Florida A&M is hiring former Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward as its next men’s basketball coach following the departure of the program’s previous coach, Patrick Crarey II, who was hired as Grambling State’s coach last week. Ward starred at Florida State in both basketball and football and won the Heisman Trophy in his fourth and final season with the Seminoles in 1993.
CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein reports Ward has agreed to a five-year deal with FAMU pending approval from the university’s board of trustees at a meeting later Wednesday.
Ward, 54, is an icon in the Sunshine State after a two-sport career at Florida State from 1989 through 1994. The Georgia native won ACC Player of the Year in football both in 1992 and 1993, culminating with an All-American campaign in his senior season while throwing 27 touchdowns to just four interceptions. In his final season, he led FSU to a national championship under coach Bobby Bowden.
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In basketball, he played in 91 games across four seasons and started in 73, earning a role as the team’s starting point guard. He became a legend after nailing a game-winner in the 1991 Metro Conference Tournament title game vs. Louisville, the program’s first conference tournament title in more than three decades, and was later part of a 1993 team that made it to the Elite Eight.
Basketball later turned out to be Ward’s professional path after not being selected in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft, which he said would prompt him to pursue the NBA. The New York Knicks selected him in the first round with the 26th overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft, which set him on a path for a decade-long career in the NBA.
Ward played through 2004 with the Knicks, where he made 272 starts and appeared in 580 games, before finishing his career with the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets in 2004 and 2005.
Ward has been the basketball coach at Florida High in Tallahassee since 2018, winning a state title in 2022.
FAMU is widely considered to be one of the toughest Division I jobs in college basketball having posted 18 consecutive losing seasons under five different coaches. The Rattlers are coming off their best season by final winning percentage in 2024-25 since 2007-08, however, where they finished 14-17 overall and had a winning record in SWAC play.
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