Coach Joe Gilliam at Woodmont Hills on Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes

Update: Audio of Coach Gilliam at Woodmont Hills can be found here .

Living Your Best Life will broadcast a special show featuring keynote, Coach Joe W. Gilliam, Sr., at the Family of God at WoodmontHills speaker series; Loving God, Loving Others, Serving the World from 2008. Coach Gilliam spoke about "Good Diversity-Bad Diversity" and how his faith in God was the foundation of his life.

Join us on Saturday, November 24, 2012 to hear Coach Gilliam share lessons from chapters of his life. Hear him talk about his parents leaving the life of sharecropping in North Carolina for Steubenville, Ohio in the middle of the night in 1919 in order to provide a better life for their growing family. His parents were determined to find a better economic opportunities and to provide their children with an education.

In Ohio, Coach Gilliam excelled academically and in sports which allowed him to receive scholarships offers to college. But his intelligence and athletic skills did not shelter him from the harsh realities of life during the forties. Hear him share why he did not attend Ohio State University. That decision lead him to play for Indiana University's championship team. Although he played for a winning school, his experiences were painful, mentally and spiritually. His negative experiences as a collegiate athlete made Coach determined to coach, mentor, mold, teach, and train his players with fatherly guidance and positive values throughout his lifetime.

Hear Coach discussing a variety of topics as he answered questions from the audience. He reflected on his mother's enduring love; his devoted wife's influence on his life; his love of the classroom; his coaching at Tennessee State University; his relationship with Bill Parcell; how he barred the NFL from administering the wonderlic test to Ed "Too Tall" Jones and the 20 year repercussion on Coach Gilliam's coaching career; how race relations permeates sports, then and now; his insights from studying constitutional law and why only following God can change man's heart not legislative actions; and the importance of sharing good diversity-bad diversity experiences in order to learn from them.

You will also hear Coach share thoughts on women coaching football; mentoring young black males; and personal regrets from his own family life. Listen as his compassion for others is shown by how he cared for his athletes and their families long after they have stopped playing sports, collegiate or professionally.

Coach Gilliam with Coach Merritt in 1973

                                  

Coach Gilliam with players in 1980

Coach Gilliam with Bernard King @ 2007 TN Sports Hall of Fame Induction

For the legions of Coach Gilliam's players, students, adopted family and sports enthusiasts who lives Coach touched and for those who respected and followed his life closely; this show will empower, inspire, and motivate you to live your BEST life. 

Living Your Best Life can be heard on 760 AM in the Middle-Tennessee Region, military bases, and streamed live on U-Stream.TV from 9-10AM CST.

More About Coach Joe W. Gilliam, Sr. 

Joe Gilliam, Sr. will be remembered as one of the most respected football coaches in the history of the game. He began his intercollegiate football career at Indiana University, where he played on the Hoosiers' national championship football team. He then went into the armed services, and upon his discharge, enrolled at West Virginia State College, where he played both basketball and football. At West Virginia State College, he received All-American honors as a quarterback and earned a place in the Yellow Jackets' Sports Hall of Fame. Coach Gilliam began his 35-year coaching career on the high school level in Kentucky, where he earned the Kentucky High School Football Association's Coach of the Year title.

He went on to coach at Jackson State College in Mississippi where he helped lead the Tigers to two consecutive Black National Championship titles. From 1963-1981, Gilliam was the assistant head football coach and defensive coordinator for Tennessee State University. During this period, Tennessee State University had nine Black National Championship teams. In 1989, he took the helm as head coach for four seasons. As head coach, Gilliam was inducted into the TSU Sports Hall of Fame and was selected as Coach of the Year in the Ohio Valley Conference in 1990. His career record of 254-93-15 included coaching five undefeated teams and five teams that lost only one game. He coached 10 national championships teams and helped facilitate 144 players into the National Football League.

For several summers, he worked with the Arizona Cardinals' coaching staff as an offensive consultant. In later years, Gilliam conducted a summer youth football camp in Nashville, Tennessee to raise funds for his Joe Gilliam Foundation. Throughout his coaching career, Gilliam earned numerous awards including the All-American Football Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and the College Football Hall of Fame Contribution Award. Coach was a frequent guest speaker and sought-after lecturer at football clinics, on radio programs, and sports banquets.  He was widely renowned for his teams' abilities to employ his innovative offensive concepts and insights. (Bio: Coaches Choice/Edits: Genma Holmes)

Coach Gilliam was the author of four books.
Coach Gilliam's scholarship fund is held at TSU.
Franz Holmes tribute to Coach Gilliam can be found here .
Franz Holmes introduced Coach Gilliam and Golf Pro, James Paschal, was the moderator.
Special thanks to Woodmont Staff and Mona Knight, audio archivist at Woodmont Hills.

Photos Credits: Tennessean; Billy Kinglsey, Joe, Rudis, and Frank Empson; and Genma Holmes

Living Next Door To A Hero: Understanding My Legacy

Understanding My Legacy.
Guest Post By Franz Stringer Holmes

The Pittsburgh Steelers should have won the Super Bowl.

Whew, I had to get that out of the way. I have heard the old saying “if you don’t know your history, you are doomed to repeat it”. I prefer, “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, then you don’t know where you going." Without knowing our history, it is hard to appreciate those that have paved the way for you. I have always been taught to stand on my own two feet and blaze my own trails. However, the influence of my parents, especially my father, has been tremendous to me throughout my life. I heard that having a father figure in your life is the closest thing we get to seeing God in the flesh. I could not agree more.

As a "youngster", I found myself holding my father up as the standard of how I wanted to live my life. Anything that was good enough for him was certainly good enough for me. I was taught to at least give things a try. He doesn’t know this but hearing his stories of his childhood gave me hope and justification in mine. If he could act a fool in school and still get good grades then surely I could go to school and excel. I had no choice in the matter. Mentioning good grades brings back to my first statement. Yes, the Steelers should have won the Super bowl this year!

Steeler Pride runs deep at my father’s house. I’m not even big on football but I always enjoy watching the Steelers play. Steeler Pride is so deep in my family blood that even when my former TSU track teammates played against them, I still rooted for the Steelers. To know why is a bit of a history lesson. In high school, my father played football and dreamed of going to the league. He told me once that in his day, TSU was known around the world for bringing the best black football players to the NFL. I am not going to try to name all the names of NFL greats that have played football at TSU that my father knows personally but the name that stands above all names is Joe Gilliam, the first Black NFL quarter back.

Joe Gilliam Jr. played football at Pearl High School and led his team to the very first integrated city championship in 1966. I know that well because I attended middle and high school at Pearl now known as Martin Luther King Magnet High School. There’s a small shrine to Joe Gilliam in a room behind the auditorium that stays locked. How I know this is a subject for another story. The Gilliam name came to mean much more to me as I graduated and prepared for college. I visited numerous schools and I received many offers to attend other colleges but TSU was my first and only choice. My only financial concern regarding school was my books. Imagine my surprise after being enrolled at TSU that my book purchases were paid for by a third party. I later learned that it was billed to the Joe Gilliam Foundation. It was then I began to piece my fathers lover of the Steelers, the Gilliam name and my family together.

Coach Joe Gilliam Sr. served as defensive coordinator at TSU and most likely one of the most influential men in my father’s life. My father, Roger Holmes, played football for TSU.The Gilliam name that I heard throughout my childhood was Joe Gilliam but I had no idea that from the time I was knee high to an ant that my father was talking about Joe Gilliam, SR!

I heard every story about every game, every long night at practice, about every “boy you gonna be a man when I get through with you”, every and all things Coach Gilliam. The very idea of disappointing Coach Gilliam, my father’s hero, MADE me go to class even when I did not want too. After all, he was paying for my books! I had no choice.

After a few semesters, I moved off the yard. As fate would have it, I moved across the hall from none other than Coach Gilliam. I suddenly understood every conversation I heard my father tell about curfews. Living across the hall from Coach Gilliam was an experience I will never forget. I read every book he read. I ate what he ate. I watched every football game ever played by anyone that was suited in a Big Blue uniform. And no matter how I tried, I could not leave my apartment without his door opening to make sure I was alone. Living next day to Coach Gilliam I definitely learned perseverance.

Living in my father's house, on campus and across the hall from Coach Gilliam, I understand fully what it means to love TSU. I know without a doubt that I stand on the shoulders of those before me. I wouldn’t be where I am without my family. And my father would not be who he is without having men like Coach Gilliam who made sure he did not have to walk on grass but on the road that was paved by their sacrifices. The day I met Coach Gilliam, I understood what legacy meant. My father’s legacy became mine as well. Coach Gilliam, as we celebrate TSU’s past, present, and future I want to say thank you for every lesson you taught me about being a man in the game of life. The evenings spent with you, I will always treasure. God bless you!
Your neighbor,
Franz Holmes

Originally published in the Big Blue Issue