Make no mistake: Head football coaches Alonzo Hampton, of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and Cedric Thomas, of Alcorn State University, whose teams will play Saturday, Sept. 12, in the Southern Heritage Classic, will do everything possible to secure a victory at the other’s expense.
But the football rivals sounded like friends on the same team Friday at the Classic Coaches Luncheon where they shared their common mission to uplift and develop the next generation of young Black men.
The UAPB Golden Lions and the Alcorn State Braves meet at 6 p.m. Saturday to compete in the 37th football classic at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee. UAPB won last year’s matchup 24-20.
At Friday’s luncheon, held at the Renasant Convention Center in the Grand Ballroom, the two coaches spent more time talking about life beyond the scoreboard than what they could expect Saturday at kickoff.
They laughed. They traded friendly jabs. Hampton called Thomas a friend, recalling a time years ago when he lost a player to him.
“He took one of my players, but we ain’t gonna talk about that either,” Hampton joked.
Thomas returned the affection, and then put their relationship, and their profession, in perspective.
“At the end of the day, we’re a servant of these brown faces,” Thomas said. “That’s what we are here for. The X’s and O’s, that’s fine. The W’s and L’s … but giving these young men a format for living and using football as a GPS tracker for that, I’m forever grateful.”
‘Academics will come first’
For Hampton, that mission is rooted in a childhood marked by tragedy.
“My mom was shot and killed when I was three years old,” Hampton told the audience. “My father was shot and killed when I was in the fifth grade.”
He went to live with his grandmother in a home with an outhouse in Johnsville, Arkansas, a tiny community about 200 miles southwest of Memphis, where challenges for him unfolded in the classroom.
“I was in the fifth grade on a third-grade reading level,” he said. “And it wasn’t because I didn’t know how to learn. Nobody ever taught me how to sit down at a table.”
After his father died, Hampton said, his stepmother returned and helped raise five children. Every day after school, she sent him to the table with a book.
“She said, ‘It’s no such thing as you don’t have homework.’”
Decades later, Hampton said that experience is reflected in his expectations for his players. UAPB’s football players have maintained at least a 3.0 grade-point average during each of his eight semesters as head coach, he told the luncheon guests.
“I don’t want to hear what you can’t do,” Hampton said. “Academics will come first.”
He also said winning remains part of the assignment — just not all of it.
“If I don’t tell you about academics, then I’m doing you a disservice as a head coach,” Hampton said. “And we’re gonna win football games, don’t get me wrong, but we’re gonna do it the right way.
“We’re building men of character.”
Different sidelines, familiar journey
Thomas knows something about the institution where Hampton now leads the football team. He earned his bachelor’s degree from UAPB and later returned as its head football coach for two seasons before eventually returning to Alcorn, where he is now in his third season. as head coach.
And he learned the impact a football coach can have on a young man — particularly when the coach believes in the student while other instructors do not.
“I made a 15 on the (ACT) five times,” Thomas said, referring to the college admissions exam. “And the same teachers told me I was stupid, I wasn’t gonna make it.”
Then a UAPB coach told him something different. The coach promised Thomas that if he could improve his ACT score and earn an associate degree from Mississippi Delta Community College, there would be a scholarship waiting for him.
Thomas met the challenge and the coach kept his word. Thomas attended UAPB and graduated. Later, another coaching connection led him to Alcorn as a graduate assistant, where he eventually earned his master’s degree.
Then the similarities between the two men’s stories became even more personal.
“Coach talked about his trauma,” Thomas said. “Well, I got the exact same thing. I got a bullet in my hand right now where my mom shot my dad.”
For Thomas, sharing those stories with young people is itself part of coaching.
“When you got two men that can stand in front of young brothers and sisters and tell that and be intimate about what they’ve been through,” Thomas said, “that says we’re going in the right direction.”
‘We’ve already earned it’
The coaches’ stories provided an almost seamless setup for keynote speaker Curtis Symonds, co-founder and president of HBCU GO, a free, 24-hour streaming network owned by Allen Media Group that covers sports, entertainment and culture for historically Black colleges and universities.
Symonds used his remarks to make a broader case for the institutions represented on the stage: HBCUs do not need to prove their worth, he said. Instead, they need the investment and exposure commensurate with the value they already create.
“We deserve visibility,” said Symonds, repeating the word for emphasis. “Visibility, because we don’t get enough of that.”
He recalled hearing someone on a panel say HBCUs needed to demonstrate the “value” they bring when seeking investment. Symonds pushed back.
“We’ve had 180-plus years of value,” he said. “We’re showing the world that not only do we deserve the visibility, we’ve already earned it.”
But Symonds also challenged alumni, sponsors and communities to do their part, particularly by showing up in the stands — after they leave the tailgate.
“There shouldn’t be an empty seat in Liberty Stadium come Saturday,” he said.
Back to the business at hand
For all the talk about mentorship, education and the larger mission of HBCUs, both coaches made clear there is still a football game to be played Saturday. Hampton stopped short of predicting a winner.
“I predict that we’ll have a great game,” he said. “I predict that we all will be excited.”
Then came the jab.
“When you show up tomorrow, make sure you got on black and gold,” Hampton told the crowd, before teasing his opponent. “I know Coach Thomas, he got black and gold on underneath that purple today.”
Thomas laughed and then issued his own call to the crowd, one that again brought together the luncheon’s themes of competition, community and support.
“Let’s come out and support these young brothers,” Thomas said. “It’s gonna be a game. It’s gonna be a damn good football game.
“Tell a friend. These young brothers need it. Because when bad things happen, we’re quick to put it in the newspaper, we’re quick to put it on social media. But when they’re doing well, let’s support them and do the exact same thing.”
Then Thomas turned back toward Hampton.
“Friend,” he said, “let’s put on a show for the people. Let’s have a good one.”
