Everyone wins with Doug Williams' hire

GRAMBLING, La. — Grambling State University was thought to have pulled off some sort of coup by luring back Doug Williams for a second stint as the Tigers' head football coach.

After all, how often does a school lose a coach the caliber of Rod Broadway, after signing day, and manage to take a monumental leap forward?

Hardly ever, as you could tell by the visible and audible jubilation pouring from Grambling alums, athletes and supporters — many who made lengthy journeys to mark the occasion Wednesday.

Williams: 'Coming home is about family"

Doug Williams sat intently as Grambling president Frank Pogue and athletics director Lin Dawson talked about him, but as the Tigers' new head football coach stood, held his black and gold baseball cap and began to address the room, he couldn't help but crack a wide smile.

"Wow," he said. "We are Grambling."

About 200 people tried to pile into a room with about 100 chairs for the press conference Wednesday morning at the Eddie Robinson Museum to officially announce the old news that Robinson was returning for a second stint as the head coach.

The coach is home again

When Thomas Wolfe penned, "You Can't Go Home Again," it's obvious Doug Williams didn't get the memo. Maybe he skipped that class when he was a student at Grambling State University.

But today, the Grambling community is quite happy Doug Williams doesn't know you can't go home again. And if he did indeed dash out on literature, it hasn't shown up on his permanent record.

Doug Williams criticizes NFL 'fraternity,' returns to Grambling State to coach son

Doug Williams acknowledges that coaching his son in his second stint at Grambling State may be a challenge, but it has to be easier than navigating what he calls the NFL's good ol' boys "fraternity."

Williams resigned over the weekend as general manager of the Virginia Destroyers of the UFL in order to return to Grambling State and criticized front-office opportunities for minorities in the NFL. He spent six seasons in the Tampa Bay Bucs' scouting department (from 2004 until last May) and hoped to become an NFL GM.

"The good ol' boy network is alive and well,'' Williams said in an interview with tampabay.com. "But it's changed from the good ol' boy network to the fraternity. I always find a way to overcome and just keep going forward. I look at it this way, you've got guys sitting in the front office that never coached.

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