the Jax State softball field was renamed for McGinnis in 2023, they came to the dedication and joined McGinnis’ family on the field.
“It’s just so hard to explain how much Tara meant to our program, what she meant to the university,” McGinnis said. “But we wanted to do something to carry on her legacy. We wanted people to not forget about Tara, and we especially wanted to pass it down to the players that wear the jersey.”
During the tournament, all the Jax State players wear Ross’ No. 31 on their backs. Leading up to the event, they’ll watch a film about Ross.
“The players will know who the Rosses are, who Tara was, just basically who she was as a person and as an athlete, and how she represented our program,” McGinnis said.
“We just thought that it would be a unique thing to wear No. 31 because 31 is everywhere at our field because of Tera — in our locker room, there’s always the number 31. It’s always been special. So we wanted our players to wear it.”
McGinnis said that when Ross pitched, she was as “fierce” as anyone. A 2003 Gadsden Times article about Ross included an anecdote about how a batter hit a rocket up the middle, with the ball striking Ross in the chest. The noise was so loud, the folks in the press box could hear it.
But Ross simply got up, retrieved the ball and threw out the runner at first base, as if it had been a routine play. After the game, she had a big bruise on her chest.
“She put on a persona that people thought, ‘Well, we’re not going to mess with her,’” McGinnis said. “But off the field, she was just the sweetest. You know, if Tara was on the team right now, she’d be out playing with the little kids, talking to the kids. She never let a kid pass without talking to them.”
McGinnis said Ross always gave to others, especially her teammates.
“For example, when she was a junior, she decided to stay at Jax State for Thanksgiving,” McGinnis said. “Some of her teammates could not go home for Thanksgiving because they lived too far away, and she cooked the traditional Thanksgiving meal for the team. That’s just how she was.”
Before Ross headed home for Christmas break in 2003, she asked for all of her teammates’ home phone numbers so she could keep in touch while everyone was away from campus.
Tera majored in family and consumer sciences and wanted to be a wedding planner. She would tell her teammates that when they were ready to get married, she was going to plan their weddings.
She made an impact off campus, too.
“Where she lived, she was surrounded by all these senior citizens, and she would cook brownies for them,” McGinnis said. “She’d help them in their garden.”
Terry Ross said Tera had plenty of other softball offers coming out of high school. She could’ve played at larger schools.
“But when she visited Jacksonville State, she said, ‘This is where I want to go. This is home,’” he said.