Rod Broadway ready for bigger stage

By Sports Columnist John Pruett, Huntsville Times

Coach believes he can restore glory to Grambling

BIRMINGHAM - Into the blinding spotlight at the most famous school in black college football, where the memory of the late Eddie Robinson casts a long and perpetual shadow, steps a big congenial man facing a daunting and pressing challenge.

His job: Restore Grambling State University to its conventional place among the elite of the historically black universities - and do it without delay.

"When I was growing up,'' Rod Broadway said Tuesday at the Southwestern Athletic Conference's annual media day, "Grambling was the kingpin when it came to black college football. I took this job because I thought we could help restore some of the tradition and build it back.''

That tradition, which became the stuff of dreams in the Robinson era, took a humiliating hit last season. Just a few months removed from a 45-6 rout of Alabama A&M in the SWAC Championship Game, Grambling inexplicably plummeted to 3-8, losing its last four games and five of the last six.

The record, brought on by a spate of eligibility issues and snowballing dissension, cost flamboyant Grambling coach Melvin Spears his job. At Grambling, one bad season is usually all it takes. Never mind the reasons.

Alabama A&M coach Anthony Jones, who led the Bulldogs to the SWAC championship last season, was on the Grambling search committee's short list of candidates, you may recall. In the end, the job went to Broadway, who was hired the third week in January, shortly after the American Football Coaches Association's annual convention in San Antonio.

The 52-year-old Broadway brings an impressive rsum to Grambling. A native of Oakboro, N.C., he played defensive tackle for Bill Dooley at the University of North Carolina in the late 1970s and began his coaching career at East Carolina in 1979, the year Pat Dye left for Wyoming. Broadway later coached Duke University's defensive line for 13 years, the last few under Steve Spurrier, before joining Spurrier's staff at Florida in 1995.

Hired by North Carolina coach John Bunting after the 2000 season, Broadway coached the Tar Heels' defensive line for two years before going to North Carolina Central, a Division II school in Durham, as head coach in 2003. Over the next four years, his teams went 33-11, which included a 29-4 run and a 16-game winning streak the last three seasons. One of the victories last year was a 27-20 upset in Baton Rouge over Division I-AA Southern University, one of the SWAC's traditional contenders.

Starting a new life

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Rod Broadway's move to Grambling had nothing to do with football.

"I had no hesitation about taking the job,'' Broadway said, "because it was a chance to get into a league I've admired for a long time. But I had a personal reason, too. I love the state of North Carolina, but I thought it was a good time to put a lot of painful memories behind me and start a new life.

"I know Dianne would understand.''

Dianne Broadway, his wife of 22 years, died three years ago at the age of 48 following a 12-year battle with diffuse scleroderma, a rare connective tissue disorder characterized by an abnormal thickening and scarring of the skin. Scleroderma has no known cause and no cure. Those afflicted by its most acute form rarely live longer than seven years.

Dianne Broadway was down to just 75 pounds when she died in a Durham hospital in January 2004. The disease had invaded her liver, lungs, esophagus and heart. If it hadn't been for football and his son Kenneth, who played at N.C. Central, Rod Broadway isn't sure how he could've handled the final ordeal.

"We met in college and we were together 27 years,'' Broadway said. "She had the disease 12 or 13 years - those last few years at Duke, all the time at Florida, and that first year at North Carolina Central. She beat the odds for quite a while. She was an inspiration to everybody who knew her.''

With Dianne gone and Kenneth on the brink of graduation, and having taken North Carolina Central to back-to-back conference championships for the first time in more than 50 years, Broadway was ready to move on to a new phase of his life.

Who knew the opportunity that presented itself would come from Grambling State?

"I'm excited about it,'' Broadway said. "Our administration wants to win, which is important. Our athletic director is knowledgeable and wants to do things the right way. We have a great recruiting base - Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi.

"Most of all, we've got the name. Grambling. In football, that says it all.''

For Rod Broadway, it's a new life and a new start in a special place. Now all he has to do is win and win big, and be quick about it.