Anthony Holloman,Ph.D., is the commissioner of the SIAC Conference and he was in Atlanta for the SIAC’s conference tournament. Before becoming the commissioner of the SIAC conference, Holloman came from a long background of not only advancing HBCUs but sports as a whole. He was Vice President for Institutional Advancement at six HBCUs over the last 25 years, and held director of Athletics positions at Tuskegee University and then Fort Valley State University. Holloman stepped into the Star Studio to tell us more about his conference’s Championship weekend.
What do you think is the hardest thing about being a sports commissioner?
I think the hardest thing is we have 15 institutions over seven state footprint, and you have different rules and regulations for state institutions, private institutions. So the equity of sports and scholarship distribution, I think, is the most difficult thing, because you want everyone to have a fair chance to compete for championships. And you know, it’s not always fair, because we have some large institutions and some small institutions. We have Albany State, which has 8000 students, and then you have Lane College or Allen University, which have 800 students.
The SIAC championship was back in Atlanta, what did you enjoy the most about it?
So Atlanta is the home of the SIAC, and to have the opportunity to bring the championship to Atlanta is exciting. You know, we have Clark and Morehouse, and the Championship was hosted at Forbes Arena. Our auxiliary activities were hosted on Clark Atlanta’s campus. So just the pageantry of having all of our institutions come to Atlanta, we have great fan bases here. This is the largest concentration of HBCU alums in the country, so we knew the support would be here.
Under your leadership, what are some of the biggest accomplishments of the SIAC?
I’m extremely proud to say that we have negotiated a secondary media rights agreement with the Allen Media Group. We signed a 10 year agreement that allows HBCU GO to broadcast football, basketball and our Olympic sports, which we are proud of because, you know, the student athletes who play the non revenue sports normally get the short end of stick, but now we’ll be able to broadcast and stream all of their contests. It allowed us to create the SIAC network, so each institution has their own platform that feeds into the conference platform, and so we’ll be able to market and brand each institution and the SIAC as a collective. We also added indoor track, and that was significant, because we have a history of Olympians in outdoor track. And so in order to prepare our student athletes who are outdoor, we run indoor. And so we held the first indoor track championship in Louisville, Kentucky, two weeks ago, and that was significant, because we ran at the Norton Sports Healthcare Center, which is Black owned facility. The Urban League of Louisville built that facility as one of the fastest indoor tracks in the country, and so that was just phenomenal for us to descend on that city, the home of Muhammad Ali. It was a great experience for the student athletes. And then one of the things that I’m most proud of is that we’ve increased the revenue to the SIAC exponentially, and that’s important, because now we’re able to do revenue sharing, and so we’re able to invest back into our institutions, which will allow them to invest back into their students.
What are your thoughts on Travis Hunter?
Amazing young man you know, to see him excel in the classroom then go out on the football field and play offense and defense and be cerebral enough to handle it, because that’s, I think, the thing that is not said enough that his physical ability allows him to do it, but his mental capacity allows him to excel. And so those are the things that you look for in young people like that. I think he’ll have a long and prosperous NFL career, and he’s a great ambassador for HBCUs.
