Oct. 7, 2009
Jomar Wright is one of the over 300,000 NCAA student athletes who has become a professional in something other than sports. A former football student-athlete, and member of the Duke Student Athlete Advisory Committee, Wright has combined his passion for sports and education by becoming a football coach. The following dialogue is “Jomar’s Journey” through his eyes starting as early as his underclassmen years at Duke, then continuing throughout his SAAC experiences into his current coaching job, and taking a closer look beyond at his future goals.
As a student athlete at Duke University I was given an opportunity to be involved with SAAC as the football representative. I was a captain on the football team while also a part of the Duke Football Leadership Council. On the Duke Football team I had teammates who were just as deserving as I was to be on these committees and councils, but my coaches selected me to be the one that would be a representative for our team. I was selected to be a SAAC member my sophomore year. I had no clue at the time what the purpose of SAAC was, or even what it stood for. Now that I am a graduate and in the work force, I am proud to say that I was a SAAC member because of the ways we gave back to the community and the invaluable experiences that SAAC gave me to help develop my communication and leadership skills.
SAAC allowed me to meet and socialize with student athletes that I otherwise might not have gotten to know. Each sport was represented in SAAC, and that helped to give a lot of different perspectives on issues. For example, during a SAAC meeting we discussed the transfer rule the NCAA has in place on student athletes. I did not know that the rule was different across sports. We had a discussion about how football players have to sit out a year if they transfer, while in a sport like volleyball there is a one year transfer rule. We also split into groups to discuss the topic of whether or not student athletes should be paid. It was discussions like these that helped as I transitioned into my career path as a college football coach, since I had to listen to different opinions and arguments and formulate my own thoughts. We now have staff meetings on a daily basis and the head coach asks us for our opinion. The open forums that we had during our SAAC meetings gave me experience in expressing my opinion without having to worry about whether others agree.
Giving back to the community and being given the opportunity to represent the Duke Football team was one of the most rewarding aspects of SAAC for me. We organized a “Winter Fun Day” where we invited elementary school students from the Durham Community to learn about the different sports and watch a Duke women’s basketball game. It was a great day as the kids got to enjoy working out and learning about the different sports at Duke, while also interacting with the student-athletes they read about in the paper or saw on television. Being one of the first athletes to arrive, I was able to help in greeting the parents and kids, as well as participate in some of the logistical set-up for the day. It was eye-opening for me that so many kids knew my name and had watched me play football even though I had no idea they were watching. What an incredible reminder of character and doing the right things because you truly don’t know who is watching. It was a great honor bestowed upon me by the Duke coaching staff to represent the football team and I enjoyed the responsibility. Experiences like Winter Fun Day helped me realize the importance of giving back, being a positive role model, and being involved with SAAC helped me grow as an individual and become a productive citizen.
Diversity appreciation and teamwork were other facets to which SAAC exposed me and allowed me to grow and apply to my current position. As the football SAAC representative I had experiences that were completely different from other SAAC representatives, but we still had to work together and communicate to coordinate events such as Winter Fun Day for Durham Community and other events. I was a sophomore football player from South Carolina who practiced early in the morning and had three classes a day while I worked with a senior engineering student from Arizona who ran cross country. Learning how to communicate with people who were from different types of backgrounds is something that has become useful to me. On our coaching staff here at Presbyterian College we have all different types of coaches from diverse backgrounds. We have different experiences that vary from the decades we were raised in, to the types of colleges we graduated from. We each have different day-to-day experiences due to the type of personalities that are in the position groups we coach. The experience that I gained in SAAC has helped me to understand that those differences exist, and that I have to be respectful in the way that I handle those differences.
My journey to the Presbyterian College football staff has been interesting. Hired by Coach Bobby Bentley, my high school head football coach, in May of 2008, I went through my first season as a college coach and it was stressful at times. I compare it to being a freshman at Duke because the experiences were very similar. I didn’t know what to expect and I had to learn on the run. Everything was new, but luckily the people I worked with during my first year were extremely helpful. They took me under their wings and I was able learn by watching and asking questions. As the season ended we turned to recruiting, and then we had a head coaching change and Harold Nichols was named as the head coach.
In college football when there is a head coaching change the staff changes as well. Fortunately, Coach Nichols thought that as a young coach I could help him build Presbyterian College into a championship program and decided to keep me on his coaching staff. As we went into the spring I felt more comfortable than I did during the fall in my first season as an assistant coach. I believe my coaching personality was more defined and I had a better understanding of what it took to be a good coach. My favorite part of being a college coach is that I get to interact with young adults and help them develop into men of high moral character and productive citizens. I also enjoy game days when we can see the players who we have coached and instructed compete and have success. I look forward to the day when I am a head coach and the one responsible and held accountable for it all.
As a young coach I have goals that I have set and look forward to accomplishing. My long term goal is to be the head football coach at Duke University and lead my alma mater to a national championship. There is a chance that I will be one of the first African American head coaches at Duke as well as lead a Bowl Championship Subdivision level team to a National Championship. This is a way for me to honor the black coaches who recruited me, coached me, and came before, or will come after me. My short term goal is to eventually become a BCS assistant coach and then coordinator. I know in order to reach these goals I have to work everyday to be the best that I can be here at Presbyterian College and help coach Nichols build a championship program. It will not be easy, but I think through the skills that I have developed at Duke and within SAAC I can be successful in reaching my goals.
