Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson say they wouldn’t be coaching without Eagles greats Andy Reid and Big Dom
The pair first credited Deion Sanders for paving the way, but there was a reason Jackson brought a Dom DiSandro bobblehead to Tuesday’s press conference.
Former Eagles quarterback Michael Vick always wanted to get into coaching. He’s been coaching his daughter in flag football for a decade, and during his NFL career, he hosted football and quarterback camps and lamented that he wouldn’t get to work with the players for longer during their careers.
Former wideout DeSean Jackson, on the other hand, initially had no interest in coaching after seeing the long hours his coaches put in.
“I said, ‘When I’m done with football, I don’t want to be nowhere in the building that long, right?’” Jackson said Tuesday. “Now, to be in this seat, I was curious to see, what type of coach would I be? I had to ask my mentors, and I had to ask guys like Andy Reid. I had to pick up the phone and humble myself, because when you got an opportunity in life — I mean, the way we were raised and the way we grew up, we feel like we can be successful in anything, but the thing is, we’ve never done this before."
Jackson and Vick still connect regularly, and when Vick’s name was first floated for college head coaching jobs, he reached out to Jackson, hoping to bring him on board wherever he went. By the time Vick accepted the position at Norfolk State, Jackson already was interviewing for a head coaching job of his own at conference rival Delaware State.
Now, on Oct. 30, Jackson and Vick, who spent five seasons together in Philly (from 2009 to 2013), will face each other as college head coaches for the first time at Lincoln Financial Field, after Jackson reached out to the Eagles to get their home game moved to the bigger venue for the event.
“It’s going to be very competitive,” Vick said. “We’ve been in the huddle together; we came back in games together; we came out swinging and smoking in games together. This is the opportunity for us to really put what we’ve learned over the last year on display, and I would say this, we expect to see this for a long time.”
Jackson and Vick are part of a growing trend of former players coaching at historically Black colleges and universities, following Deion Sanders’ success at Jackson State and move to Colorado. Before accepting the job at Delaware State, Jackson reached out to Sanders for advice.
“Without Deion’s success, our success would not have been presented to us,” Jackson said.
Vick and Jackson had their fair share of off-the-field struggles, and Jackson said that without the strong coaches and staff in the Eagles organization — including “Big Dom” DiSandro, whose bobblehead he brought to the presser — he might have been out of the league before he got started.
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Now, they want to instill those values in the next generation.
“Even though we had success on the field, we were always thinking about giving back,” Vick said. “That was always a priority, and the people in this organization made it a priority. [Reid], Howie [Roseman], Jeffery [Lurie], Dom, they instilled that in us.
“To be on this platform right now, to be looking at the Linc, to be here where we practiced every day, we battled together, and now we get to go in there and we’ll have a night we’ll reflect on for years. … It comes full circle, and I couldn’t be more proud to be here with my brother right now.”