Since Anderson University opened its doors in 1911, it has been described in several different ways:
- A four-year women’s college.
- South Carolina’s first junior college.
- A two-year coed college.
- A four-year university.
But one thing it has never been that it will officially become on Sept. 7 is a football school. On what will no doubt be a hot, late-summer Upstate afternoon, the Division II Anderson University Trojans will play their first-ever regular-season football game on campus against St. Andrews University (Laurinburg, N.C.).
That day has been several years in the making.
The brand-new Spero Financial Field at Melvin and Dollie Younts Stadium sits empty and complete, ready to be filled with fans, marching bands, cheerleaders, and touchdowns — the sweet chorus of fall Saturdays in the Deep South has come to AU. The team has been practicing for the past year and has participated in scrimmage games in the fall and spring, with more than 6,000 fans attending in the fall and around 4,000 in the spring.
Suffice it to say, AU is ready for some football.
“Anderson is starting football this fall from a position of strength,” AU President Evans Whitaker said. “Already the largest private university in the state, Anderson isn’t desperate for more students. Yet given our size, substance, and our location in the heart of football country, it just makes sense to offer football alongside our other athletic offerings.”
VETERAN COACH AT HELM
The program will commence with a roster of more than 100 players — 90 of them freshmen — who have been practicing for the last year without playing a real game.
Lamb: “We are Christ-centered. I can guarantee you Anderson University isn’t crossing the line.”
AU hired a football lifer to build its program in 2021. Bobby Lamb grew up in Commerce, Ga., where he played high school football for his father, Ray Lamb, one of the winningest and most highly decorated coaches in Georgia prep history. Several other family members, including Bobby Lamb’s son, are football coaches.
Bobby Lamb played quarterback at Furman from 1982 to 1985. In 1985, he led the Paladins to the Southern Conference title and to a two-point loss to Georgia Southern in the Division I-AA national championship game. Lamb was named Southern Conference Player of the Year.
After his playing days ended, Lamb served as an assistant coach at Furman from 1986 to 2001 before he was hired as head coach of the Paladins in 2002. He spent the next eight years at Furman, leading it to 67 wins and four postseason appearances.
AU will not be Lamb’s first experience of building a program from the ground up. In 2011, he was hired to coach Mercer University’s first football team in 70 years. The Bears went 10-2 in the Pioneer League in their first year before joining the Southern Conference in 2014. Lamb remained at Mercer through the 2019 season, compiling a 41-39 record.
FROM THE GROUND UP
So, how do you build a college football program from scratch? You start with recruiting and signing high school players. The Trojans begin their inaugural season with 90 freshmen. The transfer portal will also help the young team: Lamb was able to sign 16 experienced players with one or two scholarship years remaining.
This year’s team will feature many freshmen plus veteran transfer players from colleges across the South, including Kennesaw State, Mercer, Stetson University, and Charleston Southern, among others.
“We wanted to use the transfer portal to bring in some players with experience in other places,” Lamb said. “They will serve an important leadership role for our young players.”
One player to watch will be Bryson James, a 5-foot-9, 180-pound freshman running back from Clinton High School, who finished in the top five for the Mister Football award in South Carolina. On defense, a player of note will be linebacker Jerrod Woods (6-1, 210), a transfer portal addition from Leesburg, Ga.
The Trojans will operate out of a spread offense and will use a 4-3 defense. AU will play eight conference games as members of the South Atlantic Conference (Mountain Division) that includes schools such as Carson-Newman University, Mars Hill, Lenoir-Rhyne, and Catawba College. Lenoir-Rhyne won last year’s conference title.
Under Lamb’s leadership, the Trojans seek to put the glory of Christ before all else, the coach said. While some Christian schools give lip service to their faith when it comes to athletics, AU has no interest in that; Christ will be supreme.
“We are Christ-centered, and we tell them that up front,” Lamb said. “There are a lot of schools out there that say they draw a line in the sand, but they are crossing it. I can guarantee you Anderson University isn’t crossing the line.
“That’s one of the things that attracted me here as well being able to do the (Christian) things we do such as being able to pray with our players, pray as a team, have devotions as a coaching staff. The outside world is against things like that, but we’re a Christian university. You’ll hear a prayer at every game.”
After hitting each other for one year and the school promoting AU’s first season, everyone involved or interested in AU football is ready for kickoff.
“The anticipation level is through the roof for our coaching staff, and probably for our players too,” Lamb said. “Any freshman who came here last year has been practicing an entire year without playing in a game. We had a black and gold fall game in October and a spring game in April. Those were the only two events our players have played in front of fans, so our players are ready to get out and represent our school and see what we can do on the playing field.”
Expansion sports teams often struggle on the field in their first season. Even though they’ve practiced for 365 days, Lamb knows the bright lights of game day can be blinding to a young team. What will make Anderson’s first foray into football a success?
“You don’t really know how it’s going to be until you play real games against a live opponent,” Lamb said.
“But if our kids play hard and compete hard and develop as players and men, we’ll be happy. We have an opportunity to have an impact on these young men for the next four or five years of college. That’s an important part of the process: You’re not only a coach, but you’re a teacher, you’re a mentor, and you’re somebody hopefully these players look up to.”
Whitaker said AU intends to approach football in the same way it does everything else it is called to do, building a program that seeks to glorify God.
“We will recruit students who are great athletes and great students who want to be at an academically selective, unapologetically Christian university. Bobby Lamb is a great coach and an exceptionally fine man. Anderson will do football right. We’re ready to build a phenomenal program.”