Mississippi Valley State head football coach Terrell Buckley is turning to legends for inspiration as he works to rebuild the Delta Devils program.
Speaking this week, Buckley, the first-year coach, said he has used the mental toughness and competitive drive of icons like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan to shift his team’s mindset.
The Delta Devils are 0-3 on the season and have been outscored 115-6 in recent outings against Tarleton and Southeastern Louisiana.
Despite the lopsided defeats, Buckley, a college great and NFL Super Bowl champion player, wants the team to believe they belong.
“I mean, we watch, I pulled up from Kobe Bryant stuff, some Michael Jordan,” Buckley said Monday during the SWAC coaches media press conference. “We talked a little bit about Terence Crawford. I want to say, when you take over a program that’s been down as long as we have, the mindset—and when you get down—that you’re still not out of the game if you keep executing and doing the basic stuff right.”
For Buckley, that means drilling fundamentals and instilling belief in a roster that he insists is more talented than its record suggests.
“So alignment, assignment, effort, along with fundamentals, is kind of what we focus on,” he explained. “We’re trying to rechange that mindset and saying that we do have talent in here, we are that good. Let’s go out and prove it.”
The first-year coach acknowledged that the road to rebuilding is steep, but he believes instilling lessons from the greatest competitors in sports history can help turn around a program that has not had a winning season in years.