FSU, Elizabeth City State coaches have 20-year history

ROCKY MOUNT, North Carolina  -- Virginia State simply needed good players.

The Trojans had fallen on hard times by 1993, and they needed talent.

In college football, obtaining good players – particularly in Division II – means thorough recruiting, and Virginia State assistant Waverly Tillar saw an area in which the team could improve. Ther
e were football players on the roster from Philadelphia and New Jersey, but none from New York, which also is within a day’s drive of Virginia State.

Lawrence Kershaw was a kid from Brooklyn who was looking for a new home.

He committed to Stony Brook University out of high school, but he wasn’t happy there. Kershaw sent film to a handful of schools and hoped to transfer to a better fit.

One of those tapes found its way to Tillar, who not only saw a potential starter on the Trojans’ offensive line but perhaps the beginning of a pipeline to the most populous city in the United States.

“We were hoping to establish a pipeline going to Virginia State to hopefully be able to get those kids (from New York),” Tillar said. “Of course, part of recruiting is you got to have a diverse mesh of players from different areas to put together a consistently winning program.”

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