North Carolina A&T athletics director Earl Hilton retires

NORTH CAROLINA A&T ATHLETICS

North Carolina A&T athletics director Earl Hilton, whose 15-year tenure included four Black college football national titles and three Olympic medalists, announced his retirement at the end of the academic year.

North Carolina A&T athletics director Earl Hilton is retiring at the end of the academic year.

Hilton, who has led the Aggies’ 17 sports programs for 15 years, will step down when his contract ends. A national search for his replacement will begin immediately while Hilton remain until his successor is hired.

“It has been my singular privilege to have worked with so many wonderful and talented student athletes and the dedicated coaches and staff who support them. I have been blessed to be part of a remarkable community of boosters and fans who have sustained us with unflinching resolve,” Hilton said in a statement. “I am honored to have witnessed historic academic and athletic achievement and look forward to our continued success under the leadership of Chancellor [James] Martin and the next athletics administration.”

Hilton who was hired full-time in 2011 after serving on an interim basis a year earlier, oversaw an era of transition in A&T athletics that coincided with the school’s academic rise. The Aggies won four Black college national titles during his tenure with Rod Broadway (2011-17) and Sam Washington (2018-22) earning a pair each. Broadway’s 2017 squad finished a school-best 12-0 with a Celebration Bowl win in his final game. From 2015-19, the Aggies won four Celebration Bowls.

The Aggies succeed also became a force in track and field. Three A&T athletes won three medals — including a pair of golds – at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and in 2022, the men’s team finished second at the 2022 NCAA indoor championships – the highest indoor finish ever for a Division I HBCU.

Hilton also shepherded A&T through a pair of conference changes in which the Aggies moved from the MEAC, which they were a co-founder in 1970 to the Big South Conference and the Coastal Athletic Conference. Those transitions roiled A&T alumni, fans and leadership into distinct camps – those who wanted to stay in the MEAC, which is made up of historically Black colleges like A&T, and those who supported competing against campuses more academically aligned with A&T as research schools.

In three years as a CAA member, the Aggies are 2-22 in conference games, 4-31 overall. Shawn Gibbs, who was hired last year as coach, led the Aggies to a 2-10 record while winning their first two conference games.

Hilton also managed the program through major transitions in college athletics, including liberalized transfer rules and the launch of name, image and likeness deals and direct payments to athletes.
Hilton’s leadership was recognized in 2019 when he was named an Under Armour Athletics Director of the Year for Football Championship Subdivision schools. During his tenure, graduation rates among A&T athletes increased by 51%, while annual giving to athletics grew 15-fold and Aggies earned more than 70 individual, team, conference, national and Olympic championships.

“North Carolina A&T is tremendously grateful for the outstanding leadership Earl has provided for our student athletes over the past 15 years,” Martin said. “He created an environment in which more than 300 student athletes each year never lose sight of the fact that they are students first and that success in the classroom comes before competition on the playing field. We have especially appreciated his steady hand in a time of unprecedented change throughout the NCAA.”

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