Black Athletes in the Spotlight: HBCU Sports & Local Highlights
Shawn Gibbs isn’t backing down. The first-year head coach of North Carolina A&T football may be inheriting a program picked dead last in the 2025 Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) preseason poll, but don’t expect any excuses from the man now at the helm of one of HBCU football’s proudest traditions.
“This is home,” Gibbs said after being introduced as head coach in December. “We’re not afraid to say it: we want to be the best. And we believe the CAA gives us a chance to show the world what HBCU football is really about.”
That quiet confidence isn’t just coach-speak—it’s rooted in the legacy he helped build.
From Celebration Bowl Glory to CAA Growing Pains
From 2015 to 2019, A&T dominated the HBCU football landscape. Under head coach Rod Broadway and later Sam Washington, the Aggies won four MEAC championships and took home four Celebration Bowl trophies in five years. Their ground game, powered by stars like Tarik Cohen, was elite—and Gibbs, as the team’s running backs coach, helped engineer it.
However, after leaving the MEAC for the Big South in 2021 and then the CAA in 2023, A&T’s golden era faded. In a controversial move, the university parted ways with Washington. Choosing to go in a “different direction” from the Rod Broadway coaching tree by hiring former NFL linebacker Vincent Brown. In two years under Brown, the Aggies won just two games and failed to notch a single CAA conference win—a far cry from their dominance just a few years prior.
With Gibbs returning to Greensboro, the program is doubling back to the foundation that brought national success.
Facing the CAA — and the Critics
Shawn Gibbs knows the CAA isn’t the MEAC. But he also doesn’t buy into the doom-and-gloom.
“We get to play great teams week in and week out,” he said at media day. “And we get to show ourselves in a region of the country that probably doesn’t know much about HBCU football. So let’s go do that.”
While the CAA was once considered an FCS juggernaut, recent exits by James Madison, Delaware, Richmond, William & Mary, and Villanova (in 2026) have thinned its ranks.
Some now question whether A&T’s move from the MEAC—where they were a dynasty—to a CAA that’s losing prestige was worth it.
That debate flared again after HBCU Gameday reported on the 2025 CAA preseason poll, where A&T landed at last at No. 14. The Facebook comments? Brutal, with some blaming HBCU Gameday articles for stoking a flame of discourse that they want extinguished. While many fans are still asking: Should A&T come home to the MEAC? Others want to move forward and make peace with their place in the CAA.
But for now, Gibbs is focused on building—not debating.
More Than a Job: A Purpose
Shawn Gibbs made it clear that his mission isn’t just to win games. It’s to restore Aggie Pride as a way of life.
“Aggie Pride is what’s going to help these guys graduate, be great fathers and husbands, and leaders in the community,” he said. “That is my purpose. My job is to win football games.”
Despite being underfunded compared to their CAA peers, Gibbs isn’t fazed.
“We’ve always had to find a way to be great with less,” he said. “We’re going to do the most with what we have—and we’re going to get players who believe in what we’re building.”
The Road Ahead
North Carolina A&T opens its season on August 30 at Tennessee State, another HBCU with a proud tradition, that plays football in a non-HBCU conference. It’s a fitting place for this new era to begin.
A&T might be at the bottom of the preseason poll—but with Gibbs back on Benbow road, you shouldn’t bet on them staying there for long.
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