 Good afternoon and welcome. It's a great day to be a Viking. It's a great day to be a Viking. I am George Brighton. I am blessed with the opportunity to serve as your Director of Athletics here at Elizabeth City State University. And we are here today to launch a new era in Elizabeth City University's storied and legendary football program. However, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to bring to you ECSU's 12th Chief Executive Officer and seventh Chancellor of the mighty Vikings to the podium. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our transformational leader, Dr. Kerry G. Dixon. Vikings, this is an exciting moment in ECSU history. As Vikings, we have a commitment to excellence and we continually strive to do great things in this world. We believe in teamwork and partnerships and a rigorous focus on our future and that spirit is personified in our football team. Our players bring their skills and talents together to dominate both on and off the field. These young men serve in our communities and they have leadership roles on our campus. They need someone to guide them as they strive for being the best person possible. We want them to be powerful on the field but whole kindness in their soul. We want them to learn what winning means as a student athlete, a man, and as a member of this community. I am excited to be part of today's announcement that marks a new age in Viking football. It brings together the honor of the past with the excitement of our future. Our program will have a lifelong learning at the helm of this leader, one with passion and drive for success for his team and our students. He is a nationally recognized coach and leader and we are thankful to have him returning to ECSU as part of our future. I will now turn it over to AD Bright to tell you more about the excitement around this candidate. We are about to present to you. AD Bright. First and foremost I would like to thank our Viking chief, Chancellor Kerry Dixon, who has been fully supported and committed to the Department of Athletics and to our student athletes. We truly value her leadership and counsel. Please let's give her a hand and to our football student athletes that are watching. You are fully committed to ECSU's football program and truly deserve a high-level experience with a chance to compete for championships while earning your degrees and experiencing everything our remarkable university has to offer. So in our search to find someone to lead our football program, we were fortunate to have a dedicated, trustworthy and exceptional talented search committee. They thoroughly reviewed each candidate's information and background as we actively sought someone who shared ECSU's goals and values. And a special thank you as well to all of our stakeholders, our board of trustees, our executive cabinet members, our donors, our alumni, our fans and students and student athletes who provided feedback throughout this entire search process. We listened. And a thank you to our amazing athletic staff and of course all faculty and staff and everyone on campus. And finally I would like to thank every applicant who expressed an interest in this head football coach position. We had a very talented and robust pool of candidates. So our desire for integrity, determination and discipline has been very clear and we have hired someone who brings those talents. We wanted someone who cares about developing outstanding young men both on and off the field. Someone who loves ECSU and has the desire and energy to instill and develop a championship culture, returning robust football to Robux Stadium and someone who passionately understands the unique challenges and opportunities presented here. Our new coach is a proven leader and educator and winner. As both player and coach, his football programs have gotten better and better and have risen to a higher level every place he's been. He's someone who has the ability and the desire to bring our community of Vikings and friends together. He's a high character, high integrity person. We've had great conversations. He cares about our players and will push them to excel. He's going to care about his new staff. He's going to push them to succeed, but he's going to do things the right way. The Viking way as we create this championship culture together. You're going to see very soon coach his passion, his purpose and pride in a very big way with the energy that he brings. He's a four-year letterman for the Vikings. He was the leading tackler for the fifth ranked defense in Division II during the 2002 season. Right? He was also a member of the All-CIAA defensive first team, a two-time Thomas Caldwell recipient for excellence in football, and he received the Pepsi-Cola Most Outstanding Player Football Award in 2003. In 04, he joined the ECSU coaching staff and became an intricate part of the heralded blue storm defense, which in 06 shut out four opponents and held six opponents to seven points or less. That season was one for the history books at ECSU set a winning record of nine and three. The Vikings were also ranked fifth in the nation in scoring defense, second in takeaways, fifth in interceptions, and fourth in fumbles recovered. A lifelong learner who was always looking to increase his knowledge and exposure, he was among 25 participants in the country chosen to participate in the NCAA Men's Football Coaches Academy, which develops minority coaches to help them acquire head coaching positions. You know, it didn't take him long to put his stamp on the program at our opponent, Virginia Union. All right? In his first season, the Panthers won 8-2 and finished the season ranked eighth in the region, just narrowly missing the NCAA Division II playoffs. Under his guidance, the Panthers boasted the number one scoring defense in the CIAA, which ranked 20th in the nation. He was nationally recognized as the AFCA, that's the American Football Coaches Association's Division II assistant coach of the year in 2019. He was selected to the Bill Walsh NFL minority internship with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Hilliard spent the entire NFL training camp learning from legendary head coach Mike Tomlin and his staff and he was involved in the day-to-day coaching and player development. He's a native of Golds Borough, North Carolina with a bachelor's degree in history from the Elizabeth City State University and a master's degree in sport management from the United States Sports Academy. Vikings all across the nation, I am thrilled to present to you your new ECSU football head coach from the class of 2004. Please welcome head coach Marcus Hilliard. Thank you. Just take a chance to just, you know, take this all in. You know, it's been a long time coming. First of all, I just want to thank God for this opportunity. You know, bless me with this tremendous opportunity. He knows, you know, I pray for this and, you know, he made it happen for me. This is a pleasure. This is an honor for me. To my wife, she knows, it ups and downs in my career, but just being there for me, Bay, I definitely appreciate you and you being there for me, helping me succeed and get to this dream. To my family that's here today, my mom, my dad, my aunts, I love you guys. Thank you for the continued support and I appreciate you. To Dr. Dixon, A.D. Bright, give me this opportunity that I don't take lightly. I'm ready to go. This is it, man. You know, you get up here, it's like what you're going to say, but I'm excited. I'm excited for the Viking family. Again, I want to give a special thanks to my VU family. You know, President Lucas, A.D. Taylor, Dr. Parker, all the athletic administrators and staff there. You know, you guys helped me grow to this point and I appreciate you guys, definitely much so. And just everybody to this point, man. It's just an honor. All those things, A.D. Bright said, man, I forgot about all those things, you know, after playing and hearing all those accolades, but you know, it's not about me, man. It's about getting Elizabeth City back to prominence and that's what I come to do. So how do we get there? You know, my vision is simple. Just get an alumni back involved, get in the community back involved, get everybody back involved in Viking athletics and the first thing we got to do, we got to recruit. We got to recruit these student athletes that believe in the process, who want to be great on and off the field, who will make a difference and help us get back to those winning ways. You know, when I was here, my four years were excellent as far as being here, but on the field, you know, they weren't that great. But one thing about it is that we have Viking pride and we never gave up and that's the spirit I wanted still in these student athletes, you know, with me taking over the program. As a coach, we had some rough years there, you know, the 0405 we had to build it, same thing, but you come back in 2006 and we had the best record in school history, you know, and that's a testament to the guys and just believing in them and those are the student athletes that we want to recruit. We want to get him who believe, you know, and that's the formula, the blueprint for getting this thing going. All right. And it's going to be a process. It's not going to be quick. You know, we, you know, Elizabeth City, we've gone through some challenges. We went through some challenges and it's going to be a process and it's going to take some time. But I can guarantee you, we're going to get it done. And I'm glad you guys have faith in me to make that work. And just to the alumni, I'm just excited. I know guys have been texting me all day. Alums, man, I'm back. I'm ready. All right. I'm back. I'm ready. But I need you guys to support. Of course, financially, you know, it always happens. We're definitely going to need that support. But positively promoting Elizabeth City in the program. You know, when you are at Walmart, man, let's go to let's take our kids out of Elizabeth City, speaking good about the program, you know, sharing the good things that we're doing here at Elizabeth City State University. That's how we gain that support. Through the alums, just making sure ECSU is the number one destination. And I charge all the alums, even people in the community, friends, family to do so. And finally, being engaged. It's an exciting time. I can't wait, man. It's just an excited time. I'm so excited, you know, just being here. But when I say being engaged, just making sure that we're not just supporting for homecoming, or we're just not supporting for down these, we're supporting these student athletes throughout this evening, not just football, but all athletics, even the school. And I charge everybody with that. So again, I'm excited, man, I know it's gonna be a challenge. And I'm here to work, but I can't do it alone. I'm gonna definitely lean on the alums, the community, the faith community, everybody, family, friends. I'm gonna need you, but we're gonna get it done. I can guarantee you that and it's an exciting time. And as an alum, I'm elated to grow with you. And I'm ready to be the foundation. So that's all I have, man. I appreciate this opportunity. Like I said, I don't take it lightly. And I'm ready to get to work. Viking pride, Viking pride, Viking pride. The coach is my honor. All right, to present this polo. All right, to you. But again, it is a pole that represents our football program. And with you at the head, you the you at the main head of this, please wear this with Viking pride. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. At this time, are there any questions from the media that we can address at this moment? Seeing none, the rest of the day will look like this. Coach is going to leave. Of course, he's gonna say hello to his parents right quick. And then we're gonna proceed down to another room. We have the team that's waiting on zoom to meet their new head coach. So we're going to go and he's gonna speak with them at this time. Okay. So with no further ado, Chancellor, we okay? All right. Thank you, everybody. Meetings adjourned.