'Big John' Merritt Laid Foundation for Jackson State Success
SWAC.org
Sept. 10, 2009
By Roscoe Nance
Special to SWAC.org
"Big John" Merritt is synonymous with Tennessee State football.
The Hall of Fame coach posted a 172-33-7 record, had five undefeated teams and won seven Black College National championships during 21 years at the helm of the Big Blue.
However, Merritt also has a prominent place in Southwestern Athletic Conference and Jackson State University football lore.
He is widely credited for the Tigers becoming a national power. He was 60-32-4 record in 11 seasons at Jackson State - which plays Tennessee State Saturday in the Southern Heritage Classic in Memphis - before taking over in Nashville.
He coached the Tigers to back-to-back SWAC championships in 1961 and '62 - the first in school history - and their first Black College title in 1962.
"Coach Merritt and his accomplishments helped bring Jackson State to the forefront as a black college football team to be reckoned with," says Jackson State golf coach Eddie Payton, who was a running back for the Tigers in the early '70s. "When he won the national championship, Jackson State came on the scene and hasn't left."
Merritt, who died in 1983, came to Jackson State in 1952 after coaching high school football in Kentucky. His teams had moderate success during his first nine years, but never won more than six games in a season. However, the Tigers were 19-3 his last two seasons, including 10-1 in 1962 when they defeated Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic to win the Black College title.
The Rattlers, along with Grambling State, Southern, Tennessee State and Prairie View, were the premier programs among black colleges. That Tigers' victory propelled them into that upper echelon.
"He elevated the expectations of the program," says Joe Gilliam Sr., Merritt's assistant head coach at Jackson State and Tennessee State. "Jackson State had been a doormat. If you broke .500 people were `Man, you guys are darn good.' We had to teach kids how to win, how to think, how to work, and they didn't mind working. There weren't any kids who didn't know how to to work. It was channeling and developing a mindset of success. In today's vernacular we had to do some head jobs on them."
Merritt did the little things like upgrade the team's equipment, change the look of their uniforms and make sure team members had clean practice uniforms every day.
"He made them think more highly of themselves," Gilliam says.
Jackson State won the SWAC championship in 1961 with a 9-1 regular season record and played Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic for the national championship. The Rattlers won that match-up 14-8.
Willie Richardson, a wide receiver at Jackson State from 1959-62 and later with the Baltimore Colts, remembers the Tigers being overwhelmed by their surroundings. There was parade in downtown Miami before the game, and the contest was played at the Orange Bowl in front of 50,000 fans - the largest crowd Jackson State players had ever seen.
"We got together after the game and said we'd beat them if they brought us back," Richardson says.
The rematch in 1962 was no contest. Jackson State won 22-6. It was party time when the Tigers returned home; 10,000 fans met them at the airport and there were no classes for a week, Richardson says.
"That game was the game that let people know we had an outstanding team,' Richardson says. "Jackson State took off as power, and Merritt set the tone."
"Everybody looked up to us because we beat the mighty Rattlers," says former Mississippi Valley State coach Archie 'Gunslinger' Cooley, an All-American center on the national championship team.
Jackson State has gone on to win 13 more SWAC championships and two more Black College National Championships since Merritt left and has produced a list of NFL players that reads like a who's who of pro football.
"I can't say this for sure," says retired Jackson State Sports Information Director Sam Jefferson, a member of the SWAC Hall of Fame, "(but) without John we wouldn't have had the success that we had in the '70s and '80s. He ushered in an era of Jackson State football. He put it at another level of success. You know how success breeds success? When he left, some of the guys he touched or impacted continued his success. Once you start a tradition of getting good players and winning, athletes tend to come to your school. That is what happened at Jackson State."
Merritt wasn't much of a-hands-on coach; he was more of the CEO type who coached his assistant coaches. He allowed his assistants, Gilliam, who ran the defense, and Alvin 'Cat' Coleman, who handled the offense, to take care of the X's and O's while he dealt with PR aspects of building and running a program.
"He delegated authority and responsibility very well," says Gilliam, who was Merritt's assistant head coach at Jackson State and Tennessee State. "That was one of his strengths. He could see the ability of others, and he delegated responsibilities suited to those abilities. He didn't mind. His concern was winning. He left his ego at the door."
Another of Merritt's strengths was his ability to recruit. He would go to almost any extreme to sign a quality athlete.
Richardson says he is Exhibit A or Merritt's recruiting guile.
Tennessee State and Grambling State wanted Richardson badly. Richardson liked Tennessee State and was set to enroll until Merritt came to his home and made his sales pitch. Richardson's mother was a teacher, and his father was a preacher. Merritt assured them that their son would go to class and get a degree, which went over well with Richardson's mother.
As Merritt rose to leave, he said ''Ol' Coach needs to have a word of prayer,' and he had Richardson's father sold. Richardson became a Jackson State Tiger.
Cooley says his mother was so impressed with Merritt that she wanted to know her son could back to Jackson with him right then and there.
"He could go into a home and come out with a player," Gilliam says.
Everyone who played for Merritt says he was a players' coach even though he demanded that they have a high work ethic.
Merritt had a way of making players feel ingratiated to him and getting them to play at their highest level.
"He made you feel like you owed him," Cooley says, "that if not for him you wouldn't be in school, wouldn't be wearing blue and white. He made you love him by the way he treated you and what he said to you."
The system that Coleman and Gilliam ran was sophisticated but not complicated. Merritt insisted on that.
"Like Vince Lombardi, he said we're not going to have a lot of plays," Richardson says. "But the ones we ran, we ran them well."
Richardson recalls playing Tennessee State in Nashville on Homecoming in the rain. After a scoreless first quarter that saw both team stick to the run, Merritt called Richardson and quarterback Roy Curry aside and said "Roy, you know how to throw the ball. Willie, you know how to catch the ball. Put it in the air.''
Jackson State won 36-6.
"He was a different guy," says Richardson. "It was fun playing for him.. He made it entertaining. Every game something was going on."
Roscoe Nance is a sports journalist with 34 years experience who most recently wrote for USA TODAY.