Larry Vickers is the newest instance that if you are able to do it at a Black faculty, you may in the end get an opportunity to do it at an even bigger faculty.
Vickers spent almost 20 years at one HBCU, Norfolk State, first as a participant, then a males’s assistant, then interim head ladies’s coach to full-time, the place he created a dynasty.
In contrast to what occurred in Gopherland final week, the place the brand new males’s basketball coach was hailed as some conquering hero in his introductory press convention, Vickers and his household additionally have been welcomed at his new faculty, Auburn, on the identical time however not as flashy.
“All through the search course of, one title frequently rose to the highest — Larry Vickers,” declared Auburn Athletics Director John Cohen within the press launch that introduced the previous Norfolk State ladies’s coach’s hiring. “Coach Vickers has an unimaginable technical understanding of girls’s basketball. Nobody has labored more durable for a possibility like this than Coach Vickers.”
These are phrases hardly ever uttered in print or orally a few Black coach upon their hiring at a non-HBCU faculty.
I requested Vickers after his crew’s semifinals win on the MEAC event in Norfolk a few weeks in the past if he has obtained his rightful due as a coach whether or not he’s at a Black faculty or not. “I believe there’s totally different publications throughout the nation that listed me as among the finest mid-major coaches within the nation,” he identified.
Vickers’ spectacular resume that obtained him from Norfolk to Auburn, a public land-grant establishment within the Alabama metropolis with the identical title, speaks louder than phrases: 4 MEAC common season titles, three convention event crowns in 4 tries, and a 60-plus profitable proportion each in league and total. He completed his 10th and remaining season with a program-best 30-5, fifth-ranked among the many nation’s mid-majors ladies’s basketball groups.
This historic season that led to a first-round loss within the NCAAs, the Spartans have been led by Minneapolis native Kierra Wheeler, a first-team all-MEAC and the event’s excellent participant of their victory over Howard for the league’s crown, and guard Diamond Johnson, the MEAC’s Participant of the 12 months and first-teamer.
Each are nearly unstoppable, however the former shortly corrected me: “It’s not simply me and Diamond on the ground…however my teammates are actually good as nicely,” burdened Wheeler, who final week entered the switch portal and can play her remaining yr of eligibility elsewhere. “My crew is absolutely proficient.” Johnson, a senior, deserves an actual shot at making a WNBA roster later this spring.
“We now have wonderful gamers,” famous the previous NSU coach. “I’ve loads of gamers that would play in every single place within the nation.”
Rob Knox of The Subsequent additionally identified, “Norfolk State can now confidently boast its credentials in any dialog in regards to the biggest Traditionally Black School and College ladies’s basketball applications in historical past.”
Vickers was amongst 5 mid-major Black HCs on this yr’s Development of Blacks in Sports activities (ABIS) Black coaches watchlist, and as of now he’s the one one to efficiently go away that record to a Energy 4 faculty. He did his job at Norfolk State and earned the possibility to do it elsewhere.
“So far as the mid-major publications, they all the time record me as among the finest coaches within the nation,” stated Vickers.
Annual historic reminder…
Louisiana Tech defeated Cheyney State 76-62 within the first-ever NCAA ladies’s championship on March 28, 1982. It stays the primary and solely HBCU to make the Closing 4 and play for a nationwide title.
Lastly…
The WNBA’s Chicago Sky final week made league historical past of types with its all-Black teaching workers: HC Tyler Marsh and assistants Courtney Paris, Tanisha Wright, and Rena Wakama all can be of their first season later this yr.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader feedback to [email protected].
