North Carolina A&T head football coach Alonzo Lee was fired on Nov. 29 following a 1-10 season. Lee was hired on Jan. 16, 2009 and went 5-16 in his two seasons as the Aggies coach.

 Assistant coach and running back coach George Ragsdale has been named the interim head coach.

 Lee’s team struggled with turnovers this year and they were outscored by double-digits in seven out of eleven games. 

 Despite this past seasons’ struggles, the Aggies actually made strides in the right direction under Lee. 

 The Aggies didn’t win a game in 2007 and they finished 3-9 in 2008, the season before Lee was named head coach.

 He improved their record to 4-6 in 2009.

 “I really didn’t expect Coach Lee to get fired and I don’t believe anyone expected him to,” said junior defensive back Justin Ferrell.

 “He is a great coach who was going an extra mile to do whatever it took to help turn the program around.”

 The University has yet to release a statement as to why Lee was let go after just two seasons. Speculation is that the school wanted to go in a different direction.

 “We weren’t given a legitimate reason why they had fired him,” said Ferrell. 

 “[We] had heard that it had been in the works for some time and that the institution just wanted to go in a different direction with the football program.”

 “The only reason I could think why he was fired was due to the fact of our losing records the past two seasons,” said sophomore wide receiver Larry Raper. 

 “It takes time to turn around a team that has been down for a while… But I guess that’s just a part of business. Everyone wants to win.”

 The Aggies were expected to make huge strides this year however that never transpired.Injuries hit the Aggies hard this season, early and often.

 A week before the Aggies even took the field for their opening game against Winston-Salem State, starting quarterback Lewis Kindle was injured and ruled out for the entire season.

 This was compounded by injuries to key players along the defensive line.

 Lee had to shuffle through four different players at quarterback, including George Hines who was not on the team from the start of the season. 

 Hines, a standout baseball player for the Aggies finished the season as the starter and he was the quarterback for the Aggies only win against Howard on Oct. 23. 

 That win was the first for the Aggies since they beat Howard on Oct. 24, 2009. 

 Ragsdale graduated from  A&T in 1975 and played eight years of professional football including six in the NFL.

 He has been on the A&T coaching staff for 12 years and was inducted into the MEAC Hall of Fame in March 2007. 

 “One thing I can say about Coach Ragsdale is that he is a man that believes in redeeming yourself,” said Raper. 

 “So [if you] mess up on the field he’s going to put you right back out there to see if you learned from your mistake, to keep your confidence up.”

 There is a lot of time until the start of next season so more changes could be made.

• Prince Grimes