Twenty seven signees were inducted into the 2015 freshman class on the Southern University football team on National Signing Day, Wednesday, February 5.
Of those signees, 14 are from the native state of Louisiana, five are from Texas, three are from Georgia, and single players trickled from Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Wisconsin and about half of the players are added to the defensive ploy that the team thrives on.
In the Royal Cotillion Ballroom located inside the Smith-Brown Memorial Union, alumni federations, parents, and older fans gathered to socialize, eat, and enjoy the festivities sponsored on their behalf. With their deadened energy, head coach Dawson Odums was not impressed on every table being filled but not enough noise to fill the room. Even with door prizes, the crowd still remained unfazed.
“If I wanted this much energy, I would’ve stayed home with my two daughters,” said Odums, “This day is supposed to be a day of celebration.”
Odums came to recognize the soon to be revitalized crowd and said, “We are selling the players’ family a dream and I don’t believe in hiding anything because even the blind can see and if they can’t see, they definitely can hear.”
The crowd was starting to be surprised at the beginning of the martyr speech that Odums soon to occur.
“We got to change if we want to stay on top and I’m going to say it and hate me if you will but Southern University football is the best thing going because it brings money,” said Odums, “If we bring in money, you have to put money back into it.”
Odums has ushered in a winning program when becoming coach at Southern University and just last season he conquered a 9-2 win to stay atop the Southwestern Athletic Conference Western Division and move onto the SWAC Championship located in Houston, Texas. In lue of losing the SWAC Championship to Alcorn State, Southern still brought a winning program back to the bluff of the Mississippi and becoming the SWAC West Division Champions for the second season in a row.
Odums directly explains that the signees are building up hype and expectation to the fans as well as the people in attendance.
“Don’t put your expectation into the new signees because they’ve never been college students,” said Odums and continued with, “Put your expectations into the returning players and expect them to compete and win and be realistic with their expectations.”
But this wasn’t his true goal of the night, the goal he was setting was the vision he had for Southern University, the dream that he set since he started his regime in coaching.
“I see a parking garage, another field house beside ours, a field that we can actually practice on, and the tennis courts moved out of the way,” said Odums triumphantly, “Because I believe what I’m fighting for. Because Martin Luther King didn’t turn back on the bridge and I’m not turning my back now.”
He urged alumni and others to give back into the football program and his answers were given as the New Iberia Alumni Federation gave more than $1,000 dollars to the program and no one could match that.
Categories:
Odums Had a Dream; National Signing Day
February 10, 2015
The New Iberia Alumni Federation for Southern University issued 1,000 dollars to the Southern University football team at the Signing Day Celebration in the Royal Cotillion Ballroom .
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