CAROLINA PANTHERS

Former Carolina Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis has the football and community bona fides to make a splash at J.C. Smith, if the school inquires about his availability to coach.

Now that Johnson C. Smith has given football coach Kermit Blount his walking papers, I have a couple of questions:

What took so long?

Who’s next?

The first may be something humans will never figure out, like the meaning of life. Six years without a winning season is a mighty long time to prove you’re not up to the task. I’ll hand it to the university brass, though – they showed a lot of patience. Problem is, they wore out everybody else’s. But enough about rehashing the lowlights.

If Smith, which has five winning seasons since 1996, is to become sustainably relevant in football, the school needs to make a splash hire. Someone readily identifiable in the community, can rally people and knows his way around a football field at the highest level.  

My pick is Thomas Davis.

He’s never been a coach at any level, but as a recently retired NFL linebacker with ties to Charlotte through his long career with the Carolina Panthers and philanthropy, he’s exactly what JCSU needs. I don’t know if Davis would want to coach anywhere, much less a Division II program where losing is ingrained in its culture, but somebody should inquire. Make him say no – or yes, by some miracle – and go from there.

Other HBCUs have taken a similar approach. Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Deion Sanders still has tongues wagging for taking the Jackson State gig and supplanting Grambling as the biggest fish in Black college football. Eddie George, a semifinalist for the hall, is trying to match Sanders at Tennessee State, a legendary program back in the day but an afterthought in today’s Ohio Valley Conference.

Davis isn’t as accomplished in terms of NFL on-field accolades, but he would give Smith the kind of public profile it can’t buy. Imagine having this dude walk into a high school recruit’s living room with a scholarship offer or pitching alumni about opening their checkbooks.

That’s the first step toward winning.   

It would also signal a new era of accountability. In announcing Blount’s dismissal, Smith athletics director Steve Joyner talked about opening a new era. Davis would be an ideal face for the program because of his NFL bona fides and people skills. Even local media who have given up on covering JCSU athletics would have reason to return.

Face it: To compete at anything – whether it’s football or selling newspaper subscriptions – you need to invest in people and facilities. Smith and Davis would put themselves in position to do more of both. The curious would show up for games. Doors to long-shut community support are more likely to swing open. The larger community would have reason to talk about Smith athletics, an upgrade from being totally ignored. And perhaps winning will follow.

I couldn’t go to a football game the last couple seasons without having both ears bent about why Blount wasn’t sent packing. He earned a one-year extension by leading JCSU to a 4-6 finish in 2019, double the win total the previous season. Then COVID-19 scratched the 2020 campaign, followed by the 2021 disaster.

The writing was on the wall once Smith lost to Allen and Bluefield State, programs that are new to Division II football. It became pronounced when they couldn’t compete against a clearly diminished Winston-Salem State and Livingstone delivered the coup de grâce by whipping the Golden Bulls on the field before a brawl brought the regular season to an inglorious end with a no-contest.

Maybe Davis could turn it around, maybe not. Maybe he’s not interested. There’s nothing to lose by asking. Except perhaps the frustration of losing.

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