JCSU alum Maurice Flowers the leader football needed

MATT LACZKO | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Johnson C. Smith football coach Maurice Flowers led the Golden Bulls from perennial loser to CIAA champion in four seasons. The Golden Bulls, who beat Virginia Union in the CIAA title game on Nov. 15, are 10-1, the best single season in school history.

Legacy. 

Ruminate on that word. 

One may think legacy is something you have or how you’re remembered. While these are partially true, what legacy truly means at its root is the lasting impact you will have on someone or something. 

Johnson C. Smith football coach Maurice Flowers has begun to leave his on his alma mater in a way only he can. The Golden Bulls secured their first CIAA football title since 1969 with a dominant 45-21 win over the prior back-to-back champs, Virginia Union. 

As a JCSU alumnus and three-time All-American quarterback, this was beyond special. It was rewarding and gratifying. 

“When that clock hit zero, it really made me think about the years that I played at JCSU,” Flowers said. “We struggled. To look up in the stands and see some of the guys I played with, we would go to practice and then get our brains beat in sometimes. To go through so many things and start coaching and to do this at my alma mater, it’s a different kind of special.”

Flowers did not come back to his alma mater to make it respectable. He came back to build a consistent winner. Over the last three seasons, he’s seen the fruits of that labor, going 7-3 in 2023, 8-2 in 2024, and 10-1 in 2025 with a Division II playoff berth, the school’s first. 

“When I came back here, it was never to come back and be respectable,” Flowers said. “It was always to come back and be a winner and compete for CIAA championships. That’s what it was from the beginning. It was to compete for CIAA championships and also make the playoffs and go compete for a national championship. So, we were on the way to doing those things.”

Flowers is a proud Charlottean and he will tell anyone that. To coach at his alma mater down the street where he grew up, the pride knowing he brought a championship back to his city makes Flowers emotional. 

“When I first moved to Charlotte, we lived off Sycamore Street, right down from the Bojangles, from Johnson C Smith,” he said. “I used to play at Frazier Park, and I used to play up on Johnson C. Smith’s campus and never thought I would end up going to JCSU. So, then to know the history of JCSU, they always had good football players there but never put it all together. To come back and have the support of so many that we have is special. …”

Flowers thanks the university’s leadership, making sure to mention that President Valerie Kinloch found a way to miss the victory bath at the end. 

“She should have got doused with some water, much as she’s down there on the sidelines,” Flowers said, “but she's so supportive of us. And I’m just so happy for our university.”

Flowers started his coaching career in the high school ranks with various stops as an assistant, including Duncanville (Texas), one of the most storied programs in the country. Flowers is implementing a lot of what he learned in those early days on the Golden Bulls. 

“At Duncanville, it showed me structure,” Flowers said. “It showed how to structure your team and how to have a good plan year-round for your program. Having a vision and sticking to it. That’s a winning program, so to be able to spend some time there, and really, a lot of the things that we do comes from that time. My time as a high school assistant, then to be chosen as a high school head coach, then to move on to be an assistant in college, and then to be a college head coach, a lot of what I do is not very different [from Duncanville].”

Kinloch said it is great to have football success, but what is even better is seeing your coach being a leader on the field and off.

“When I look at coach Flowers and his development and growth over all of these years,” Kinloch said, … “it means that he will always put students first. It means that he cares about these players just as much as he cares about anything else. He invests time in them; he invests energy. And the result is we’re the 2025 champions.”

Kinloch added one of Flowers’ best qualities is his selfless nature, which positions him to lead going forward.

“Coach Flowers is the leader of this program, and I put a period after that,” she said. “He isn’t just the leader of the football team but a leader on our campus both with football and beyond. … Beyond winning, he sees human beings. He wants to help these young men develop and as a president, I can’t ask for anything more than that. He does everything asked of him and does so going above and beyond. For that, I am grateful.”

Flowers’ investment in his players can’t be shown better than with quarterback Kelvin Durham. Flowers recruited Durham when he was coach at Fort Valley State and that relationship grew stronger this season as Durham led the Golden Bulls to a single season record for wins.

“He took a chance on me coming out of high school,” Durham said. “I had some injuries in my senior year of high school, and he took a chance on me. He actually taught me the game of a quarterback. He taught me how to read a defense properly, learn how to play fast and be a better quarterback. This year being my senior year, I knew this was the place for me.”

Flowers is not one to take personal credit for much of anything, and when asked what made this team a Maurice Flowers-coached team, he was quick to divert credit to his players for transforming the program to a player-led team. He also credited his staff for showing what leadership is supposed to look like. 

Legacy. 

Think about that word. 

Maurice Flowers is leaving one at his alma mater.

Cameron Williams is a staff reporter at The Post.

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