Doug Williams, the man who earned Super Bowl MVP honors as a member of the Redskins is headed back to his alma mater, and former employer, after being named the head football coach at Grambling St. Williams was 52-18 in his first stint as the Grambling coach and won two conference championships.
Williams has spent the last decade or so bouncing around NFL front office positions (and coaching in the UFL last year), but he never got a legitimate opportunity to be a head coach at the highest level. According to Cindy Boren at the Washington Post, Williams believes there is a reason for that.
"The good ol' boy network is alive and well,'' Williams said in an interview with tampabay.com. "But it's changed from the good ol' boy network to the fraternity. I always find a way to overcome and just keep going forward. I look at it this way, you've got guys sitting in the front office that never coached. I just didn't coach college, I coached high school. If you've got the patience and time to coach high school, you can do other jobs. There are guys who learned the [football] language and never got their hands dirty, per se. They can't go back and get their hands dirty again.
Wiliams continues to say that he is not frustrated, even though it sure sounds like he is. The big question here is whether NFL organization value actual coaching experience, or if they choose prospects based on who they are and the reputation hey built while playing. It's odd that Williams seems to have both of those necessary attributes, and still wasn't able to get a steady gig.
It is kind of a happy ending though, because Williams will be coaching his son, D.J., who will be enrolling as a freshman this fall.