Rose Bowl: Pep Hamilton using his Washington ties to Stanford’s advantage

PEP HAMILTON
Andrew Luck Director of Offense/Offensive Coordinator/QB
Alma Mater: Howard University (1997)

STANFORD, California  --  Somewhere in the Washington area, there’s a Bank of America still waiting for Pep Hamilton.

These days, Hamilton is the offensive coordinator of Rose Bowl-bound Stanford, the man who helped steer the program to its second Bowl Championship Series game in as many seasons despite losing one of the most decorated college quarterbacks ever in Andrew Luck.

But in the spring of 1997, Hamilton was a new Howard University graduate with a business degree and a job at Bank of America waiting for him come Sept. 1.

Fresh off his senior season, in which he was the quarterback for the Bison, Hamilton was asked by then-Howard Coach Steve Wilson to help out with the team’s signal-callers during spring practice. When an assistant retired, Hamilton was a natural choice to take over, and the Bison offered him a graduate assistant position.

He said he had not considered coaching, but Hamilton was intrigued. He brought the idea to his father — who wasn’t as enthusiastic.  He wasn’t “going to allow me to pass up a ‘real job’ to take a job as a GA,” Hamilton said recently. He turned down the offer.

But Wilson saw a natural teacher with a football mind, and a week later came back with a full-time offer. Bank of America agreed to push Hamilton’s start date back four months — to Jan. 1, 1998 — to let him give coaching a try.

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