Howard High School has turned to a former player to take over its football program. Michael Calloway, who played quarterback for the Hustlin' Tigers in the early 1990s has accepted the offer to take over the program, just two days after Alvin Tarver resigned.

"It's the opportunity of a lifetime for me," Calloway said. "I just want to continue what Coach Tarver started. We want to win games and keep getting students into college.

"We lose a lot of kids to the streets, so I want to give them as many hours per day with an appropriate, positive adult as possible to help keep them in school and going in the right direction. I want to reach them through football. This community takes great pride in athletics, especially football and basketball so I'm excited. This is my dream job."

Calloway, 35, graduated from Howard in 1993 and returned to his alma mater after graduating from Alabama A&M. He has taught and coached wrestling at Howard for nine years and was a football assistant for five years.

"I wanted to find a coach who was already on our faculty and who better than someone who played here and has a vested interest in the program," Howard principal Dr. Paul Smith said. "He's young and can grow with the program and I'm confident he's up to the challenge.

"It was also important to move quickly on this because the program has conditioning and spring practice coming up and we wanted the kids to have a leader in place that would keep the program going in the direction Coach Tarver had worked so hard to establish."