COACHES CORNER: Rod Broadway

Rod Broadway isn’t burdened by Grambling State legend Eddie Robinson’s legacy.
He’s driven to add to it

By Donald Hunt

Broadway (left) accepts the '08 SWAC Coach of the Year award from commissioner Duer Sharp.

“We’ve been blessed,” said Broadway, whose Tigers finished with a 10-2 record last season. “You have success when you have good people. We have good coaches who have done a good job. We have good players who have bought into what we’re trying to do with our system. They were eager to learn. They learned how to play. This is a place of high expectation, so to have won a championship this soon … we’re grateful and humble.”

In 2007, Broadway guided the Tigers to the SWAC championship game, where they lost to Jackson State. Last season, he carried the G-Men back to the conference title game and avenged the previous year’s loss to the Tigers by capturing the league crown. In two seasons, he has compiled an impressive 18-6 record, which also includes a 2008 SBN Black College National Championship.

All of this winning earned Broadway the coveted Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year award in 2006 for his brilliant efforts at NCCU. Robinson, the legendary Grambling State coach, who died two years ago, built one of college football’s storied programs for 56 seasons en route to an amazing 408-165-15 record.

“Everybody knows about Coach Rob,” said Broadway, who was chosen as the 2008 SWAC Coach of the Year. “It’s definitely a privilege and an honor to coach here. Coach Rob was 30 years ahead of his time. He made this university, which is heard of throughout the world because of football. He would go every place to play.”

It’s that kind of legacy that drives Broadway to do well, and before coming to Grambling, he was focused on carving out a niche of his own. One of his highlights was leading the NCCU Eagles, then members of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), to two consecutive titles in 2005 and ’06. He also made history by leading NCCU to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Division II Southeast Region, and amassed an impressive 31-11 record there.

“That was a tough job at North Carolina Central,” he acknowledged. “We had to work extremely hard down there. [Their] history wasn’t quite as rich as Grambling’s. We won eight games at Central [during his second year]. It was only a couple times that happened in the history of the school. They’ve been playing a long time. So we broke a lot of barriers there. Then, we won 10 games for the first time in the history of the school. Then, the following year we won 11 games.

“But when I came here they had a lot of things in place. I had enough experience to organize a good coaching staff, recruit good players and have good people around me.”

Broadway is quick to note that he paid his dues, too. He toiled for 22 years as Division I-A assistant—not to mention his playing career at the University of North Carolina, where he starred as a defensive lineman from 1974-77.

But along the way, he said, he’s had plenty of people show him the ropes. “The guy I have a lot of respect for as a pure coach is Bob Sanders,” Broadway said. “Bob used to be the defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers. We worked at East Carolina, Duke and Florida together. He’s one of the sharpest football minds I’ve ever been around.

“Bob Stoops is another coach. Of course, Steve Spurrier is another one, too. I worked with him at Duke and Florida. He really knows the game.”

Those experiences, Broadway continued, helped him learn about the nuances of a solid program. “It’s given me a good foundation for what I’m doing now. We’re Division I-AA, but we run our program just like a Division I-A team.”

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Donald Hunt is a columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune. You can reach him at dhunt37261@aol.com.