By Roscoe Nance

  Bill Hamilton has never scored a touchdown, made a basket, returned a serve, rolled a strike or won a match or meet for South Carolina State.
   Yet no one arguably has had a greater influence on Bulldogs athletics than Hamilton, a 1973 South Carolina State graduate.
  The 60-year-old Chesterfield, S.C., native has spent the last 36 years spreading the word about South Carolina State’s athletic program in his role as Sports Information Director. In the process Hamilton’s hard work, professionalism and easy-going demeanor have earned the respect and admiration of his colleagues nationwide and selection to the College Sports Information Directors Association (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame.
    “This is a humbling experience,’’ says Hamilton, who will be inducted into the CoSida Hall of Fame June 25 in San Antonio during the CoSIDA convention.
   Hamilton will also receive the Arch Ward Award, which goes to a member who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of college sports information, and who by his or her activities, has brought dignity and prestige to the profession. It is CoSIDA’s highest award.
    “He’s a true professional,’’ says Tam Flarup, Athletic Communications Director of Web Site Services at the University of Wisconsin, a 2007 CoSIDA Hall of Fame inductee who nominated Hamilton for the hall. “He’s a welcoming individual. He was the first person I met when I joined CoSIDA 25 years ago. You can share ideas with him. I felt he needed to join that group of individuals who embody what is best in CoSIDA.’’
   Hamilton, like most SIDs at historically black colleges and university, has traveled many back roads during his career. Unlike his colleagues at major universities, his was a one-man operation for most of his time at South Carolina State, and accommodations were less than ideal when he traveled.
 Hamilton fondly remembers the days when the entire football team would pile into one bus when the Bulldogs played on the road and the coaches and support staff would follow in station wagons. Sometimes the driver would fall asleep, but luckily there were no accidents.
  When the team reached its destination, everyone slept in dormitories on the opponent’s campus.
   Those hardships didn’t prevent Hamilton from ensuring that the story of South Carolina State athletics was told.
  “We had some challenging things on the road,’’ he says. “We persevered.’’
  During his career Hamilton has seen South Carolina State play 370 football games, five NCAA men’s basketball tournament games and countless matches and meets in other sports, bleeding Bulldog garnet and blue through all of them. He ranks South Carolina State’s women’s basketball team’s 73-68 victory against Dayton in the 1979 AIAW national championship game as the most memorable moment of his career.
  It’s also probably the most embarrassing.
   Hamilton prides himself on his ability to maintain his professionalism when the Bulldogs are playing and is a stickler about no cheering in the press box or on press row.    
  However, he lost it when Roberta Williams made a jumper as South Carolina State went on a 10-0 run.
 “I always try to use protocol but when Roberta hit that jumper, I jumped up and did a fist pump,’’ Hamilton says. That’s my No. 1 memory.’’
   There have been numerous other high points. One was the men’s basketball team winning the 1989 San Juan (Puerto Rico) Shootout, a tournament that included 11th-ranked Villanova in its field.
  Hamilton still smiles when he recalls how reporters in the press room before the Bulldogs’ first game were saying that “South Carolina came over to take a beating’’ and how he corrected them.
 “I said, ?we’re South Carolina State, and we have a pretty good team,’’ he recalls.
  Then there was South Carolina State’s first round victory against in-state opponent Furman in the Division I-AA playoffs. South Carolina State was sixth in the I-AA weekly poll and Furman seventh going into the final week of the regular season. Both won their last game, but Furman leapfrogged the Bulldogs in the rankings.
  South Carolina State manhandled the Paladins on the field, who had beaten the University of South Carolina in the regular season, and won 17-0.
 Like the athletes whose careers he has chronicled over the years, there were occasions when Hamilton played with pain. One such time was the 1989 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, when the Bulldogs played Duke. Despite battling the flu, Hamilton stayed up all night following South Carolina State’s victory in the championship game of the MEAC tournament handling requests from the media and putting together his postseason guide.
 Even though South Carolina State lost, Hamilton has fond memories of the tournament, the Bulldogs’ first NCAA appearance.
  “The pep band won the hearts of the crowd,’’ he remembers. “It was an ACC crowd and they weren’t accustomed to HBCU pep bands. Also, Christian Laettner made his name in that game. Our center, Rodney Mack, was too quick for Danny Ferry and got him in foul trouble. Duke brought in this freshman named Laettner. He came of age in that game.’’
    Hamilton got involved in sports information in a round about way. He played baseball and basketball in high school, but had no intention of continuing his athletic career when he enrolled at South Carolina State. However, some of his fellow freshmen classmates who were on the basketball team convinced him to try out. Coach Ed Martin cut him the first day.
  Hamilton now jokes about his aborted Bulldog basketball career.
“I asked Coach Martin, ?Why did you cut me the first day? I needed the exercise. You should have kept me at least a week,’’ he says.
  Still wanting to be around sports, Hamilton began writing for the school newspaper covering Bulldog athletics. His writing caught the eye of Public Relations Director Malverse Nicholson, who wanted Hamilton to work in PR writing sports.
 However, Hamilton was already working in the library and his supervisor wouldn’t release him, and Hamilton’s sports information career appeared to be over before it ever started.
 In the meantime, an English major, Hamilton had an internship at New York University the summer following his junior year. That’s where he honed his writing skills as he interviewed the likes of comedian and social activist Dick Gregory, tennis champion Arthur Ashe, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, former U.S. Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm and Miss Universe, Kerry Anne Wells of Australia.
   He also developed a nose for news, which later prompted former South Carolina State coach Willie Jeffries to joke that Hamilton “loves a good news story more than (Chet)Huntley and (David) Brinkley,’’ referring to NBC’s top newscasters of yesteryear.
    Hamilton went to work at a gas station in Washington, D.C., when he graduated in 1973 because he had bought a new Plymouth Duster and was desperate for a job to pay for the car. As it turned out, Nicholson hadn’t given up on having Hamilton join the PR department and brought him on board that summer as a sportswriter.
  Hamilton had his choice of perks: expenses for his move from Washington to Orangeburg, S.C., or a day’s pay.
   “I didn’t have anything to move, and gas was only $7, so I took a day’s pay,’’ Hamilton says.
   That was arguably the biggest bargain in South Carolina State’s history.
Hamilton was not the choice of South Carolina State president Dr. Maceo Nance, which made for a delicate situation initially.
   . “He was tough on me, which I didn’t mind,’’ Hamilton recalls. “He later respected my work as a professional.’’
  Nance had no choice but to respect Hamilton’s work He immersed himself in it, staying late into the night churning out stories about South Carolina State athletics. Hamilton was such a prolific writer, that some alumni were perturbed that more copy was being produced about athletics than about the rest of the University.
    “It got to be a passion,’’ Hamilton says. “When they said go. I said, ?When and where.’ I enjoyed the work. It was quite rewarding. It wasn’t like a job.’’
  Hamilton worked out of the Public Relations office for several years before Dr. Nance decided to create the Sports Information Department. Hamilton had the option of remaining with Public Relations or moving to Sports Information. He says it was a no-brainer.
  “The legacy in athletics was so overwhelming,’’ he says. “I wanted to be part of it.’’
  Hamilton has created a legacy of his own while becoming the Dean of SIDs among HBCUs. Florida A&M Sports Information Director Alvin Hollins says one of Hamilton’s greatest attributes is his willingness to mentor younger colleagues.
  . “He gave me pointers on how to draw the line with coaches, athletes and administrators without losing my professionalism,’’ Hollins says. “These are your superiors but you have to let them know how it’s going to be. He’s the type person who you can just call and ask anything. He’s a guy you cherish.’’
    Jeffries, during his two tenures at South Carolina State probably worked more with Hamilton than any Bulldog coach. Jeffries, who was named Coach of the Year in South Carolina twice ? making him the first black to win the award ?says it was because of Hamilton.
 “I want to compare our relationship with a Collie Nicholson.-Eddie Robinson relationship (at Grambling State),’’ says Jeffries. “We didn’t gain the fame as Coach Rob did. But Bill did the same kind of work (that Nicholson did). If somebody called from the smallest paper or the largest in the nation, Bill would make the same effort running down to the football field and saying, ?Coach, you need to call this person. They want to talk to you.’’
    Jeffries says Hamilton has a way of laying down the law to coaches and athletes about cooperating with the media. Jeffries says he isn’t overbearing, but he makes it clear that they’re not only expected to be cooperative ? they will be cooperative.
     “He didn’t challenge you,’’ Jeffries says. “It was the way he said it.’’
   Hamilton says he owes his success, and ultimately his longevity in sports information, to the coaches, athletes and administrators he has worked with and for over the years. He says he is especially indebted to Dr. Nance and Malverse Nicholson.
   “He took a chance on me,’’ Hamilton says of Nicholson. “I was just two months removed from graduation. I had a lot of doubters. He pushed me, and he set the standards high. I’m glad he did.’’
  Dr. Nance, one of those doubters at the outset, ultimately became one of Hamilton’s biggest supporters.
  “Dr. Nance set the tone,’’ Hamilton says. “He valued athletics and supported it. He wanted the program to be a beacon.’’
     That Hamilton has remained at South Carolina State all these years says volumes about the love and dedication he has for his work and his school. He has had numerous opportunities to leave for higher pay positions. Some, he acknowledges, were extremely tempting.
    “I never thought I’d be at South Carolina State for 36 years,’’ Hamilton says. “It was supposed to be a stepping stone to somewhere else. But I have no regrets.’’
   Since Hamilton has been on the job for such a long time, it is only natural for his friends and colleagues to quiz him on how much longer will he continue. When he calls the roll of his contemporaries in sports information, particularly at HBCUs, it hits him like a ton of bricks that many of the men who were in the field when he started are either retired or deceased ? men such as Collie Nicholson at Grambling, Sam Jefferson at Jackson State and Charles Prophet at Mississippi Valley State.
   “It’s a job for a young person,’’ Hamilton says. “When I’m 62, I’ll look at changing gears. I won’t walk away. For now I’ve still got the enthusiasm. If I ever lose that enthusiasm I’ll give it up.’’
    Hamilton has received many awards and accolades for his work, including the CoSIDA Bob Kenworthy Award, the CoSIDA American Trailblazer Award, the Black College Sports Information Directors Association (BCSIDA) Cal Jacox-Champ Clark Outstanding SID Award and the South Carolina State Employee of the Year. He is also a member of the MEAC and South Carolina State University Athletic halls of fame.
  But Hamilton’s most enduring legacy is the number of his former student workers who have gone into sports information and media relations. 
   Greg Carson, one of Hamilton’s first student workers, was an award winning sports writer for the Times and Democrat newspaper in Orangeburg before becoming Public Relations Director at Claflin University. Carson is currently Public Relations Director of the Orangeburg Consolidated Five School District, one of the largest school districts in South Carolina. Elizabeth Mosley also ventured outside of sports and is communications coordinator for the 1890 Research and Extension Program at South Carolina State.
  Several others have stayed the course. Ted Crews works in communications for the St. Louis Rams; Avis Roper is with the New York Giants; Corey Bowdre is with the Boston Red Sox; Damon White is with Urban Sports and Entertainment, and Brad Gillens is with the Citrus Bowl.
    “I’m happy I was able to contribute to their careers and point them in right direction,’’ he says. “Sports information ain’t a bad job.’’