Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
Michael Vick sat down and folded his arms in an empty conference room inside Norfolk State’s hotel in Northwest Philadelphia on Wednesday morning, with a focused expression on his face. His team made the five-hour trip from Norfolk, Va., the night before ahead of Thursday’s game at Lincoln Financial Field (7 p.m., ESPNU). But this isn’t a typical road trip for the program, in its first season with Newport News, Va., native Vick at the helm. The former Eagles quarterback, who made a lot of memories on this same football field, has two more personal connections. » READ MORE: Marcus Hayes: ‘Big Dom’, Eagles family rooting for unlikely college coaches Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson. Me too. The first is obvious: His Norfolk State team will play Delaware State with former Birds teammate DeSean Jackson on the other sideline as head coach. The other? His wife, Kijafa, was born and raised in Philly, and her family has deep ties to the area. “My wife’s from here, her family’s here. So [Philadelphia] is like a second home for me,” Vick told The Inquirer. “Playing here in Philadelphia was like the cherry on top. “But to be back as a coach, it’s something that — when D-Jack [brought] the idea to me — it was something I didn’t think would happen.” This time last year, Vick was at Fox Sports, focusing on the NFL and preparing for his weekly appearance on the pregame show desk where he offered his opinions and insights. But in coaching, he says, work resembles more of what he was accustomed to when he was an NFL quarterback for 13 seasons, across four teams (Atlanta Falcons, Eagles, New York Jets, Pittsburgh Steelers). Vick says his life has changed in a big way. He admits coaching isn’t easy when you’re losing: His Spartans are 1-7. But when he was presented with the opportunity to lead Norfolk State 10 months ago, “development” was at the forefront of his mind. “I always wanted to develop quarterbacks and watch their progress, stemming from my football camps,” Vick said. “Knowing that when you do a football camp, you only get a chance to spend four or five hours with them, and then you never see that kid again. You never get a chance to see what their growth process is or where they end up. “I always wanted to put my hands on a certain number of kids to see how they progress. … To have an opportunity to be at Norfolk State and coach gives me the opportunity to watch young men grow as players off the field and on the field.” ‘Going to be real funny’ About 80 miles south of Vick and his team’s hotel, Jackson sat at ESPN’s First Take desk, in Delaware State’s gym as part of the show’s historically Black colleges and universities tour this fall. Sitting behind the desk and with his football team in view of the ESPN cameras, Jackson fielded questions about the successful start to his coaching career. At 5-3, Jackson’s team won its first Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference game since 2022 last weekend. Delaware State was picked to finish last in the conference’s preseason poll and Jackson wasted no time reminding the desk that. » READ MORE: Eddie George blazed a trail for Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson: ‘If you can make it through an HBCU, you can make it anywhere.’ “We were projected to be the last in the MEAÇ. So be it. We come in and we got a long schedule ahead of us, [and] every day we want to go 1-0,” Jackson told the ESPN desk to a rousing cheer from the crowd. “We’re going to win the day, right? We don’t want to be 1% better. We want to be 2% better, and it’s a challenge. … We don’t forget the projections.” Jackson, the recipient of 13 Vick touchdown passes during their five years playing together, was already coaching when he was approached about the Delaware State job. He was the wide receiver coach at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, Calif., last year. He spent one season with the team before taking the job in Dover, Del. Like Vick, Jackson leaned on other coaches for advice in taking the job, like Andy Reid and Deion Sanders. When it comes to Thursday night’s game, though, Jackson was quick to say that he “orchestrated this myself,” with the help of Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and Delaware State president Tony Allen. “I think this is the first time in NFL history, two teammates,” Jackson said on ESPN, “[two] legendary [players] are coaching vs. each other and being head coaches at their home field.” Has he traded trash talk with Vick? “I love my brother to death, but I ain’t messing right now, we can’t talk,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to text back, but you know what? I’m going to text back, but it’s — I can’t talk to him no more, man, I can’t talk to him no more until after the game. But it’s war time, so we’re not going to talk until after the game.” While Jackson played coy when discussing Thursday night’s game, Vick offered a different perspective. “Just coaching against DeSean, man, it’s going be real funny, man, just to see him on the other side,” Vick said with a smile. “All the coaches that I faced have been, coaches [20 or 30 plus] years. … Now I’m talking to a good friend, former teammate, and having an opportunity to face him, my team vs. his team. » READ MORE: Norfolk State vs. Delaware State: Everything you need to know about Michael Vick vs. DeSean Jackson at the Linc “It’s definitely going be an honor man to look back and say, ‘Man, we did something that nobody ever thought we would probably be doing if you look back 10 to 15 years ago.’” Beyond the X’s and O’s Coaching at an HBCU is more than what happens on the football field, and both Vick and Jackson are getting a real-time experience in what that means as first-time coaches. Jackson admitted he “didn’t know the ins and outs” of coaching, and picked Sanders’ brain about coaching at an HBCU. “It’s a lot of obstacles that presents itself at HBCUs, right? [Like] the resources, but at the end of the day, I never got into how hard it may be, because my career was hard,” Jackson said on ESPN. “You got to talk to admissions, compliance, teachers, the [athletic director]. It’s a lot of things. I’m thinking about going to coach football, like it’s all X’s and O’s, and it’s not. … The challenges are what they are, but it’s feet on land mentality, and we going to attack everything.” Vick, navigating his first season for a school just 20 minutes from where he grew up, has focused on establishing a clear culture and admits this season has been a learning process as he figures out what he’s looking for in his program. “The first year is just about gaining experience, understanding the ‘whys,’ who your players are, who’s dedicated, who’s in, who’s out, players and coaches, which coaches are leading, which coaches are setting examples,” Vick said. “It truly don’t come down to X’s and O’s all the time. “[It’s about] every coach having the same mindset as you, being able to teach like you, being a hard-ass like you when they have to, and not cutting any corners. … Those are the things I look for, those would be the deciding factors as to how my staff turns over, what it looks like, and that’s my job as a head coach.” Count Thursday’s game as another chapter that Jackson and Vick share. Wins may look different for both men — Jackson with his on-field success, and Vick bringing excitement back to his program, which broke the school record for attendance last weekend at its homecoming — and they’ll both be celebrated by Philly, no matter the outcome. » READ MORE: Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson say they wouldn’t be coaching without Eagles greats Andy Reid and Big Dom Beyond facing Jackson, though, Vick is also using the experience to bask in the full-circle moment for himself and his wife. “I think God placed us here 15 years ago so she can be close to her family. She’s followed me and watched me chase my dreams for the last 20 years, and so to be able to be here just for the next two days, man, it’s special,” Vick said. “The time I spent here in Philadelphia was special. [At] Lincoln Financial, I had some great memories in that stadium, so hopefully my boys go out there and make some plays.”
