TV: ESPN3 - 5:00 pm ET (TAPE DELAY DUE TO BAD WEATHER)TALLAHASSEE, Florida -- The shine of being home again hasn’t worn off for new Florida A&M coach Willie Simmons.
It’s doubtful that shine will ever lose its luster. Not for Simmons, who grew up 20 minutes away from FAMU’s campus in Quincy. Not for the man who left one of the newest and most high-profile facilities in HBCU football at Prairie View A&M in order to fix a program that as recently as last season almost couldn’t play games in its own stadium.
Simmons knows he’s taking on a work in progress. Is there pressure? Of course. But no one is putting more pressure on Simmons to win — and the Rattlers haven’t had a winning season since 2011 — than Simmons himself.
“It’s truly a blessing to be able to be 20 minutes from where I grew up,” Simmons said in a phone interview. “To still be able to see my family and to have family members and former players and former coaches come by practice every other day. All of those things are still special to me.”
“When I took this job, it wasn’t to come back home. It was to take over a program that had underperformed and do something special here. That’s a focus we’re going to keep and as a head coach, that’s what I wake up to every single day. When we do that, we’re able to stay focused on the goal at hand.”
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