Maryland head coach Mike Locksley was officially honored on Monday, but for a different reason than fans are used to seeing. Mike Locksley was one of ten people named a 2023 Washingtonian of the Year after being recognized as someone who makes "our region an even better place." https://twitter.com/washingtonian/status/1744404775469273109?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet The news comes weeks after Maryland defeated Auburn in the Music City Bowl, securing consecutive eight-win seasons for the first time in over 20 years, to wrap up the fifth season for Mike Locksley as head coach. While the tangible on-field development has been evident at times to Maryland fans, it's Mike Locksley's contributions in addition to football that vaulted him to recognition. Via the Washingtonian: Growing up in DC in the 1970s and ’80s, Michael Locksley learned grit and perseverance. When his parents’ marriage broke up, he lived in housing projects and relatives’ homes. His mother worked multiple jobs to keep the children fed, and he watched people he knew get killed or sent to jail. “I just saw it as ‘You know what? You’ve got to keep grinding,’ ” Locksley says. “Those struggles made me who I am today.” Determination in the face of adversity has been at the heart of Locksley’s five-year run as head football coach of the University of Maryland, where, during the 2021 and 2022 seasons, the Terps won back-to-back bowl games for the first time in almost two decades. It has also inspired his efforts in the community. In 2020, after witnessing firsthand the shortage of opportunities that minorities face when attempting to climb the coaching ranks, Locksley launched the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches, a nonprofit committed to providing talented coaches of color with the skills, connections, and exposure they need to advance. In just three years, the organization has built a heavy-hitting board of directors—including Alabama head coach Nick Saban—and helped minority coaches secure marquee jobs, including Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman and the University of Virginia’s Tony Elliott. “My job isn’t to make people hire minorities,” Locksley says. “My job is to make sure hiring officials know we have qualified individuals capable of running football programs at the highest level.” Meanwhile, through a personal tragedy, Locksley has become an advocate for mental-health awareness. Over the course of his early twenties, Locksley’s son, Meiko, became increasingly unstable. Doctors diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder, and in 2017 he was murdered by a still-unidentified gunman. Locksley keeps two full-time mental-health professionals on staff for his players, and one game each season is dedicated to raising awareness about mental health. “It’s okay for a big, strong football player to say, ‘Hey, I’m not in a good space mentally,’ ” he says. At the same time, Locksley in 2021 joined the board of directors of an organization near and dear to his heart: the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington. As a child, he’d found a safe afterschool haven at a Boys & Girls Club in DC. “That club saved my life,” he says. Locksley’s service on the board, he explains, is a way to “pay back some of the people and some of the resources that helped make me who I am today.”
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