Roderick “Rod” Paige wasn’t the soccer coach who recruited Mike Holmes to Texas Southern, however he certain made an impression on the younger man who continues to be the Tigers’ most completed extensive receiver up to now.
Their time collectively, from 1971 to 1972, was transient however positively impactful.
“The time I had with him was excellent,” Holmes mentioned. “What you realized from him is it’s all about schooling, management, and a daddy determine. He saved us all heading in the right direction. Any info we would have liked regarding life, we might go on to him.
“He was like a daddy determine to me. And I do know a number of the different guys felt the identical method.”
Paige, who served as Texas Southern’s soccer coach from 1971 to 1975 after teaching the Jackson State Tigers from 1964 to 1968, is remembered as a stern but caring coach who persistently pressured the significance of schooling. It’s of little surprise to most who encountered Paige that he would ascend to heights larger than teaching as he matriculated by means of life. That he finally transitioned to instructing at TSU after transferring on as athletic director most likely wasn’t a lot of a shock, and neither was his serving because the Dean of the Faculty of Training or later changing into president at his alma mater Jackson State.
Ultimately changing into the superintendent of the Houston Unbiased Faculty District after which being appointed by George W. Bush as the primary Black individual to function Training Secretary, these achievements had been few noticed coming. Dr. Roderick Paige handed away on December 9 at 92.
“It wasn’t shocking. For those who spent sufficient time with and listened to what he’s saying as the actual time, you could possibly see that the sky was the restrict. You possibly can inform precisely the place he’s making an attempt to go and what he’s making an attempt to make occur.”
Mike Holmes
“He was a first-class particular person who was extremely revered within the Houston space,” mentioned longtime space radio persona and journalist Ralph Cooper, who coated Paige throughout his time at TSU. “The older folks at the moment would share with you that they didn’t suppose he was going to only be a soccer coach for lengthy. They might see him being the president of a college, however they by no means talked about being the Secretary of Training. They didn’t point out Superintendent of HISD, which he grew to become additionally.”
However earlier than Paige made an indelible mark on the schooling stage because the architect of the controversial No Youngster Left Behind Act, the Mississippi native made fairly an impression as a school soccer coach each at Jackson State and TSU, the place he instilled pleasure, goal, and a drive to be one of the best at no matter you selected to do in life. Holmes, who was drafted by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers within the first spherical in 1973, recollects the conversations Paige had with him individually and the workforce again within the day.
You walked away enlightened and impressed.
“He positively had a big effect on everyone,” Holmes mentioned. “Upon getting a possibility … He sits down, and he begins talking, your eyes open. He’s saying one thing that is smart. Then from that individual dialog, everyone decides to start out doing the proper factor.”
Paige recruited and coached some greats at Jackson State, together with cornerback nice Lem Barney, who was later inducted into the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame. He additionally had some greats like Holmes when he arrived at TSU.
Nonetheless, his biggest accomplishments in sports activities could have are available in his ahead-of-his-time imaginative and prescient relating to faculty sports activities. He was one of many first to have a coach’s TV present, he labored out a automotive dealership deal for him and his assistant coaches, and he was additionally a part of beginning the Double Bump video games in Houston, which featured Prairie View and TSU in back-to-back soccer video games at Rice Stadium.
As athletic director at TSU from 1971 to 1980, Paige expanded applications throughout a number of sports activities, upgraded services, and strengthened the academic-athletic stability whereas HBCUs had been preventing for sources and nationwide visibility. Paige can be credited with hiring legendary TSU males’s basketball coach from Utica Junior Faculty in Mississippi after the 2 had crossed paths when Paige labored there as a soccer coach.
Paige is an inductee into the Texas Southern College Sports activities Corridor of Fame.
“He was positively a forward-thinking particular person in his method to what faculty athletics might be,” Cooper mentioned.
Ramon Manning performed for TSU, however effectively after Paige’s tenure. Nonetheless, the 2 later crossed paths, and Paige performed a vital position in serving to Ramon enter the world of public relations advocacy, politics, and funding candidates operating for college board positions, in addition to recruiting expertise to the college board.
“I by no means had the chance to have him as a coach, however he was all the time identified within the Black pupil athlete group, particularly at Texas Southern and throughout the SWAC as an enormous. He was Coach Paige,” mentioned Manning, who’s the founder and chairman of Ridgegate Capital. “Publicly out of respect we’d name him Mr. Secretary being the primary African American Secretary of Training in our nation’s historical past.
“He was a kind of figures who gave you some love, however he was a stern, no-nonsense kind of brother. You couldn’t be round him and be bullshitting.”
Cooper received to see first-hand the optimistic impressions Paige left on folks, not simply within the Black group however on all folks in all walks of life.
“It didn’t shock me that he went to change into who he grew to become as a result of he knew learn how to cope with folks like George Bush the President, after which to run the college district in Houston with all of the totally different personalities and the individuals who ran the political folks and ran issues in Houston,” Cooper mentioned. “Give it some thought, this man got here from Mississippi and have become the superintendent of the college district, after which parlayed that into changing into a part of the George Bush cupboard as Secretary of Training. He was forward of his time.”
