‘An inspirational moment.’ West Charlotte grad Steve Wilks becomes Panthers head coach
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Matt Rhule fired; what’s next?
The Carolina Panthers fired head coach Matt Rhule on Monday after a 1-4 start. The team named Charlotte native Steve Wilks interim head coach.
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Jim Richardson was at work Monday, about to grab lunch, when some of his co-workers heard the news that the Carolina Panthers had fired Matt Rhule and named Steve Wilks the interim head coach of the NFL team.
Thirty-eight years ago, Richardson played football with Wilks at West Charlotte High School.
Wilks, who graduated from West Charlotte in 1987, becomes the fourth Black head football coach in the NFL, joining Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles, Houston’s Lovie Smith and Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin. Miami coach Mike McDaniels is bi-racial.
“Man, that’s just awesome,” Richardson said. “I mean, he’s a native son of Charlotte and he’s a good dude, too. That’s just amazing. A guy I walked the halls with in high school now has the biggest sports job in town. That’s crazy.”
Richardson and many West Charlotte alumni were thrilled with the news Monday. Many have followed Wilks’ career for a long time.
Dreaming of downtown and the Panthers
Wilks, who played college football at Appalachian State, has more than 25 years of coaching experience in college and the NFL, beginning at Johnson C. Smith in the 1990s.
He was assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for Carolina’s 2015 team that reached the Super Bowl. In an interview with The Observer that week, Wilks said that when he was an assistant at Johnson C. Smith, he would often look out the window from the Golden Bulls’ football offices to the Charlotte skyline just down the street.
“I’m going to work there someday,” Wilks said in the 2016 interview, recalling a conversation with a friend and co-worker — future J.C. Smith head coach Steve Aycock.
Aycock thought Wilks was talking about working for one of the big banks in uptown Charlotte.
“No,” Wilks said, “with the Panthers.”
Wilks grew up in Charlotte’s Hidden Valley neighborhood, just a few doors down from future West Charlotte quarterback Pep Hamilton, who is now offensive coordinator for the Houston Texans.
Wilks got his first head coaching job at Savannah State in 1999 and later landed at a series of Division I spots, including Notre Dame in 2004 and at the University of Washington in 2005.
In 2006, Wilks began his NFL career with Chicago, where he coached defensive backs and worked with then-Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera. Five years later, Rivera was named Panthers head coach and brought Wilks to Charlotte, again coaching defensive backs.
Wilks was named defensive coordinator with the Panthers in 2017. He was the head coach with the Cardinals for one year in 2018, where he went 3-13. After Arizona, Wilks was defensive coordinator with the Browns and the University of Missouri before coming back to the Panthers this season as defensive pass game coordinator.
His high school community hasn’t missed any of it.
“We’ve been friends since 1985,” said 1980 West Charlotte graduate and Charlotte city councilman James “Smuggie” Mitchell. He and Wilks are both members of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.
“I followed his career, and when he became (a fraternity brother), we reunited and got even closer,” Mitchell said. “He’s paid his dues, and for him to get a second chance (as an NFL head coach) means a lot to some of us who felt he didn’t get treated right at Arizona. And it’s great news for ‘Dub-C’ Nation. We’ve got a new school (building) and kids can look up and say, ‘Look at the head football coach at the Carolina Panthers. He’s a West Charlotte graduate.’
“It’s just an inspirational moment, man. And on the professional side, a lot of times (Black) coaches don’t get a second time to be a head coach. And to be able to do it in Charlotte, that’s icing on the cake.”
High school star with great football mind
As a senior in high school, Wilks played quarterback on a West Charlotte team that reached the 1986 state championship game.
“He was a receiver until his last year and we didn’t have a quarterback,” said former Lions coach Bruce Hardin, who coached Wilks back then. “Steve was such a good athlete, so we put him in, and, gosh, once he got those legs going, he could really run, and he led us all the way. I just remember he was very coachable. He had a tremendous work ethic.”
Hardin said he talks to Wilks from time to time. Hardin is impressed that when he texts, Wilks always texts back.
“He’s not a guy who ‘has moved on,’ ” Hardin said.
“People like him. I really think he’ll be good. I think they have the real deal (with the Panthers). He just didn’t have a chance in Arizona, and we’ve talked about it without it being negative. He deserves this opportunity and I think he’ll do well.”
Sparky Woods, who coached Wilks in college at App State, has a similar belief.
“He started two or three years and he was a really smart player,” said Woods, now a senior advisor to North Carolina head coach Mack Brown. “He was great at making adjustments during the game, and he was coaching probably before he knew he was going to be a coach. I always thought he had a really high IQ. He was a talented player, but he was probably better because of knowing and understanding football and what to do with it.”
Woods thinks Wilks will be a fine coach for Carolina.
“It’s got to be a dream come true,” Woods said. “I’m excited for him. I know his parents and they would be very proud. He’ll be a good representative of the Panthers, I think, and be a good listener, to the other members in the office and to the players. And I think he has leadership skills where he’s not afraid to make a decision. He’s a very poised guy, so I think he has a lot of great qualities that a head football coach needs to have.”
‘It makes me feel good’
John Love is a 1962 West Charlotte graduate who grew up in Chester, South Carolina with Wilks’ father. He said Wilks’ promotion Monday was “personal” for him.
“It makes me feel good,” said Love, who is 78. “Just knowing that Steve went to West Charlotte, went to App State. It’s really personal for me. I had not seen the news. I was out playing golf and one of my classmates called me and told me. I just said, ‘That is super news.’ It just makes you feel real good when a West Charlotte person is doing something great, and he is a good guy and has done really well for himself.”
Back at lunch, Richardson — Wilks’ former high school teammate — joked that the new Panthers coach was pretty quick back in the day and could throw short passes really well.
“He could really throw the short ones,” Richardson said with a laugh. “But man this feels great. I think we’re going to get a lot from him. We were sitting around eating and some of the guys that went to (Charlotte high schools) Harding and Garinger, they were like, ‘Man, that’s awesome. We’ve got one of our home boys coaching at the Panthers.
“I mean, everybody’s excited about it.”
This story was originally published October 11, 2022 at 5:45 AM with the headline "‘An inspirational moment.’ West Charlotte grad Steve Wilks becomes Panthers head coach."
