Spanish Fort Middle School winning volleyball coach is now a Golden Apple winner

Spanish Fort, Ala. (WKRG) — Leigh Jones is a winning volleyball coach and athletic director at Spanish Fort Middle School. Now, she’s also a Golden Apple Award winner.

Jones has been teaching for 20 years, most of them at Spanish Fort Middle, where she has been since the school opened in 2008.

The reason she loves coming to school each day?

“Them. I mean, they’re awesome. It’s fun every day. The kids are fantastic, the administration is fantastic, I mean, I couldn’t be happier,” she said.

Of course, PE class was thrown for a loop when our Golden Apple team arrived.

“I mean, that’s my PE class over there,” said Jones. “This is two years of my volleyball team here. I’m not really sure what’s going on at this point in time. We were going to play kickball but I’m not sure we’re going to play that now.”

We figured she gets a lot of support from her students, especially her volleyball team, which has amassed an overall record of 137 and 0. Last year, her eighth-grade team was 51 and 0.

Her nominators weighed in with sentiments like:

“She’s just the best coach I’ve ever had — she’s just amazing, she made everyday fun,” said Olivia Downey.

Ansley Popple added, “I nominated her because she’s like a really big role model for all of us.”

“I mean she’s just awesome.  She just puts her whole effort into making sure every day is fun —every day is just active,” said Cayden Dorger.

Kimberly Slaton said, “I nominated her because she always wants to make someone be a better person than who they are.”

“She’s amazing — words cannot describe how much we love her and I know other people love her so much,” added Kayla Kraft.

Our congratulations to Coach Leigh Jones and Spanish Fort Middle School for a job well done.

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