Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
It was clean-out day, New Year’s Eve in 2013, and giant black bags, the kind you use for yard waste, littered the floor of the Eagles’ locker room at the NovaCare complex. Michael Vick, DeSean Jackson, and LeSean McCoy, to that point the most dynamic players in their positions in the franchise’s history, sat together at a locker, chatting, checking their phones, awaiting their exit physicals and interviews. They were tight. Three Musketeers tight. They’d been teammates in Philly for five years. It was like seeing sports cars idling in a garage. Twelve years later, Vick and Jackson return to Philadelphia and Lincoln Financial Field, this time to face each other for the first time … as coaches. Vick is the head coach for Norfolk State. Jackson leads Delaware State. It’s hard to explain how odd that phrase sounds to the folks who were around them as players. I’m certainly shaking my head in wonder that these two guys — these two guys — are now in charge of FCS football programs and responsible for the futures of dozens of players and staff. I get the feeling that I’m not the only one. “I’m really proud of DeSean and Mike for what they’ve accomplished as young men, football players, and now coaches,” said Dom DiSandro via text message. “Big Dom,” hired in 1999, officially is the Eagles’ chief security officer, among other, more vague titles. Unofficially, DiSandro has long acted as the person in the building who counseled, guided, and, occasionally, investigated players. If anybody knows where the bodies are buried, it’s Dom. DiSandro vetted the 2008 drafting of Jackson, a first-round talent with 4.3-second 40-yard dash speed but also with concerns regarding both his connections with unsavory types and his attitude on the football field. DiSandro also vetted the 2009 signing of Vick after Vick spent two years in prison in connection with a brutal dogfighting ring in his hometown of Newport News, Va., which, coincidentally, is about 20 miles from Norfolk State. » READ MORE: Eddie George was a trailblazer for Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson They know they owe Dom a debt. That’s why they brought a Big Dom bobblehead to the August press conference that announced that, at Jackson’s request, their 2025 game would be moved from Delaware State to the Linc. Big Dom will be at the Linc to watch them, proud and happy and torn. “It’s going to be wild to watch them compete against each other this weekend at Lincoln Financial Field,” DiSandro said. “The guys have always been family so there is no way I am going to be able to pull for one of them over the other. I’ll just root for both offenses.” The same way he’s rooted for them, as people, for years. DiSandro was hired the same year as former Eagles head coach Andy Reid, the real catalyst in starting Jackson’s career and resurrecting Vick’s. They are, among players, the enduring legacy of Reid’s genius — his ability to take players tainted by misdeeds, bad reputations, and bad attitudes, and create an environment in which not only can they thrive as athletes, but environments in which they can develop into better men and better citizens. Because, let’s face it: Both Vick and Jackson had a lot of developing to do. “DeSean is like a son to me — a fierce competitor on the field, without rival, and a quality leader off of it,” Reid said in a statement when Jackson was hired in December. “I could not be more supportive of his desire to coach Division I football and would stake my career on his success at Delaware State University.” Similarly, Reid issued a video statement when Vick was hired in December: “Michael Vick … Man, is that school lucky to have you. … I love you and I know you’re going to do a great job for them.” As DiSandro said, this is wild. Neither of them, at least early in their careers, were the most detail-oriented, by-the-book, coachable players. Facets of the game such as playbook study by Vick or run-game blocking by Jackson were not their passion. The fact that they rank among the most talented players to ever play the game usually compensated for their blasé attitudes toward conventional NFL behavior. But, like Allen Iverson — like Vick, a product of the Hampton Roads hotbed of athletes — their freedom and improvisation were the secret to their magnificence. Vick and Jackson are just the latest former NFL players to use historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which play in the FCS, to fast-track their way to coaching relevance. After sputtering as a high school coach, Deion Sanders took the job at Jackson (Miss.) State in 2020, infused it with his energy, knowledge, and some of his own cash. He then enticed elite recruit Travis Hunter to join him there in 2022, then took Hunter with him when he accepted the head coaching job in 2023 at the FBS program at Colorado, where Hunter last year won the Heisman Trophy. Neon Deion, known as Prime Time as a player, now goes by Coach Prime; and he’s the prime reason for the resurgence of HBCU football. In 2021, Tennessee State hired less flamboyant Philadelphia native and four-time Pro Bowl running back Eddie George, who this year moved on to Bowling Green, an FBS school. There have been plenty of other pros who have led HBCUs — former NFL running back Tyrone Wheatley is the coach at Wayne State and former NFL cornerback Cris Dishman is the coach at Texas Southern — but both served more typical apprenticeships over several years. There’s little doubt that Sanders, George, Vick, and Jackson traded more on their big names than their coaching games. Other players have taken note: Both Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill and retired safety Tre Boston used social media to announce their interest. All of which is, frankly, awesome. The relationship is symbiotic. Both the football programs and colleges themselves are underfunded, so any means by which they can attract attention and perhaps more money is welcome. HBCUs continue to serve as lifelines to folks who otherwise might not make it to, or through, college. My father and several uncles attended HBCUs in an era when they were the only colleges that would accept them, and since then several of my cousins, and one particularly precocious nephew, have graduated from HBCUs. The easier path to a head-coaching job might seem unfair to the legions of college assistant coaches, Black and white, toiling in windowless offices in the bowels of stadiums, striving to earn the chance that was given to Prime, George, Vick, and D-Jax. Such is the way of the world. Besides, Sanders went 23-3 in his last two seasons at Jackson State, and he’s 16-17 in 2 1/2 seasons at Colorado, with a bowl appearance. George went 24-22 in four years at Tennessee State and was named Big South-OVC Coach of the Year in 2024. Jackson inherited a team that went 2-21 the last two seasons, but Delaware State already is 5-3, its most wins since 2022. So, yeah, maybe these guys can coach. (Norfolk State is 1-7, but the school hasn’t had a winning season since 2021.) The difference between George/Sanders and Vick/Jackson is that both George and Sanders earned reputations as detail-oriented, preparation-obsessed players, for whom a future in coaching seemed possible, if not likely. Vick and Jackson? Not so much. In fact, both Vick and Jackson consulted Reid and Sanders to see if Reid and Sanders thought they could actually handle the job. In the winter of 2024, both Reid and Sanders said yes. In the winter of 2013, sitting in front of those lockers, their Eagles careers essentially over, I don’t think anybody would have said yes. Not Reid. Not Sanders. Not even Big Dom, their biggest fan … and, certainly, not me.
