COVER STORY
outcome available to me, and I could not ever go to anyone and complain as to why I wasn’t successful. And a third thing, my mother would always tell me is that “It’s not important that everyone knows what you’re thinking and always think before you speak.” Those three principles I learned as a child growing up in a poverty situation with eight of us living in a four-room house. No hot or cold running water. My bathroom was on the back porch. I took a bath in a tin tub in the corner. That is the way I was brought up. But the things that I learned in that meager situation gave me the foundation to accomplish whatever level of success I may have had. Journal: Remarkable. What is your hometown? I don’t believe you men- tioned it. Hamilton: A place called Gastonia, North Carolina. Journal: I’m in southeastern Virginia, so I’ve definitely heard of Gastonia. When did you fall in love with the game of basketball? Hamilton: Well, I’m not real sure love was what drove me to playing basketball. My father told me that we had to get our education. He never said anything negative or racial about White people. He always said he wanted to be paid the same rate for doing the same job. How- ever, he could not receive the benefits for doing the same job, and even doing it better because his educational creden- tials didn’t give him the right to make the same salary that he was training other people to do. He then told me he had absolutely no money to pay for my education. The only way I was getting an education was an academic or athletic scholarship. So basketball and football to me were necessary to have my educa- tion paid for. Or I would have to join the army to get a GI Bill. So when I started out playing football and basketball, it was more about getting a scholarship to pay for my education than it was about whether I loved the game or not. Journal: Ahhhh so it was much more out of necessity than anything else.
When you think about your playing ca- reer, how did it influence your decision to pursue a career in coaching? Hamilton: Well, it really didn’t. All I wanted was to get an education so I could go out and get a good job so I could set the tone for my younger broth- ers. When I graduated college, I adopted my brother Willie who was 17, and I got him in college. And when Willie got married, he married a girl that he met in college. They had two kids and both went to college and got their degrees. My brother John goes to college and he marries someone he met at college and now his son has a college degree. I ad- opted my sister Pam; she went to college and her son goes to college. So me get- ting my degree and education changed the entire culture of my family. Because I was the very first person to go to col- lege in my entire family. I was driven by the fact that I had three brothers and a sister in my immediate family. I knew that I had to set an example for them. So me getting my education created a fol- lowing for my siblings you know. That’s why I’ve been so big on education. I knew it was a way out of the poverty situation and would open the door for opportunities that were closed to those without a college education.
responsibilities of a full time assistant coach became mine. I took on all of the duties of a full-time assistant basketball coach while in graduate school less than a year after graduating from college. In other words, I graduated college in May or June and by January I had the respon- sibilities of a full-time assistant coach. I was on a staff coaching guys who were older than me. You talk about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, that would’ve been an understatement. Journal: At a time where there couldn’t have been that many African American coaches at schools like Austin Peay.
Hamilton: No, not that many at all.
Journal: Now I’ll ask you the question I ask every brother that I interview. What led you to pursue membership in Kappa Alpha Psi? Hamilton: Well, I was the first Black basketball player at UT Martin, I inte- grated that program. But that’s a whole other story. We didn’t have any African American fraternities on campus at that time. There was a group of young men on campus who were eager to charter a fraternity and Kappa Alpha Psi was that fraternity. There was an interest meeting, and interest group with several guys I knew, and I thought it would be a neat idea to be a part of the first African American fraternity chartered on my campus. Journal: How did you come to integrate the UT Martin basketball team? Hamilton: Well, I was a member of the first basketball team that Gaston Com- munity College ever had. I had football scholarships, but I became ill right before I was to report to Livingstone College in North Carolina as a scholar- ship football player. So, I didn’t report. I thought since I had gotten sick I would join the army so I could get my education through the GI Bill. By coincidence, the community college in my hometown de-
Journal: So how did your coaching career start?
Hamilton: When I graduated college, I was scheduled to serve in the military because it was mandatory at that time that everyone serve in the service. I was thinking about joining the Army when a graduate assistant position became available at Austin Peay. With it I could take advanced ROTC so that in the event I did go to Army, I would have been a second lieutenant instead of go- ing in as enlisted. So I took advantage of that opportunity as an assistant on the basketball team to work on my Master’s Degree and get advanced ROTC certi- fied. Little did I know that while I was a graduate assistant that the full-time assistant would become ill in January and have to resign. So there I was as a graduate assistant, the ONLY person that the head coach had. So all of the
Opposite page: Above, Coach Hamilton with Coach Rick Pitino. Below, Brother Hamilton speaks with UNC Coach Roy Williams.
26 | WINTER 2020-SPRING 2021 ♦ THE JOURNAL
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