HBCU coaching legend gets highway section named after him

An HBCU coaching legend is now getting a stretch of highway named after him in the capital of North Carolina.

George Williams, legendary head coach of the prolific Saint Augustine’s University track and field program, will have a stretch of highway named after him. The N.C. Board of Transportation approved the designation at the request of the Raleigh City Council on Wednesday, according to the Durham Herald-Sun.

The Coach George Williams interchange where New Bern Avenue meets Interstate 440 on the Raleigh Beltline will be named after the coach, who is a graduate of the HBCU.

“He was a distinguished professor,” former Saint Augustine’s University President Everett Ward told Board of Transportation members, “and, as many of us called him, a life coach for students not only from an academic perspective but from a life-learning perspective of being contributors to society.”

Williams led St. Augustine’s University to remarkable success, securing 39 NCAA Division II National Titles over 44 years. He served as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team in 1996, where all his athletes won gold medals, and was the head coach in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Williams has been inducted into multiple halls of fame, including the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame and the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame. In 2022, he received the Legend Coach Award from USA Track & Field.

“He traveled that road about every day for probably 45 or 50 years,” NC Senator Dan Blue said. “So many people will be reminded of all of the tremendous contributions he has made, the leadership he has provided, as they come off of the Beltline onto New Bern Avenue.”

Williams was removed from his post in 2020, as well as his job as the director of athletics, which he held for 23 years.

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