Leading the Next Generation: The Impact Black Coaches Have on Cougar Athletes
2/23/2026 12:00:00 PM | Football, General, Swimming & Diving
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During Black History Month, Houston Athletics highlights Black support staffers, coaches and administrators and the work they do in the department
Coaches get to have a unique influence on student-athletes for 4+ years of their lives where they get to be parental figures and pour into them. They get to see the highs and the lows, the confidence and the vulnerabilities.
For swimming and diving head coach Tanica Jamison and football coaches Jordy Joseph and Michael Bishop, their experiences playing sports and navigating life as Black athletes and coaches help mold how they impact the next generation of athletes.
Coach Jamison grew up in a single-parent household with two siblings playing multiple sports including basketball and swimming. She learned hard work, determination, sacrifice, humility and independence through her upbringing.
That determination, humility and independence is what helps her today as the only Black Division I swimming and diving head coach.
Tanica Jamison, swimming and diving head coach
"I am proud to be amongst a select group of excellence over the years," Jamison said. "There is a sense of pride that I have being able to share my experience as an elite athlete on the Division I, national and international stage, and now use that platform to encourage and motivate my former and current athletes."
Those traits are woven into the fabric of her squad, a squad that is made up of 45 percent international athletes from varying cultures across four continents. Hard work and determination are universal languages and Coach Jamison is fluent.
Success and failure are also a universal experience. When student-athletes leave Houston's swimming and diving program, Coach Jamison hopes her athletes "learn from success and failures, the biggest thing is to not have any regrets when they leave our program," Jamison said.
When it comes to Black student-athletes, Coach Jamison hopes that she can inspire the next generation of male or female coaches not solely because of her race, but by the attributes that she exhibits – accountability, honor, truth, competitiveness and drive.
"I am here to bring out the best in all athletes," Jamison said. "There is no greater joy than that. We see the most vulnerable side of our athletes, from sacrificing time, being away from family, failures and success. I tell my athletes every year that we are the last stop before they become adults. It is our job to help them navigate who they are or were and who they are becoming."
Coach Jamison firmly believes that everyone has a purpose and destiny that they will fulfill. Coaches a just a short blip in an athletes' journey.
There are very few days during the year where Coach Joseph and Coach Bishop aren't pouring into their football student-athletes. The public doesn't see the countless hours of groundwork student-athletes put in with their coaches, studying film, attending individual meetings, grinding through strength workouts, practicing and having one-on-one conversations, all to be ready to compete. Fans just see the action on the field 12 Saturdays a year.
For Coach Joseph, that foundation was set long before he ever stepped into a locker room. In New Iberia, Louisiana, a historically diverse town where families often either stay for generations or leave to build something new, his story began in a two-parent household rooted in pride and preparation. His grandfather and father were born and raised there. Every lesson he carries today, he says, he first learned at home.
His father was the first Black pitcher at LSU and one of the first Black pitchers in the SEC. His father experienced hard-earned wisdom. Never forget who you are. And be aware of your surroundings so you're never caught off guard.
Jordy Joseph, football assistant coach
Coach Joseph may not have endured the same blatant racial abuse his father experienced, but he learned from his father's experiences and lessons. Similar lessons that his mother taught him.
His mother, an educator, reinforced another lesson: resources don't determine outcomes, determination does. Whether in the classroom or on the field, you still have to apply yourself. Access is a tool. Effort is the difference.
Coach Joseph wasn't the most highly touted athlete coming out of New Iberia, but he had the foundation that put him in the best situation to be successful. Family members who taught him how to move in different spaces. How to prepare for life beyond sports. How to carry himself.
Now, as a coach, he sees his role as a direct extension of the foundation his parents built. As he coaches athletes from different backgrounds, financial situations, family dynamics and upbringings, he knows you can't coach every player the same way.
"You have to meet them where they are," Joseph said.
Coaching for him has always been about developing men. Sometimes that means being a father figure to his players that might come from a single-parent household. Sometimes that means being a constant beacon of hope that when an athlete's competition days are over, their life's meaning is not.
Going to the NFL or being a famous rapper or designing the next trendy fashion line may be the most popular examples of success for young Black men, but they are far from the most common outcomes.
"What is your plan if football doesn't work out?" Joseph said. "Everything goes back to foundation."
Coach Bishop's foundation was built in a similar but different setting. Just like Coach Joseph, Coach Bishop was raised in a two-parent household, but on the east side of Willis, Texas. A multi-racial neighborhood where everyone knew everyone, and where color didn't matter. The west side of town struggled with drugs and crime, but in his side of town all of the kids played in the street together, played on the same teams together.
In his neighborhood, he grew up not judging a person based on the color of their skin, as he was not judged by the color of his skin.
However, Coach Bishop learned that the world outside his little neighborhood an hour north of Houston carried different assumptions.
At 16 years old, Bishop was told he couldn't play quarterback at the next level because he "wasn't smart enough for the position." Not smart enough because he was Black, that was the message.
After that demeaning message, he worked harder. Got up at 4:30 a.m. to workout with his dad, learn the quarterback position and craft his skills not only as a football player, but as a baseball player.
Coach Bishop would go on to be drafted in both the NFL and Major League Baseball. A rare accomplishment. He even played both college baseball and college football. Even rarer.
The racism he experienced at 16 was not the end of the racially motivated aggressions toward him. As the starting quarterback for Kansas State, he scored a touchdown and was celebrating on the sideline with his teammates in a rivalry game against Kansas when a fan threw a dip bottle that hit him square in the numbers. It was a jarring moment he will remember forever.
"I remember being shocked and then just pointing at the scoreboard," Bishop recalled as the Wildcats were leading.
Michael Bishop, football assistant coach
Coach Bishop knows that not every athlete grows up the same way as him, and he ensures that he coaches his student-athletes with love every day because each student-athlete comes from different circumstances with different goals.
Coach Bishop understands that for many Black athletes, sports are viewed as the clearest path out from their hardships and situation, not just for themselves, but for their families. Those families entrust their sons to him. He in turn treats them like his own children.
"The public only sees game day," Bishop said. "I see years of growth."
Coach Bishop is entering his first season as an assistant for his former second grade PE teacher's, Willie Fritz, but says he became a champion playing for Coach Fritz at Blinn College in the 1990s. "Coach Fritz turns everyone into being a champion," Bishop said. "If you aren't a champion when you join his team or staff, you're a champion by the time you're done or move on."
Coach Joseph and Coach Bishop might coach athletes from different walks of life, circumstances, family dynamics, but they know that it is important to be an example and set the foundation for the next generation of champions committed to paying it forward.
Neither Coach Jamison, Coach Bishop, or Coach Joseph think of themselves as just a coach. They are mentors, parental figures, and examples.
They are proof of progress.
"I am living my ancestors' wildest dreams," Joseph said.
"I live Black History every day," Bishop said.
"Hopefully I made a difference," Jamison said.
They are more than just Black coaches. They are foundation builders and progress movers.
