TALLAHASSEE, Fl. (WTXL) - Almost two months to the day that Florida A&M parted ways with men's basketball coach Byron Samuels, the school has finally announced their new head coach. The new face on campus? Robert McCullum.
McCullum has coached for four decades, serving as head coach at Western Michigan and South Florida from 2000 to 2007, and most recently as Assistant Director of Basketball Operations at Oregon.
Athletic Director Milton Overton, Jr. reiterating McCullum's experience with recruiting and with HBCU's as reasons for his hiring. Over 130 people applied for the job, and with McCullum's experience with coaching at low resource institutions like FAMU made him stand out among the rest.
"We believe what we have is a blue collar coach who is going to roll up his sleeves and get with it and win a Championship here," said Overton on Tuesday. "We're loking for the best coach at the right time in FAMU's history to move our basketball program forward."
McCullum has applied two other times in the past to be the head coach at Florida A&M, and said there is no other place he would rather be.
"That's the goal, that's the challenge, to be among the elite teams in the MEAC annually," he said. "If you are one of the top three teams in the league each year, you can compete for Championships. We have the things in place that will allow us to do that."
McCullum has yet to complete his staff, and added there is no timetable to complete that task, although he is actively looking.
