Deion Sanders, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, Eddie George, Lindsey Hunter, Hue Jackson, Mo Williams and Juan Dixon are a few of the most famous former professional athletes who are currently coaching at HBCUs. Sanders’ success even has Jerry Rice considering entering the ring.
“It has a huge impact,” Howard men’s basketball coach Kenny Blakeney, who played at Duke, told rolling out, “but it’s a lot of work. This isn’t a job that you can come in and use your celebrity to try to really advance your stature in coaching. It’s a lot of work. A lot of learning.”
Blakeney begins every team practice with the recital of a poem or a quote. The next five minutes, the team discusses the text and locates the life lesson from it.
“If a former athlete is getting into this, I think that’s the thing that they really need to understand,” he said. “We have to be educators, we have to be teachers, we have to be leaders. We have to prepare this next generation to move forward to be great family men, great people in the community, great husbands and great dads. That is the thing I think is most important for us as teachers, leaders and coaches at these HBCUs.”
The presence of the high-profile coach has brought additional attention to leagues like the SWAC and MEAC. Combine the social justice movement with the exposure, and star athletes are committing to HBCUs at a rate that hasn’t been seen in decades.
Now what?
“Sustanibility,” Blakeney said. “What I mean by that is, how can we set up our program in a way where there’s sustainability and longevity to have success? It’s developing, building and raising funds for infrastructure. If a young man or young female enters our university at Howard, they’re not compromising anything by coming to Howard.”
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