NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Eddie George thought he’d grab a quick nap on the black leather couch in his recently renovated office at Tennessee State University. He had a few hours to kill before addressing his team to commence fall camp, so a little recharge for the man who never gets a break sounded nice.
George, though, was fooling himself when he thought some brief R & R was in the cards. Next to him on the couch were two beautiful English Bulldog puppies, still with the pink paws. One is named Richard Duke George III, after his grandfather; the other is Nairobi Angel, named after a character in the Netflix show, “Money Heist.”
If you knew nothing about George when you walked into his office, you’d quickly realize he’s different. He’s a college football coach with puppies in his office, one of whom pooped a few minutes after George had come to terms with the fact that his nap was never going to happen. He got up, went to the closet, grabbed some pet cleaner and proceeded to pick up the mess.
“Another day in the life,” George joked.
This man doesn’t need to be picking up dog poop.
He doesn’t need to be the head coach at an HBCU that competes in the FCS ranks.
But George, who has already accomplished more than the average person could ever dream of, rarely does what people think he should do. Shouldn’t he be on the beach somewhere?
“It amazes me,” George said, with an err of resentment, “that people, when they think about athletes, (think they) should be on a yacht because they made a bunch of money. That’s not living. Not to me, it’s not. Anything worthwhile is going to take hard work. Is your job easy? Becoming a stock trader isn’t easy. Becoming an actor is not easy. To me, it all trained me for this position. I use bits and parts of my life every day in the situation I’m in now. Ultimately, it’s finding a purpose. It’s a bigger purpose.”
George has been in the spotlight for over three decades.
He starred at Ohio State, becoming one of the best running backs in school history. He capped off his collegiate career by winning the Heisman Trophy in 1995 when he rushed for 1,927 yards and 24 touchdowns. After being selected in the first round of the 1996 NFL Draft, he embarked on a nine-year NFL career, which began with one season in Houston before the team moved to Nashville, and accumulated more than 10,000 rushing yards. He was a two-time All-Pro and played in a Super Bowl.
That’s not where his story ended. After football, George earned an MBA from Northwestern. He started multiple businesses, including a landscaping architecture company and a wealth management firm. On top of that, he took acting and voice lessons and, in 2006, he appeared in the Broadway production of “Chicago.”
And now, the man with so many interests has a new passion: to return TSU to prominence despite not having a single year of coaching experience at any level before taking the job in April 2021.
“These are all different arenas, but I’m the same person in all of them,” said George, now 48 and still built like he could rush for 1,000 yards in the NFL. “When I have to get up and speak in front of these kids, that’s my audience. That’s my opportunity, not act per se, but to sell what we’re doing. This is our opportunity. This is who we are. This is where we need to go. These are our core pillars. This is our lifestyle and this is what we’re going to do. It all plays into it. Reading a budget sheet, that’s very much in this situation a part of the culture here in terms of raising money and bringing a better quality of life to our student-athletes, building a new football ops center. You can make the case that (my life experiences) could make me the perfect coach.
“I came to this position not in the traditional sense. I was honest about that when I talked to the administration about this job. I asked them if they are sure they wanted me to do this, because if I do, I’m going to go all-in on it. My saying is, ‘Don’t think outside of the box, eliminate it.’”
Deion Sanders is highlighting the potential of what HBCUs can accomplish with his work at Jackson State. The man known as Coach Prime made national headlines last December when he convinced five-star cornerback Travis Hunter, the No. 1 player in the 2022 recruiting class and a long-time Florida State commitment, to sign with Jackson State.
Hunter’s recruiting flip — from Sanders’ alma mater — announced to the college football world that Sanders’ vision to make Jackson State nationally relevant was far more than a pipe dream.
Sanders was known for his flashy play and brash talking as a player. He hasn’t changed a bit now that he’s a coach, and he really could make this thing work.
George is different. He has the same ultimate goals as Sanders — and he is also very much driven by the idea that elite recruits can thrive at HBCUs — but he’s not flashy. He’s not loud. He’s not promising in press conferences that Tennessee State is going to become a national power. He’s focused on the work. When the results come, people will see it.
And it’s not as though Tennessee State has never won before. In the 24 years from 1963 through 1986, the Tigers went 201-41-8 (a staggering .820 winning percentage) under legendary coach John Merritt and his successor Bill Thomas. They peaked in the early ’70s, compiling a 41-2 record and winning three Black College National Championships from 1970 through 1973.
But that was a different era.
In the three years prior to George’s arrival, TSU went a combined 9-19 overall and 7-15 in the Ohio Valley Conference. The program hasn’t won more than seven games in a season since 2013.
The Tigers showed progress in Year 1 of the new regime. In 2021, they went 5-6 overall and 3-3 in league play — despite the fact that George was hired only five months before the opener.
But it’s not just about his record.
Tennessee State will open the 2023 season on a national stage when it makes the trip to Notre Dame. It will be the Fighting Irish’s first game ever against an HBCU.
George has also been able to build a high-profile staff. In 2021, his offensive coordinator was Hue Jackson, the former head coach of the Cleveland Browns who is now the head coach at Grambling State. The defensive coordinator is Brandon Fisher, the son of former NFL head coach Jeff Fisher (George’s coach with the Titans). His linebackers coach (Joe Bowden), defensive line coach (Clyde Simmons) and special teams coordinator (Keith Burns) combined to play 37 years in the NFL. He also has some former Ohio State Buckeyes on staff — Pepe Pearson (running backs), Richard McNutt (defensive backs) and Michael Brewster (tight ends).
That’s a lot of firepower for a staff at an FCS program.
People are taking notice. Take Terrance Cunningham Sr. for example. He’s the father of T.A. Cunningham, a five-star defensive lineman in the Class of 2024 who recently moved from Georgia to California.
“He has a staff full of former NFL players that had careers that lasted over five years,” Terrance said of George. “Those are all the position coaches. It’s phenomenal. If they had some more resources — and I think they’ve tapped into more recently — that school is going to be a contender. That’s how good his staff is. He still needs to get the talent because there are disparities there at HBCUs still, which is the truth, but you have some crazy (coaching) talent. They are a contender for the services of T.A. He’s very impressed with them.”
This is a slow build. George understands that there are no quick fixes. And he isn’t afraid.
“I’m not going to bow down to anyone,” George said. “If I go into the same room with Ohio State, OK. I know what Ohio State has to offer. I was born in it. I know the blueprint. They still use me for recruiting purposes. My name is in the stadium. I understand that. Why would I say I’m not going after a certain caliber of player because we’re not Ohio State? We’re still an option. You can still go to the NFL or any other place from here. We don’t have the same exposure. Our weight room may be a little smaller. Our layout is a little different. But our quality of coaching? I would put my staff up against anybody’s.
“We may not have a lot of GAs or the best looking fields, but we still have a field that’s 53 yards wide and has white lines.”
This is not George’s first go-round at Tennessee State.
The Titans held training camp on campus in the late 1990s as they were transitioning from Houston to Memphis to Nashville.
When he returned in 2021, he saw a football facility in desperate need of renovation.
“The facilities to the lack of resources that you see at a typical Power 5 school, from nutrition to equipment to football operations budget — we need to really hone in and focus on those things,” said George, who has to talk over the air conditioning system in his office. “We need to upgrade the facilities. The bones here are there. They need to be put together, polished and packaged in way where it’s sufficient and appreciated and has sustainability.
“This is a much better upgrade already of what we had before we got here. When we got here, the floors were filthy, the lights weren’t working. We just wanted to change the vibe, give it a whole new overhaul. So we got new furniture. There was a hodgepodge of furniture from you know, different old manufacturers of office supplies that you wouldn’t have typically seen at a Power 5 school. It looked makeshift. We wanted to touch it up, add some professionalism to it and give it as much of a Power 5 feel as we could. We did just that.”
There was a time when George thought he bit off more than he could chew. Organization hasn’t always been where it needed to be. There’s someone knocking on his door every five minutes bringing him up to speed with a new problem that needs to be solved. But as he eases into the role, he’s becoming more comfortable as the CEO of Tennessee State football.
Above all, his vision is to enrich the lives of his players.
Oh, and maybe win a championship or two.
About that nap? George knows there won’t be many of those. Not today or tomorrow.
(Top photo: Ari Wasserman / The Athletic)
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