It was seven unforgettable days of laughs, story-telling and proud reflection as Blue Death Valley hosted the first-ever Bill Hayes Celebration Week from June 1-7, 2025 to honor the legendary HBCU football icon.
Throughout the week, fans got treated to a veritable history lesson of HBCU football with rare throwback articles, photos and videos, as well as brand new interviews with some of the most well-known names in A&T athletics.
The festivities officially kicked off on Sunday, June 1 – which just happened to be Hayes’ 82nd birthday.
That afternoon, Hayes reunited with four of his former quarterbacks – Marshall Glenn, Jason Battle, Maseo Bolin (A&T Hall of Fame 2016) and Connell Maynor (A&T H.O.F 2012) – on a special podcast that was moderated by the Inside the Valley crew of Craig Turner, Doug Brown and Semaj Marsh.
For nearly 90 minutes, the former A&T signal callers shared what it was like to play for Hayes and the lasting impact he had on their post-football careers.
Later in the week on Thursday, June 5, founding members of A&T’s Blue Death Defense were able to display their love and appreciation for their former head coach during another podcast, this time featuring former middle linebacker Jay Reid, edge rusher Chris McNeil (A&T H.O.F 2020), defensive tackle Reggie White (A&T H.O.F 2009) and free safety Darryl Klugh (A&T H.O.F 2014).
Finally on Saturday, June 7 the week-long celebration reached a symbolic end with a on-site interview with current A&T head football coach Shawn Gibbs who actually got his start as a volunteer coach for Hayes in 2002.
“We’ve got to really give our legends their flowers while they’re alive,” said Gibbs, who was named the school’s 23rd head coach on Dec. 12, 2024 and recently hosted his first summer prospect camp. “We can’t talk about them when they’re gone. We need to let Coach Hayes and Coach (Rod) Broadway and Coach (Sam) Washington and Coach (Buddy) Pough down at South Carolina State – let all these great coaches know how much we appreciate them all.”
Born in Durham, NC in 1943, Hayes was a star offensive lineman at his alma mater North Carolina Central University before embarking on his storied college coaching career.
From 1973 to 1975, he served as the running backs coach at Wake Forest University, making him the first black assistant football coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
He got his first head coaching opportunity in 1976 at Winston-Salem State and would lead the Rams to three conference titles ands two playoff appearances over the next 12 years.
In 1988, Hayes agreed to take over the head coaching job at North Carolina A&T and his tenure would become one of the most successful in school history.
He won three Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) titles and made Division 1-AA playoff appearances in 1992 and 1999. His ‘99 squad still holds the distinction of being the only team in school history to win a playoff game when they went on the road and upset No. 1 ranked and undefeated Tennessee State in the first round.
Hayes finished with coaching career an overall record of 195-104-2 in 27 seasons.
Still willing to share his wisdom and develop future leaders, Hayes would then enjoy a second career as a college athletic director at NCCU, FAMU and WSSU before finally retiring for good in 2014.
Afterwards, Blue Death Valley announced that it will continue to host the Bill Hayes Celebration Week every year during the first week of June.
