LSU quarterback Joe Burrows high school will name its football stadium in his honor -

Joe Burrow’s high school has one heck of a homecoming planned for the Heisman Trophy winner.

The local school board voted to name the school’s football stadium in his honor.

Members of the Athens (Ohio) City School Board unanimously approved a proposal Thursday night to celebrate the LSU quarterback’s achievements by attaching his name to the field where he starred for the Athens Bulldogs.

“In recognition of Mr. Burrow’s accomplishments,” read the motion by Board member Roger Brown, “the Athens City School District Board of Education does hereby direct the Superintendent and the Athens High School Administration to take such actions as are necessary to name the Athens High School Football Stadium the Joe Burrow Stadium and to work with the Athens High School Booster Club and the Athens High School Bulldog Blitz to plan a ceremony to celebrate this honor.”

Burrow endeared himself as Athens’ favorite son while leading LSU to an undefeated season and the top seed in the College Football Playoff.

“There are no schools in Athens that are purple and gold, so there’s no confusion. Everybody knows if you see purple and gold around here, they’re a Joey supporter,” Jennifer Cochran, a bartender in neighboring Plains, Ohio, told The Washington Post’s Chuck Culpepper.

But Burrow outdid himself onstage while accepting the Heisman Trophy. He called out his hometown, one stricken with industrial blight and poverty, and spoke of how meaningful it was to go from Athens to the top of the college football world.

“Coming from southeast Ohio, it’s a very impoverished area,” he said. “The poverty rate is almost two times the national average, and there’s so many people there that don’t have a lot.

“I’m up here for all those kids in Athens and in Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school."

“You guys can be up here, too,” he added.

“As part of Joe’s acceptance speech he humbly recognized Athens and Southeast Ohio and the many challenges faced by families in our region,” the school board’s motion read.

In the days since, nearly $470,000 in donations have poured into the Athens County Food Pantry.

Athens is the poorest county in Ohio, with an Ohio Development Services Agency report indicating that more than 30 percent of its population lives in poverty — a rate nearly three times the national average. The local pantry served more than 2,100 families last year. Athens Mayor Steve Patterson told the (Baton Rouge) Advocate that the town, which was founded in 1798, has seen its industrial base in the timber, oil extraction and coal businesses wither away. The top employer is Ohio University, with an enrollment of 23,000 students across all levels, followed by the hospital and Walmart.

“Hunger is a real problem in our county. We don’t have much in the way of industry. So economically, we struggle and we’re rural, so transportation makes it very difficult for people to get jobs and be able to get there,” Karin Bright, the food pantry president, told NPR. “People are struggling, and they do their best. But it’s really, really challenging here.”

Money raised off the momentum of Burrow’s Heisman speech is easing that burden, and has made the quarterback even more of a hometown hero.

And soon, when the Bulldogs take the field, they’ll do so in a stadium that honors that inspiration.

Staff writer Cindy Boren contributed to this report.

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