Roderick “Rod” Paige wasn’t the football coach who recruited Mike Holmes to Texas Southern, but he sure made an impression on the young man who is still the Tigers’ most accomplished wide receiver to date.
Their time together, from 1971 to 1972, was brief but definitely impactful.
“The time I had with him was outstanding,” Holmes said. “What you learned from him is it’s all about education, leadership, and a daddy figure. He kept us all on the right track. Any information we needed concerning life, we could go directly to him.
“He was like a daddy figure to me. And I know some of the other guys felt the same way.”
Paige, who served as Texas Southern’s football coach from 1971 to 1975 after coaching the Jackson State Tigers from 1964 to 1968, is remembered as a stern yet caring coach who consistently stressed the importance of education. It’s of little wonder to most who encountered Paige that he would ascend to heights greater than coaching as he matriculated through life. That he eventually transitioned to teaching at TSU after moving on as athletic director probably wasn’t much of a surprise, and neither was his serving as the Dean of the College of Education or later becoming president at his alma mater Jackson State.
Eventually becoming the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District and then being appointed by George W. Bush as the first Black person to serve as Education Secretary, these achievements were few saw coming. Dr. Roderick Paige passed away on December 9 at 92.
“It wasn’t surprising. If you spent enough time with and listened to what he is saying as the particular time, you could see that the sky was the limit. You can tell exactly where he is trying to go and what he is trying to make happen.”
Mike Holmes
“He was a first-class individual who was highly respected in the Houston area,” said longtime area radio personality and journalist Ralph Cooper, who covered Paige during his time at TSU. “The older people at that time would share with you that they didn’t think he was going to just be a football coach for long. They could see him being the president of a university, but they never mentioned being the Secretary of Education. They didn’t mention Superintendent of HISD, which he became also.”
But before Paige made an indelible mark on the education stage as the architect of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, the Mississippi native made quite an impression as a college football coach both at Jackson State and TSU, where he instilled pride, purpose, and a drive to be the best at whatever you chose to do in life. Holmes, who was drafted by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers in the first round in 1973, recalls the conversations Paige had with him individually and the team back in the day.
You walked away enlightened and inspired.
“He definitely had a big impact on everybody,” Holmes said. “Once you have an opportunity … He sits down, and he starts speaking, your eyes open. He is saying something that makes sense. Then from that particular conversation, everybody decides to start doing the right thing.”
Paige recruited and coached some greats at Jackson State, including cornerback great Lem Barney, who was later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He also had some greats like Holmes when he arrived at TSU.
However, his greatest accomplishments in sports may have come in his ahead-of-his-time vision regarding college sports. He was one of the first to have a coach’s TV show, he worked out a car dealership deal for him and his assistant coaches, and he was also part of starting the Double Bump games in Houston, which featured Prairie View and TSU in back-to-back football games at Rice Stadium.
As athletic director at TSU from 1971 to 1980, Paige expanded programs across several sports, upgraded facilities, and strengthened the academic-athletic balance while HBCUs were fighting for resources and national visibility. Paige is also credited with hiring legendary TSU men’s basketball coach Robert Moreland from Utica Junior College in Mississippi after the two had crossed paths when Paige worked there as a football coach.
Paige is an inductee into the Texas Southern University Sports Hall of Fame.
“He was definitely a forward-thinking individual in his approach to what college athletics could be,” Cooper said.
Ramon Manning played for TSU, but well after Paige’s tenure. However, the two later crossed paths, and Paige played a crucial role in helping Ramon enter the world of public relations advocacy, politics, and funding candidates running for school board positions, as well as recruiting talent to the school board.
“I never had the opportunity to have him as a coach, but he was always known in the Black student athlete community, especially at Texas Southern and across the SWAC as a giant. He was Coach Paige,” said Manning, who is the founder and chairman of Ridgegate Capital. “Publicly out of respect we would call him Mr. Secretary being the first African American Secretary of Education in our country’s history.
“He was one of those figures who gave you some love, but he was a stern, no-nonsense type of brother. You couldn’t be around him and be bullshitting.”
Cooper got to see first-hand the positive impressions Paige left on people, not just in the Black community but on all people in all walks of life.
“It didn’t surprise me that he went to become who he became because he knew how to deal with people like George Bush the President, and then to run the school district in Houston with all the different personalities and the people who ran the political people and ran things in Houston,” Cooper said. “Think about it, this man came from Mississippi and became the superintendent of the school district, and then parlayed that into becoming part of the George Bush cabinet as Secretary of Education. He was ahead of his time.”
