Starting from scratch: Bobby Lamb talks ins and outs of creating Anderson football
Bobby Lamb was named head coach of the Anderson University football team in July 2021, making it the second time Lamb has built a program from scratch.
Although the Trojans don’t start play until 2024, Lamb is busy recruiting and working to put together Anderson’s first-ever signing class.
The State sat down with Lamb to check on the progress of the creation of Anderson’s football program and more.
Lamb’s comments have been edited lightly for brevity.
The State: How has Anderson been so far?
Lamb: It’s been great. I had no idea what (Anderson) had done from a student body standpoint when I came back to take this job. Largest private school in the state of South Carolina, one of the fastest-growing private schools in the country. ... The addition of football certainly will enhance our value and even get our name out there even more. Football is just a different animal when it comes to that. Plus it’ll bring the community together, a lot of things that football does. But I think just the people here, very refreshing to come to a school like this. We’re Division II but as you can see, we’re gonna build a phenomenal facility and we’re in the process of doing that right now. One end of the field has got a soccer and lacrosse field house, and then the other end will be a football field house, which will open up next June 1.
Where are you in terms of program building right now?
Lamb: OK, so here’s the way you build a program and, obviously, I did it at Mercer and I’ve kind of got the blueprint: You basically hire your staff in tiers. Where we’re at right now is, 2023 is our first recruiting class. So right now, we’re actively recruiting our 2023 class.
Now, your first class, you need about 80 to 90 players because you gotta have a practice year, which is a developmental year. So what we’ll do is, we’ll sign that first class, they’ll come to school next August. … When school starts we’ll begin our developmental year/practice year. So that team will stick together for one whole year; then we’ll sign a 2024 class in February of 2024 and then they will come and have our first preseason camp in 2024, probably Aug. 5 or 6, whatever the date is.
Then we’ll have our first-ever game in our own stadium on campus, Sept. 7, 2024. So that’s kind of the blueprint of how you do it. Right now, we’ve got two coaches, and I’ll hire the rest of my staff in the first part of January, and then we’ll hit the ground running.
Are kids already committed to Anderson?
Lamb: No, nobody yet. In the Division II model you really don’t have kids commit until roughly December. Because they’re like everybody else — when I was in school, I was waiting to go to Alabama and ended up at Furman. They’re waiting to go to Furman and Wofford, but end up in Anderson.
Speaking of Furman and Wofford, who are you competing the most with when it comes to recruiting? Is it those schools?
Lamb: We’re not going to compete against Wofford and Furman. We’re going to recruit a lot of the same guys, but once they make their selection of their top guys, then whatever they got left over is what our list is made up of. And then we’re recruiting within our conference. You’re looking at a Newberry, you’re looking at, they’re not in our conference, but North Greenville, Lenoir-Rhyne, Wingate, West Georgia, Valdosta State in the state of Georgia. So those are just some of schools that were competing against.
You brought back Mercer football after a 72-year hiatus. What is like being someone to bring two new programs up from nothing?
Lamb: First of all, my wife told me I was crazy when (I told her) I was gonna start another program. I’ll tell you what, it’s very rewarding when you get to that first game. And there’s a lot of work that goes into it
When you start the program, there’s a lot of things you do nobody sees off the field. ... I’ve been to Furman’s practice, I’ve been down to Georgia, I’ve been up to Clemson, we’ve been down to South Carolina and when you go to those places, you go in there and you start taking pictures of what all they got and you start thinking in your mind, ‘Oh, my gosh, we’ve got to buy all of this’ because we don’t have anything.’ So it’s very overwhelming when you start. … The school was founded in 1911, so we’re undefeated since 1911. And we’ve got two more years to be undefeated, so that’s really good.
Back to the Anderson community, what’s the support been like from a morale standpoint?
Lamb: The support here, everybody’s just excited that we have a team. Football is like any other sport because you’re gonna go out here and you’re gonna have five or six Saturdays where everybody shows up in your stadium, and everybody’s gonna pull for the black and gold. Whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, Black (or) white, doesn’t matter. It’s all about pulling for the black and gold. Anderson is a great city. It’s growing because of the growth of the Upstate of South Carolina, and I think the timing is right to start football and I think you’re gonna see a lot of people come support Anderson. … You can just feel the energy, and as you get closer to that start date, the energy will even pick up.
What was the coaching-search process like when Anderson approached you for the job and you eventually took it?
Lamb: When I left Mercer, I went to Louisiana Lafayette with Billy Napier. I went down there and I was assistant to the head coach for him and just enjoyed it, phenomenal year, got to go to a bowl.
Then once that year was over, me and my wife had to make some decisions. My father-in-law, her father, had bile duct cancer, and so he lives in Greenville. So we had to make a decision. I had been in talks with (Anderson vice president for athletics) Bert Epting, and I knew that the start date for this job, I knew when it was coming open. And I said, you know, I just need to go by and talk to him and see what they got over there. We’re going to come back regardless to Greenville, so we could help take care of her dad (who died June 14).
So I came over to see Bert and go into his office and I’m looking around, I’m like, ‘Man, this is not the Anderson that I remember.’ ... It kind of got my juices flowing again and I’m like, you know, I could do this. ... God has a plan for you and I really believe that he had the plan for me to come to Anderson and be the head coach and start this program. As I tell people all the time, this is gonna be my last rodeo. I’m 59. I just feel like this is where he put me and wants me to be.
So this is going to be the last stop of your coaching career?
Lamb: You don’t ever say last but you know, just looking at it — I love what I do. I love coaching, I love relationships, I love the sport of football. I think it’s the greatest team game ever invented. … It’s what I love doing and so I have no idea. I told my wife I’ve go no date that I’m gonna retire or anything, but I’m certainly gonna see this through and get this thing started and hopefully be here for a while.
Between your time at ULL and Anderson, did you ever get a call to have an opportunity at the FBS level?
Lamb: I could’ve gone with Billy Napier down to Florida and been in administration down there. I talked to Tony Elliott a little bit about doing something up there in Virginia. So there were opportunities, but they were going to be off the field. … The thing that kept pulling us back here was her dad and her being able to spend all the time that we could with him. For a year and a half, we were able to spend that time with him, and that’s invaluable to do that.
Family is clearly important to you. Is that something you’re instilling into the program at Anderson?
Lamb: Very much so, family is important. One of the things I like to do and hopefully I’ve done it the right way, is I’m here to have an influence on these young men that you coach. But the other part of the job is, you’re here because you’re getting ready to hire some families. I’ve already hired two coaches and you’re gonna have six more full time in January, so you’ll have eight full-time coaches, and then we’ll have some more support staff — but you’re going to hire those families. And so me and my wife, one of our ministries is, we like to minister to those couples and those families.
How do you pitch Anderson to recruits, especially knowing that the first class is going to only practice for a year?
Lamb: The first thing that we talk about is, we talk about developmental year. You develop on the field, off the field, mentally, spiritually, there’s a lot of ways to develop. You can get involved with more campus activities, you can be a part of this university, which is what we want. But also the big selling point is playing time, because everybody wants to play.
The big selling point is, you’re coming into class in 2023, you look behind you, there’s not nobody back there, because there’s no lines. Now there might be two or three receivers in line or two or three quarterbacks in line, but after that, that’s it. Then the 2024 class is going to come in and actually have 25 days of practice to beat you out for the first game. So you got a legitimate chance to be a four-year starter. We’re not guaranteeing that, but a legitimate chance to be a four-year starter. The other thing is, you get to create your own legacy, you get to build something from the ground up, you get to be the very first team in the history of Anderson football.
Seth Strickland and Malik Chevry are the two coaches you’ve hired already, was that search process like and what will their roles be?
Lamb: So my thought process this time was, ‘OK, let’s hire two young coaches that have coached, that have recruited at the Division II level because I’ve never recruited Division II.’ … Seth Strickland, who was at Albany State — Albany State got in the playoffs last year. He was offensive coordinator, he was the quarterback coach, did a phenomenal job there. Malik Chevry was at Erskine College. Hit a home run on those two guys. I call one of them an offensive assistant and one of them a defensive assistant because really you don’t want to pigeonhole those two guys, and then when you hire your staff, you got to hire around that. So I’m going to hire the best guys for Anderson University and then we’re going to plug and place where they need to go.
You’re still a while out from 2024, but what is an ideal Year 1 for Anderson?
Lamb: I’ll be honest with you. At Mercer I thought we could win maybe three games and we ended up winning 10. … The negative of starting a program is, I’m gonna take a class of 2023 and I’m gonna take a class of 2024, two classes, and we’re going to play immediately in the South Atlantic Conference. So you’re playing Lenoir-Rhyne, Newberry, Wingate, Carson Newman, Tusculum and Limestone, and all those schools that have seniors and fifth-year seniors. So that’s the tough part of it, so I think the first year you just want to be competitive.
Since Anderson is brand new, you won’t necessarily have any rivalry games. How do you create those and other traditions?
Lamb: That’s really hard. If you look at proximity, Erskine would be our closest team; Newberry’s not very far. Now I have had discussions with our athletic director about, ‘Hey, let’s find a couple teams or maybe a team or two and do a trophy game.’ … One of the negatives is, you don’t have former players to lean on. There’s no former players to come back and show them what you got because you’re starting literally starting from scratch. The positive on traditions, you can start whatever tradition you want.
We don’t even know have a fight song here. We gotta get a fight song, gotta get a band — there’s a lot of things to do. Which is crazy in itself, but those things you can create, and they’re gonna be here for years and years to come.
