W. C. Gorden

1930—

Football coach

W. C. Gorden is a legend among alumni and supporters of Jackson State University in Mississippi as the most successful coach in the history of the school's renowned football program. Gorden led the Tigers for sixteen seasons and compiled a record of 119 wins, 47 losses, and 5 ties. His tenure included a stunning twenty-eight-game winning streak during the late 1980s. Credited with making Jackson State's football program a powerhouse in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) during that era, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008. When the honor was announced, Michael Rubenstein, executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, hailed the retired coach in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger as "representative of everything that's good about college football"

Born in 1930 in Nashville, Gorden graduated from the city's all-black Pearl High School and went on to Tennessee State University, a historically black college in Nashville. He was a wide receiver for its football team and was also an outstanding baseball player who captained the team. After graduating in 1952 with a degree in health and physical education, he went on to earn a master's degree from the school as well. In 1956 he took a job at Eva Gordon High School in Magnolia, Mississippi, as the school's athletic director and head football, baseball, basketball, and track coach. A decade later, he worked at Temple High School in Vicksburg as its head football coach and athletic director before he was hired at what was then called Jackson State College in 1967.

Gorden initially held two jobs at Jackson State—head baseball coach and defensive coordinator for the football team—before being promoted to head football coach in 1977. One of the several historically black schools in the SWAC in Division I-AA of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Jackson State was already producing future National Football League pros by the time Gorden arrived on campus. "Football is a large part of the soul of this predominantly black state school," noted Leigh Montville in Sports Illustrated. Montville cited a long list of former Tigers who went on to NFL careers, including Lem Barney and Walter Payton, and wrote that scouts for professional teams arrived "every year to weigh and measure and take two and three and four players to the big cities and the big noise." A New York Times article by Ray Glier on the history of black college football programs reiterated Jackson State's legendary status. "In a 1980 study by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jackson State had 21 players in the NFL, more than Alabama, more than Michigan, more than Florida and more than Texas," wrote Glier. "Only six universities that season had more players in pro football than the Tigers."

Gorden is credited with much of that legacy. Under his watch the Tigers—often referred to as the Blue Bengals by supporters—won eight Southwestern Athletic Conference championships; between 1985 and 1989, they racked up twenty-eight consecutive victories in league play. One of the best years under Gorden's direction was the 1985 season, which ended with an 8-3 record; Gorden also coached the SWAC All-Star team that year to a 16-14 win in the Freedom Bowl over the Mideast- ern Athletic Conference All-Star team and was named Coach of the Year by the National Sports Foundation.

Amid all of these triumphs were also a string of tragedies: in 1970, when Gorden was still an assistant coach, the campus was the scene of a notorious incident in which Mississippi Highway Patrol officers fired into a women's dormitory during a campus disturbance, killing two and wounding seven. In 1988, at the height of the team's success, defensive back Antonio Rogers died in an automobile accident. Sixteen months later, running back Earl Eatman met the same fate.

The most wrenching loss for Gorden and the school, however, came on Easter weekend in 1990, when three of his players—Casey Conner, Charles Ford, and Michael Kimble—were killed in a car crash. In Sports Illustrated Montville reported on the impact of the deaths, and described the subdued mood on campus and in the locker room. "I got the call at 3:35 on Monday morning," Gorden told Montville. "Casey's sister was on the phone. I hate a phone call after 12 o'clock. It never is good. I have two grown children of my own, and I'm responsible for 95 football players…. I hadn't said anything before this vacation, but I made it a point to talk to the team before spring break in March about being careful," he continued. "I talked about the things that had happened the past two years. I told a story about myself when I was in college. I was going to summer school. We had a break for the Fourth of July. I came back to class and the desk next to me was empty. I said, ‘Hey, where's So-and-So?’ I was told, ‘Oh, he was in a crash. He died.’ Just like that. I told the kids to watch themselves."

Gorden coached until 1992, then served as Jackson State's athletic director for two years before retiring. In 1997 he was honored by the Mississippi Legislature with a proclamation that cited him as "the winningest football coach in the history of Jackson State University," but also commended him "for his hard-nosed academic oversight policy, under which he led his players to a higher graduation rate than any public school in his conference, and also graduated his players at a higher rate than the rest of the student body during his coaching tenure."

In May of 2008 the National Football Foundation announced that Gorden would be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame at a July ceremony. Former Minnesota Viking wide receiver and sports broadcaster Ahmad Rashad spoke at the ceremony about Gorden's impressive leadership of the Tigers for sixteen seasons. "Those guys were always ready for the NFL when they left," Rashad said. "They had speed. Discipline. They were a step ahead of us when they got to the league."

By then the halcyon days of black college football had become a mere footnote in the history of American sports. "Integration hurt us, so did the big television contracts, and the improvements to stadiums at the bigger schools," Gorden told Glier in 2003. "We fell behind." He was immensely honored by the recognition from the College Football Hall of Fame, as he told Kareem Copeland in the Clarion-Ledger. "It means so much because there are a lot of people that are not aware of the history, the successes and the athletes that matriculated at Jackson State University. In a sense, they played in anonymity. By honoring me, it brings recognition to (them)."

At a Glance …

Born June 30, 1930, in Nashville, TN; married Vivian Howard; children: Craig, Robin. Education: Earned undergraduate degree in health and physical education from Tennessee State University, 1952; later earned master's degree from Tennessee State University.

Career: Eva Gordon High School, athletic director and head football, baseball, basketball, and track coach, 1956-66; Temple High School, head football coach and athletic director, 1966-67; Jackson State University, head baseball coach, 1967-72, defensive coordinator for football team, 1967-77, head football coach, 1977-91, athletic director, 1991-94.

Memberships: Make-A-Wish Foundation (board member), Pearl River Valley Water Supply District (board member).

Awards: Coach of the Year, Southwestern Athletic Conference (six times); Coach of the Year, National Sports Foundation, 1985; inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame & Museum, 1997; inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, 2008.

Addresses: Home—Jackson, MS. Office—c/o College Football Hall of Fame, 111 South St. Joseph St., South Bend, IN 46601.

Sources

Periodicals

Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), September 24, 2007; May 8, 2008; July 21, 2008.

New York Times, September 4, 2003, p. D2.

Sports Illustrated, April 30, 1990, p. 42.

Online

"House Concurrent Resolution 152," Mississippi Legislature, 1997, http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/1997/HC/HC0152SG.htm (accessed October 25, 2008).

Recek, Travis, "Hall of Fame Awaits W. C. Gorden," Fox40News.com, July 17, 2008, http://www.fox40now.com/sports/college/25525114.html (accessed October 25, 2008).

—Carol Brennan