College Football Hall of Fame is where Bill Hayes belongs

WINSTON-SALEM, NC - As Bill Hayes makes his case for the College Football Hall of Fame, the HBCU football legend sat inside the Field House at WSSU's Bowman Gray Stadium with the clearest evidence of his legacy all around him.

Below him was the field that bears his name. Above it was his statue. And beside him was a story that began 50 years ago with almost nothing.

Not a full staff or a rich budget. Not even an office.

"I started at Winston-Salem State with a drawer in another man's desk to become the head football coach," Hayes told HBCU Gameday during a June 30 interview. "And worked my way from a drawer in another coach's desk to what you see today."

What you see today is Hayes Field at Bowman Gray Stadium. You see a WSSU football program whose modern history can hardly be told without his name. What you see today is a coaching tree, a championship tradition and a case that feels overdue.

Hayes is on the ballot for the College Football Hall of Fame. This year marks 50 years since he arrived at Winston-Salem State in 1976.

Nearly everything that followed can be traced back to that decision.

Bill Hayes changed WSSU football

Before Hayes arrived, WSSU football did not have the championship identity it carries today.

The program had history and pride. It had players. But it did not have the sustained winning structure that would define the next five decades.

Hayes did not pretend he walked into an empty room. He credited Cleo Wallace for recruiting good athletes before his arrival. But Hayes saw his role clearly.

"It was my job to put all that together," Hayes said. "And that was fun."

His first WSSU team won four games. That does not sound like much now.

"We won four games," Hayes said. "It was like we won this championship."

Then came the work.

Hayes had limited staff. He had volunteers - coaches who needed to be trained. He had to teach the details of college football from the ground up.

"My biggest job was training the coaches," Hayes said. "Every night at 7:00 we'd get together and work till 11 or 12, and I would go through everything everybody had to do the next day."

The details were not broad suggestions. They were exact.

"On this particular play, you're going to step with this foot first," Hayes said. "From the first step down to the last step of everything we had to do with everybody on the staff."

That is where the WSSU football standard began.

From first breakthrough to lasting legacy

By Hayes' second season, WSSU had broken through.

In 1977, the Rams beat North Carolina A&T, a program it had never beaten. Hayes remembered the buildup, including a spy being discovered at practice before the game.

"Boy, did that light a fire up under everybody," Hayes said. "The excitement in the area and the university and the student body and the team - it was at an all-time high."

Then WSSU went to Greensboro and made a statement.

"We just took it to them," Hayes said. "It was just phenomenal because nobody thought we could do it."

The Rams followed by breaking through against North Carolina Central, Hayes' alma mater. Soon WSSU was not just competitive. It was national.

"We were 11-0 two times in a row and established ourselves nationally," Hayes said.

Hayes won three CIAA championships as WSSU head coach. But the impact did not stop with the titles he won himself.

Since he arrived in 1976, WSSU has won 12 CIAA football championships. The coaches connected to those championships tell the story. Pete Richardson coached under Hayes before winning at WSSU and later Southern. Kermit Blount, Hayes' quarterback, became WSSU's all-time winningest coach. Connell Maynor, another Hayes player, was hired by Hayes as athletic director and led WSSU to one of the greatest runs in school history.

Even after Hayes left the sideline, the foundation kept producing.

That is the heart of his Hall of Fame case. His work did not end when he stopped coaching at WSSU. It became part of the program's DNA.

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This story was originally published June 30, 2026 at 5:56 PM.