DOVER, Del. — 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 at Jackson State 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 ahead of the 2023 season to Power Four program Colorado.
He led Colorado to a 9-4 record last season and earned a spot in the Alamo Bowl.
“I don’t think my position would have been possible if he didn’t do what he did,” Jackson said. “Obviously struggled a little this year, but the past few years at Colorado, I think it’s helped guys like myself, Mike, Eddie George, a lot of guys that played, that had the celebrity status, now they’re coaching.”
George, a Heisman Trophy winner and 2011 College Football Hall of Famer, coached HBCU program Tennessee State for four years before he was hired at Bowling Green.
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.”
Jackson recently texted Sanders fishing for an invite the next time the Colorado coach and avid outdoorsman heads outdoors.
“I told him he was busy winning games,” Sanders said. “But I love it because they’re paving the way and opening the doors for so many other athletes that desire. You have no idea how many phone calls I get with former NFL players that want to coach.”
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