Why joining Maryland football's staff was a family decision for Pep Hamilton

Ahmed Ghafir
Aug 2
2 min read

While the upcoming season marks the first season that Pep Hamilton coaches in the college ranks since 2018, his arrival as the new offensive coordinator for Maryland football also serves as a homecoming for the longtime assistant.

After growing up in Charlotte, Hamilton spent four years as a quarterback at Howard before transitioning into the Bison’s quarterback coach starting in 1997 then being elevated to offensive coordinator in 1999. Hamilton then made the move to the NFL where he served as a quality control coach for the Jets, his first of three seasons with the organization before moving onto the 49ers then Bears. Hamilton was briefly back in the area in 2020 when he served as both head coach and general manager of the DC Defenders, but the return to the DMV marked more of a family decision rather than a football one.

“My wife and I, we still kept the DMV as our home base. My wife went to Duval High School. Her family [is] still in the Lanham area. We still have our home close to the Eastern Market, so it's really good to be back in a place with some familiar faces, in a community that I love so dearly.”

The arrival of Hamilton in College Park also paired him back with head coach Mike Locksley, two longtime friends dating back to Pep’s time at Howard. But to coach his son, true freshman quarterback Jackson Hamilton, also resonates with the first-year Maryland coordinator.

“For me, it's been a true blessing, because in this profession, we spend a lot of time at work. And so I would say that since I've been here, over the past six months, I've probably seen him more than I had in the past 18 years of his life. And that was a big part of why I decided to take advantage of the opportunity that coach Locks gave me. It's just a unique time in my life, my family. My older daughter going to GW. She's back in town. My youngest daughter is going to be at Bullis. And so having my entire family back here in an environment where my wife's family is established and not and not far from my family in Carolinas is really important for us when we decided to move back to College Park.”

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