|
Bankins Named Running Backs Coach, Football Staff Complete
April 3, 2007 UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - Head Coach Dave Clawson has announced that Charles Bankins has joined the football staff as the running backs coach. Bankins, a 1994 graduate of James Madison, has spent six of the last seven seasons at Hampton University and one year in the National Football League with the St. Louis Rams. "I'm very excited to bring a coach with Charles' qualifications into our program," said Clawson. "I've known Charles for about seven years now and to bring someone in who played in our conference, with his coaching experience and his NFL knowledge, will be a great fit for our program." With less than a week before UR's spring football game (Saturday, 3 p.m. at First Market Stadium), Clawson's staff is now complete. Bankins will coach a pair of returning starters in the backfield in 2006 Third Team All-Atlantic 10 selection senior Tim Hightower and junior John Crone, along with returning RBs Josh Vaughan and Justin Forte. Bankins, who had recently been promoted to HU's offensive coordinator, was in his second stint with the Pirates after spending the 2005 season as the assistant special teams coach with the St. Louis Rams. While on Mike Martz's staff, Bankins helped their special teams corps improve 15 spots, from an NFL ranking of 32nd to 17th by season's end. With Bankins mentoring the backfield, Hampton saw all-time leading rusher Montrell Coley win the Division I-AA scoring title in 2000 with 172 points and lead the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference with 1,582 yards on the ground. In the 2003 Super Bowl, Darian Barnes, another Bankins product, started at fullback for the World Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In 2004, Pirate RBs Alonzo Coleman and Ardell Daniels became the only pair of backs in Division I-AA to each rush for more than 1,000 yards. The duo repeated that performance a year later. Coach Bankins earned his bachelor's degree in speech communication with a minor in political science from JMU in 1994 and lettered all fours years as running back. He received his master's degree from Eastern Kentucky University in sports administration in 1998. He spent the 2002 summer as a minority-coaching intern for the Green Bay Packers and was recently named to the 2004 NCAA Expert Coaching Academy. Bankins is married to Dr. Katrina L. Brown. Previous Coaching Experience:
|
 
|
