About Inductee

A leader on the football field and in the classroom, Steve Cash was one of the top student-athletes in Grissom High Schools early years. Labeled our spiritual leader and defensive stopper by Grissom coach Larrie Robinson, Cash was a linebacker-tailback for the Tigers from 1974-76. All-City as a junior, he was also selected to the All-State team, which included future college stars Major Ogilvie, Frank Warren and Byron Braggs. Cash, also a prep All-American, received a football scholarship from the University of Alabama. As a high school junior in 1975, Cash was a key cog in Grissoms 10-2 season and its trip to the state playoffs. The most epic game that year came in late October when Grissom (7-0) defeated Johnson (7-0) by a 7-0 score before an overflow crowd of 12,000 at Milton Frank Stadium. Late in the first half, Cash tackled Johnsons tailback Butch Cassady inches short of the Grissom goal to preserve what turned out to be the final score. The Johnson game is a great memory, Cash said. It was standing-room-only. We were both undefeated. I remember stopping Butch at the goal line. He and I were talking in the pile. I told him he didnt make it. He thought he did. Im sure glad the referee saw it my way. Cash was recruited by many schools, including Auburn, Tennessee and Georgia, but chose Alabama because of coach Paul Bryant and because Lee Roy Jordan was a childhood idol. A promising college career was cut short, however, by two knee surgeries in his freshman and sophomore years. He graduated from Alabama in 1981 with a degree in Civil Engineering and then went on to a distinguished career with NASA, mostly at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. After the knee operations, he stayed connected with the program by helping as a strength coach, noting that Coach Bryant took good care of me and paid for the rest of my education. Following graduation, Cash quickly began climbing the ranks at NASA, starting as a Stress Analyst in Marshalls Structures and Propulsion lab in 1982. Following the Challenger accident in 1986, he was assigned to the Shuttle Rocket Booster Redesign Team and became manager of the Solid Rocket Booster Case Subsystem in 1989. After the Columbia accident in 2003, Cash spent a year at the Kennedy Space Center, working on return-to-launch issues. He was appointed manager of Marshalls Shuttle Propulsion Office in 2007. After the shuttle program ended last year, Cash was named Director of Safety and Mission Assurance at Marshall. He has received many NASA honors, including the Eagle Manned Space Flight Award for significant contributions to human space flight just last month in Washington, D.C.. Cash and his wife, the former Pam Jones of Dadeville, live in Huntsville with their two children, Matt and Mally.