NC Central football coach Trei Oliver wins new admirers

NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL ATHLETICS

North Carolina Central football coach Trei Oliver is making new fans for himself and the Eagles after winning the 2022 Black college national title.

When I read that North Carolina Central football coach Trei Oliver was going to be the guest speaker at the Durham Sports Club, I debated about going.

Four months after the Eagles’ Cricket Celebration Bowl victory, I’ve heard all the stories, seen all the film, and laughed at all the jokes.

But that’s the beauty of covering HBCU sports. Just when you think you’ve seen and heard it all, something unexpected comes along.

Oliver joked in the buffet line that he didn’t have a written speech prepared. I said the club members didn’t care much for prepared speeches; they liked to be talked to as if you’re sitting at their table.

Oliver did just that. By the time he was finished, he had made 88 new friends in a packed room at the Croasdaile Country Club.

As I’ve written before, the Durham Sports Club is predominately ACC and East Carolina alumni. The membership is 99% white and mostly male. I didn’t see 10 women at the luncheon. The median age is around 65, and I’m being kind.

But in all the years I’ve attended events at the club, they have always been respectful of North Carolina Central. DSC officers tell members to support NCCU with the same enthusiasm as they do Duke, UNC or N.C. State during football and basketball seasons. Official legend Tommy Hunt is one of their biggest supporters.

Oliver didn’t mince words over the “disrespect” by Jackson State that is still obviously raw.  

The disrespect started, he said, at the Dec. 8 Cricket Celebration Bowl press conference when JSU assistant coach Gary Harrell stood in for Deion Sanders.

“You’ve got to respect the game,” he said.

It continued during Bowl week at a luncheon for the teams at the College Football Hall of Fame.

It was raining that day and when NCCU’s buses pulled up to the building, JSU had the entrance blocked with their own transportation. Oliver said team officials refused to move the buses when asked.

“So, we had to get off the bus in the pouring rain and run into the building,” he said.

Sanders again was a no-show.

The third insult, Oliver said, occurred during the pregame festivities. As the visiting team, NCCU was to be introduced first, followed by the singing of the national anthem and then Jackson State.

“We’re in the tunnel waiting to go onto the field…2 minutes, 4 minutes, 8 minutes, go by and guys are getting anxious,” Oliver said. The delay was because Jackson State was still in the locker room as Sanders was being filmed giving his now infamous crying speech.

That was all the extra motivation the Eagles needed.  

But what really “broke the camel’s back,” as us old folks like to say, was the atrocious and biased officiating. As NCCU celebrated its win on the field, Oliver was preparing to call out names at the postgame press conference.

Fortunately, deputy athletic director Kyle Serba intervened and persuaded him not to go Black. (You know what I mean.)

Oliver was asked so many questions during the Q&A, Hunt had to cut them off. Club members were enthralled by his passion, sincerity and his student-first, athlete-second answers.

As a man was leaving the table, he quipped, “We could all use more coaches like him.”

Indeed.

Bonitta Best is sports editor at The Triangle Tribune in Durham.

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