With all the fervor and intensity of a pre-game pep rally, the Alcorn State University faithful packed a conference room at the Hampton Inn Friday night to clap, cheer and meet the man they hope will be the savior of Alcorn’s football fortunes, head coach Jay Hopson.

After hearing him speak and shaking his hand, the verdict among the majority of the more than 100 alumni and fans was summed up in one word, “excited.”

“I think he’s going to bring a lot of good things to Alcorn State,” said Lenell Henry of Vicksburg. “He’s looking to the future and he’s gotten a good staff. That’s the good thing, because you’re no better than the people you hire. I’m looking for good things, but people are going to have to be patient and let him build.”

In a precedent setting move, Alcorn State president Dr. M. Christopher Brown II on May 29 announced Hopson’s selection as Alcorn’s head football coach. A Vicksburg native and former Warren Central and Ole Miss football player, Hopson is the first white head coach for Alcorn, a member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and the first white coach in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The conference includes Southern University, Grambling and Jackson State University.

Willie Adams, who came from Jackson to attend the program, said he has happy about Hopson’s hiring, adding he hopes Hopson will help improve the scholastic atmosphere of the school as well as boost the football program “and bring back our winning tradition.”

“I had confidence that the selection committee would get the person we needed,” Sandy Carpenter of Vicksburg said. “He’s from Vicksburg; he’s rooted here, and he’s rooted with his family. He’s a quality person and I’m excited about it.”

The crowd in the room included more than Alcorn fans.

“I’m here to support him. I’ve known Jay for years. I’m a friend of his family,” said Linda Moss of Vicksburg. “I’ve watched him play football, and I know he will do well. And we’re going to go to the games.”

George Hunt, another family friend who coached a young Hopson in church league basketball, was at the program with his wife, Jo Glyn.

“I think he’s going to do real well,” Hunt said. “He played quarterback at Warren Central. He was never affected by pressure.”

“The honor and pleasure is mine to be at Alcorn,” Hopson told the group. “I’m committed to bringing Mississippi boys to Alcorn.”

Hopson introduced his coaching staff, discussed his plans and coming season, and answered questions from the fans, who expressed concern about Alcorn’s lack of team speed and asked him to recruit “track men.”

He urged the fans to come to the games, telling them, “we’ve got to make it (the atmosphere) electric. We’re building. This is a ‘we process.’ We’ve got to do this together. We win together. We need to fill the stands, because you may never know when there’s a recruit in the stands.

“If a recruit comes to a game and sees 500 people in the stands, he’s not coming to Alcorn,” he said. “If he comes and sees 20,000 to 25,000 people in the stands, that’s impressive. He’ll think about that.”

Hopson said he asked football players in the 1990s why they went to Alcorn.

“They said that was the McNair years. There was electricity,” he said. “When the stands are crowded, when the yards are full and you have to park six miles from the stadium, that’s when you’ll get the good players to come here. That’s what we need to do to bring Alcorn football back.”

“I’m very excited about what we’ve got,” said Lakesha Batty, president of the Vicksburg-Warren Chapter of the Alcorn State University Alumni Association. “He’s doing the right things and saying the right things.”

Rev. Manny Murphy of Vicksburg, who will head Hopson’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter for the team, called Hopson a very spiritual man, saying that Hopson has asked him to lead a morning devotion for him and his coaches.

“He is very grounded in his faith, and you need that if you are going to lead and develop young men,” he said. “He will do very well in his life and on the field. Regardless of what happens, he will win, because God is with him.”