Michael Vick has had many wins in his legendary football career, but on Saturday he got his first win as a college football head coach after Norfolk State’s thrilling 34-31 OT win over Virginia State.
Vick, a Virginia native, returned to his home state last December to become the head football coach at Norfolk State, a move that jettisoned the program into the national spotlight.
After a legendary career at Virginia State, Vick was the number one overall pick by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2001 NFL Draft, becoming the first Black quarterback to be selected first overall in NFL history.
Over the next six years in Atlanta, Vick electrified the NFL with both his arms and legs. In 2006, he became the first QB to rush for 1,000 yards in a single season in NFL history. He also earned three Pro Bowl nods during his tenure with the Falcons.
After his infamous dog fighting incident, Vick returned to the NFL as a QB for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2009. A year later, he was named to his fourth Pro Bowl team and won the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year.
Vick played with the Eagles for five seasons, then moved on to the Jets and Steelers before retiring at the end of the 2015 season.
He then began his career in sports broadcasting, eventually earning a fulltime job on FOX NFL Kickoff at FOX Sports.
Eventually, Vick got the coaching bug and so he decided to follow the HBCU coaching path carved by former NFL players such as Tyrone Wheatley, Deion Sanders and Eddie George, and took the job as head coach at Norfolk State.
On Saturday night on ESPN, Vick got his first win as a college coach, adding another “first” to his already impressive football resume.
The Spartans are now 1-1 under Vick and will head up route 95 next weekend to play Rutgers in New Jersey, where they will face their first and only Big 10 opponent this season.
While they will start focusing on that game on Monday, Sunday is a day for Vick to enjoy his inaugural victory as a rookie college football head coach.
