CANTON, Ohio \u2014\u00a0Miles College and Virginia Union battled at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium on Sunday for the annual “Clash at the Classic” as a part of this year’s Black College Football Hall of Fame Classic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton hosted the 6th Black College Football Hall of Fame Classic this weekend
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The weekend included college and career fairs, a day of service, and other educational and outreach events
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A major goal of the event is to honor players and coaches from historically black colleges and universities and increase exposure for HBCUs<\/p>\n
Dwight Well graduated from Miles College and used to play for the Golden Bears. He says playing at the Hall of Fame is a once in a lifetime opportunity for these student athletes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHBCUs collectively all over the country absolutely deserve venues like this to put on our talents and to showcase the young men and young women that are dedicating themselves to a better world,\u201d Well said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The weekend honored football players, coaches and others from historically Black colleges and universities. Doug Williams, the first Black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl, is the cofounder of the Black College Football Hall of Fame and says HBCUs have led to several legendary NFL careers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Black College Football Hall of Fame is the reason why they are in the NFL Hall of Fame because most of them got their starts at an HBCU; that\u2019s the most important thing,\u201d said Williams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The weekend also included a college fair, career fair, and other educational and outreach events.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the classic weekend; I love everything about it,\u201d Pro Football Hall of Fame Chief Relationship Officer Adrian Allison said. \u201cThis is why we do these events \u2014 to uplift everybody and uplift these students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides football, fans enjoyed food, music, and more on Sunday. For Jerome Franklin, it was an opportunity to promote his business and the importance of HBCUs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to the Hall of Fame for allowing me to be out here to showcase my business,\u201d said Franklin. \u201cWe\u2019re able to show what HBCUs are out there. Myself, growing up, I didn\u2019t know how many there was. It\u2019s really important. We want to get the word out. We need to get more recognition for HBCUs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While there was certainly excitement on the field, Well says celebrating the tradition and heritage of HBCUs is the real purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cActually highlight what we really do at an HBCU,\u201d he said. \u201cHBCUs have greatly impacted my life, my kids, my family, my wife. It\u2019s absolutely wonderful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CANTON, Ohio \u2014\u00a0Miles College and Virginia Union battled at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium on Sunday for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[41445,2722,54478,399,79339,398,396,397,3,6454,54479,99,452],"class_list":["post-123893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-ctv","tag-football","tag-jack-berney","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-news","tag-ohio","tag-ohio-what-you-need-to-know","tag-sports","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}