LITTLE ROCK — Alonzo Hampton was sitting inside J. Thomas May Field House a little over a week ago, preparing for spring practice as Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s defensive coordinator.
Now, he is headed to Bowling Green, Ky., ready to begin as Western Kentucky’s defensive backs coach, a position he accepted Sunday three days after interviewing with Coach Willie Taggart.
“It was out of the blue,” Hampton said.
Hampton, from Warren, resigned as Golden Lions defensive coordinator Sunday, a move that will force Coach Monte Coleman to fill two staff openings and decide whether he wants to call defensive plays again.
“I’m sad for him to leave, but I’m very proud for him,” Coleman said of Hampton, who is moving from UAPB, which is in the Football Championship Subdivision, to Western Kentucky, which is in the Football Bowl Subdivision. “I want coaches to be successful and have the ability to move up.”
Hampton, who also coached the Golden Lions’ defensive backs, said he and Taggart became friends in 2006, when both served as interns with the Philadelphia Eagles. Hampton said he thought he would join Taggart’s staff when Taggart was hired at Western Kentucky in November 2009, but said he wasn’t seeking a new position when the two were chatting on the phone last week.
“I was asking him about some players and he said. ‘I might have a defensive backs job opening,’ ” Hampton said. “I went down there and interviewed and he offered me the job Sunday night.”
Coleman is seeking a replacement for Hampton along with a new linebackers coach, a position that came open when he fired Vernon Dean last month after his arrest in Pine Bluff on a drug charge.
Coleman said he has interviewed “a couple of candidates” for the linebackers position and wants both hires in place before spring practice begins March 28.
But whomever he hires might not coordinate UAPB’s defense in 2011. Colemanserved as UAPB’s defensive coordinator in 2006-2008 and said Tuesday he might take those duties back.
“The interviews that I have with the guys coming in will determine which direction I go,” Coleman said. “But there definitely has been some consideration.”
Hampton spent six seasons at UAPB, first joining former UAPB Coach Mo Forte’s staff as a volunteer assistant, moving up to defensive coordinator in 2009.
“He’s been valuable to us,” Coleman said. “He’s very knowledgeable, very energetic and had a lot of good ideas.”
UAPB ranked ninth in the Southwestern Athletic Conference in total defense in 2010, allowing 383.6 yards per game and ranked seventh in both scoring defense (28.0 points per game) and pass defense (219.5 yards per game).
Sports, Pages 24 on 02/23/2011