FAMU set to hire former FSU Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward as basketball coach
Florida A&M is expected to name former Florida State football and basketball star Charlie Ward as its new head men’s basketball coach, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel. The deal is reportedly pending a final board approval at 3 p.m. today.
Ward, who lives in Tallahassee and has coached high school basketball for many years, will replace Patrick Crarey II, who left the Rattlers after just one year to become head coach at Grambling State.
Ward won the Heisman Trophy in 1993 while leading Florida State to its first national championship by beating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. He then decided to focus on the NBA instead of the NFL, and he was drafted in the first round by the New York Knicks in the 1994 NBA Draft.
Ward, who originally hails from nearby Thomasville, Ga., played in the NBA from 1994-2005. He then coached in the NBA with the Houston Rockets before coaching high school football in Texas and Pensacola for several years.
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Ward has coached boys’ basketball at Tallahassee’s Florida High since 2018, and his Seminoles squad won a state championship in 2022.
If Ward is hired as expected, it will add more Florida State flavor to the Rattlers’ athletics department. Former FSU football standout James Colzie is entering his second year as FAMU’s head football coach, and former Florida State player and coach Jamey Shouppe has been their head baseball coach for over a decade.
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