Noted assistant takes Tuskegee post
After careful consideration of his
search committee's top recommendations, Tuskegee
University President, Dr. Benjamin F.
Payton, Tuesday named five-time Division II national
championship assistant coach and former Temple University
Offensive Coordinator Willie J. Slater as the Golden
Tigers' new head football coach.
Though the new coach spent the last two seasons in Philadelphia with the Temple Owls under his former University of North Alabama coach, Bobby Wallace, he is no stranger to making winners out of Alabama teams.
Slater, 49, holds five Division II national championship rings from his work at the University of North Alabama and Troy University. He is also a five-time NCAA Assistant Coach of the Year recipient, and helped coach the Jacksonville State Gamecocks to the 2003 Ohio Valley Conference title with a 7-1 (8-4 overall) record.
"Coach Slater is a proven winner who believes in recruiting the hard to find best players available and coaching them well," said Payton who made the announcement at a press conference at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center on campus Tuesday morning. "He knows the importance of teaching players to be the best they can be athletically and in life. That, coupled with his winning record and spirit, makes him the top selection to lead our Golden Tigers' football team."
Slater, who was elevated to offensive coordinator at Temple this season under then head coach Wallace, replaces Rick Comegy who resigned after ten successful years leading Tuskegee to become the head coach at Jackson State.
Slater brings 28 years of coaching experience, 24 of them on the collegiate level and 15 of those as an offensive coordinator to his new position.
Slater was offensive coordinator at North Alabama under Wallace when that school won three consecutive NCAA Div. II national championships from 1993-95. He won national assistant coach of the year in each of the title seasons. In all, he spent eight years at North Alabama, six under Wallace.
His first full-time position at the collegiate level was at Troy State, where he served as running backs coach under Chan Gailey from 1983-84. Gailey is now the head coach at Georgia Tech. In total, Slater spent eight seasons at Troy State, also working as quarterbacks and running backs coach. Troy State went to the playoffs three times during his stay and won NCAA Div. II championships in 1984 and 1987. Slater won national assistant coach of the year honors in both those title seasons.
He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, West Alabama, in 1978 and earned his degree in business eduction from the school in 1979.
He was a four-year starter at quarterback for West Alabama, then known as Livingston College, and helped the Tigers to a third place finish in the 1975 NCAA Div. II playoffs. He is a native of Coffeville, Al., and a 1974 graduate of Coffeeville (Ala.) High School, where he was a prep All-America quarterback and the Class IA State Most Valuable Player.
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