From NFL stars to HBCU head coaches: Vick and Jackson on same path as they reunite in Philadelphia

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DOVER, Del. (AP) — Years before DeSean Jackson and Michael Vick thrilled Eagles fans with deep-threat touchdown passes and decades before they became head coaches set to lead their teams from historically Black colleges into a showcase game on national television at an NFL stadium, the future friends first met at a Los Angeles shopping mall.

Jackson was in about the ninth grade when the star-struck teen first saw Vick, already a bright star with the Atlanta Falcons. He had his hefty entourage in tow when Jackson summoned the nerve at the Beverly Center to try and say hello.

“I said like, ‘What’s up?’ or something like that,” Jackson said with a laugh. “But you know, I’m looking at him like, Oh my God!"

Jackson grew from looking up to Vick to sharing a huddle with him in Philadelphia. The two retired NFL stars will be together again Thursday night when their teams — Vick at Norfolk State and Jackson at Delaware State, both out of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference — face each other at the home of the Super Bowl champion Eagles.

They are the kind of football programs and a conference that would never get such a major platform in the regular season — the game is on an ESPN channel — had they not become the latest HBCU's to dip into the celebrity coaching well.

Jackson and Vick's missions are clear — use their celebrity, their connections, their football smarts to resuscitate two long-suffering programs in the HBCU community much in the way Deion Sanders did on his way to Colorado.

Jackson and Vick are trying to follow the path blazed with humor, hubris and a lot of wins much as Sanders as did as perhaps the most successful former NFL star who cut his teeth in coaching at the HBCU level.

Sanders began his coaching career at Jackson State, a historically Black college that plays in the NCAA’s second tier Championship Subdivison, and guided the Tigers to consecutive Southwestern Athletic Conference titles before he made the jump to Power Four program Colorado. He led Colorado to a 9-4 record last season and earned a bowl bid.

“I don’t think my position would have been possible if he didn’t do what he did,” Jackson said.

Sanders has talked about the dearth of Black head coaches at the highest levels of college football and how's he trying to be a catalyst for change.

Vick and Jackson both credited Sanders as a mentor and lean on him for advice in how to use their name recognition as a springboard for being able to recruit top talent and serve as father figures in much the way former Eagles coach Andy Reid filled that role for them.

“We had coaches who bought into us,” Vick said. “As players, you think back to how you got to this point. You start thinking about all the people who bought into your life and all the mentorship that you had and the people that really cared. We've got an opportunity to reciprocate that.”

The 45-year-old Vick, who starred in college at Virginia Tech and was a four-time Pro Bowler in 13 seasons for Atlanta, Philadelphia, the New York Jets and Pittsburgh, is off to a rocky start in his rookie season.

Norfolk State, with an enrollment of about 5,100 students, is 1-7 and has lost six straight games. Vick recently fired some assistant defensive coaches as he tries to revive a Spartans' program that has made only one playoff appearance since moving to FCS in 1997.

“We can't fail. We can only go up," Vick said.

Jackson has orchestrated a rapid turnaround at Delaware State, with an enrollment of about 6,500 students, that already included its first conference win since 2022. The Hornets are 5-3 and beat North Carolina Central 35-26 last week for their first win in Durham since 1977.

Jackson has pitched his NFL fame as a selling point and tried to rise the program out of a malaise that included a 1-11 record last season. He said he created a name, image, and likeness fund at the school that spreads cash to six or seven select players on the team. There are plans to build a field house near the football stadium.

“It’s not the expectations of what I thought it’d be,” Jackson said. “But man, I feel like these times will make it all worth it. Whenever, if I go somewhere bigger, something like this will make me go, man, I started at the bottom and I went to the top.”

Should Jackson grow the Hornets into an elite HBCU program, he could follow Sanders and start fielding offers to become a Power Four coach.

“Anybody in my position will want to eventually be in a bigger school,” Jackson said. “To tell you the timeframe or when it would be, I don’t know. But I’m going to be prepared to do whatever it is, whether it’s here, wherever else, I’m always going to be the best I can.”

When Jackson played for the Eagles, he looked cockeyed at coaches who watched game film as lunch bled into night and into the next morning, and said, no way. It wasn't a career path for him.

After his last season in 2022, and more than 11,000 career yards receiving, Jackson enjoyed retirement. He’d wake up in the early afternoon, dabbled in real estate and volunteered with the occasional nonprofit organization. The itch to do more eventually got to Jackson and he accepted a job as a high school offensive coordinator in Long Beach, California.

Before accepting the Norfolk State job, Vick also spoke to Sacramento State about its open head coaching position and wanted to hire Jackson on his staff.

Vick said he always wanted to coach and spent most of the last few years coaching his daughter’s flag football team. Vick -- who earned a second chance in Philadelphia after his NFL career with Atlanta was derailed by his conviction in 2007 for his involvement in a dogfighting ring -- had run football camps since he was a rookie with the Falcons.

Jackson now tries to find success at an underfunded football program on a 56-acre suburban campus across the street from a NASCAR track.

“It’s just the dynamics of HBC,” Jackson said. “Delaware State, they’ve never been in a position where they had to do certain things. I don’t know if they took sports as serious. That’s why they bring a guy like me in here, to bring us to the next level.”

Buf first, a game against an old friend.

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AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Boulder, Colorado contributed to this story.

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